Soul Digger-Chapter 68: HOURS BEFORE DISASTER

Things started yesterday when my group and I went to explore the Arctic side to gain information on the abnormal wavelength spike.

Our group head, Leon, had been acting particularly strange yesterday. We had only rested for twenty minutes before he crashed through our motel rooms.

"Get ready, everyone. We’re heading out of the set in thirty minutes," he spoke out of the blue with an unremarkable seriousness.

The dimly lit candle bulbs cast shadows over his unappealing features; his plain dark hair and stiffly average face were victims of the uneven lighting.

My colleagues and I naturally protested; his order was too sudden and reckless. Moreover, it was vexing how he flaunted the power he gained through unofficial means. No Indulger of the Eerie Gothel had appointed him to lead us, so we were not obligated to follow his rules. Yet...

"There’s a lead on what’s causing the unstable amount of fluctuating wavelengths."

The words he spoke intoxicated us like liquor.

Sweet as his words were, we didn’t believe easily. However, he explained the reason for his rash decisions with such certainty: figures he noticed hiding in the snow, footprints he saw while we weren’t paying attention, and splatters of blood merging with the white drifts.

His behavior was unusual, but his confidence was convincing enough. Not to mention, during the journey to the North Pole, he had been particularly observant; that was the main reason I opted to join his team.

Through my greed and ignorance, I convinced the others who were reluctant, suggesting we head out as a team to increase our chances of survival. The men were captivated by my beauty, so convincing them wasn’t difficult; as for the women, though stubborn, they eventually submitted after a while of arguing.

Our group prepped and set out on the exploration. A selfish desire to clear the trial before the others burnt like wildfire in our hearts; thus, we left the set at the peak of night like thieves. As we walked, I alone glimpsed back at the city as a parting gesture. At that moment, I noticed a thick cloud of smoke hovering above the set in the distance.

A part of me was curious as to what happened, but I hushed the urge and carried on with my group. We walked several meters beneath the cruel cold; our uniforms were the only things saving our lives by a thin thread, or we’d be buried by the snow.

My earrings made my ears ache, perhaps a result of the cold freezing the material. It wasn’t too intense, just enough to provoke me into wearing my hood, though I wasn’t always fond of obscuring my facial features.

"Hey, Velonica!" one of my teammates called.

He had dark hair like the rest of us, an unimpressive appearance, and an average vibe, to say the least. Honestly, I barely remember him. I believe his name was... Martin?

"Yes?" I answered, my lips kissing the frosty air.

"This cold is kinda crazy, don’t you think?"

"Of course. We’re in the Arctic, after all."

It was obvious he was trying to start a conversation. I wasn’t in the least interested, so I tried to cut our interaction as short as possible without sounding rude.

"That’s true. By the way, what clue do you think we’ll find?"

"I’m not very sure."

"Oh... well, it was nice talking with you for a bit." He stepped back and blended in with the other men, a disappointed look sketched on his face. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

I noticed the men around him looked at me with fearful eyes and skeptical expressions. Including the group head, there were six males in our team; the rest were female. Even now, I can’t honestly remember our leader’s name.

Eventually, we trekked so far that we were as good as lost. Our leader clasped the amber lamp with his last bit of fleeting strength, the winds mocking us with an ironic howl. Some of us began to stagger, others felt heavy breaths weighing down their lungs; I alone pressed on unflustered.

It made sense, though. The others had been undergoing Indulger training for at most a year. Not me though; I was practically the oldest in terms of experience. Only a few others in our rookie batch were as old, but non older.

Suddenly...

CRACK!

The lamp slipped from our leader’s grip, breaking into pieces as it collided with the hard snow, its gentle beam snuffed out by the cold. We didn’t expect the exploration to be so long or stressful; thus, we didn’t bring any food supplies.

The man "Martin" burst out in a deep rage, grabbing our leader by his hood as he nearly strangled him to death; a murderous look was visible on his face. I tried to intervene and stop them but was held back by a fellow female rookie. She caught my wrist and shook her head.

I found her behavior rather comical and slapped her hand to the side. I stomped over to the two bickering idiots and separated them.

"You fools!" I lashed out. "Do you think we have time for this? Is arguing with each other the smart thing to do right now?"

I turned to the leader. "Is this really how you should act? Aren’t you supposed to be calm and guide us?!"

The group leader stared at me with a swirl in his eyes, as though locked in a trance. I assumed it was from exhaustion and distress.

’Coming out here was a waste of time, shit!’ I thought.

"Let’s head back," one of the female rookies suggested. The others agreed, and I saw no reason not to.

"No!" our leader roared. "We’re almost there, only a bit further."

Martin responded in a harsh, restrained voice, "No more! We’ve been walking for hours possibly. Anything you saw might be gone by now. This is a wild goose chase!"

"But..." Our leader’s lips shivered.

"Let’s go back," I added. "If you’re sure of what you saw, we’ll come back tomorrow." I lied with a straight, believable face. Honestly, after hours of journeying through the agonizing cold just to find nothing, he had lost any speck of respect I had for him.

Once we returned to the North Pole city, I was either going to leave the group or become the new leader myself; I’m sure I wasn’t the only one cooking up such a scheme. The others seemed more fed up than I was, enraged enough that they might kill him and act like nothing happened.

I didn’t care, though, as long as I remained unharmed. They could skin him alive, and I would just watch in pity.

"Fine... let’s go back," he finally agreed.

"No," Martin spoke raggedly. "That’s a bad idea. Returning in this cold might actually kill us. The winds are growing more violent, the snow is getting thicker, and movement will get progressively difficult."

"We need to find a shelter till the weather eases up or at least the sun comes up," he concluded.

"The North Pole city might reach morning before us. Will the others notice we’re missing and come find us?" someone added.

We all turned to the group leader with eager looks. His burnt-out body and dull expression were all the answers we needed, yet we wanted to hear him say it.

He parted his lips to speak. "I highly doubt that’ll happen," he uttered softly beneath the wind’s chorus.

As expected, he was as underwhelming a leader as he was in appearance. I wouldn’t have minded sending six to nine punches at him myself, but I maintained my dignity instead; the others, however, resembled a pack of wild dogs.

To make matters worse, there weren’t any signs of shelter for miles, nor food, and we hadn’t eaten since the trial began. Growling stomachs began a choir of their own...not mine though. There weren’t any signs of animals to hunt, and none of us were Awakened, making the situation much worse.

"Oh well..." I sighed and turned back.

"Where are you going?" the leader asked, distressed.

"Back to the city. It’s better than freezing here. This is the Arctic; good luck trying to find shelter." Despite my uniform’s warm material, I felt a chill trespassing on my skin, which bothered me. It made sense; even the uniform’s resistance would have a limit.

That was just how merciless the North Pole was, uncaring to those who dared tread its frozen hellscape. We were sitting ducks since we left the set.

We turned back, our steps weighed down by rage and a lingering bitterness. Our head walked at the front, and the rest of us followed; by that time, there wasn’t a shred of respect for him within us. I especially was overcome with a mix of exhaustion and disgust. To think my misjudgment would make me choose the team of someone so incompetent... left me dumbstruck.

Martin spotted a tiny structure by the side; he dragged our attention towards it by throwing a silly tantrum. Unlike the whims of our moronic leader, we actually saw proof of hope. By its shape, we concluded it was a shed of sorts. Doubt hovered above our heads for a while; the cold was gradually trespassing on our skin, and the tingles and shivers became more apparent.

The choice was a tricky one to make, so knavish that we turned to our head for an answer, desperation gleaming from our eyes. Deep within me, I just wanted someone to place the blame on when things got rough; I’m sure it was the same for everyone else.

Otherwise, why would we bother putting our faith in such a loser?

"Uhmmmm... I say we take our chance with the shed," our leader concluded, his confidence dimmer than the night sky.

We climbed up the ice hill, and there we saw a small home made of logs for its walls and roofing. ’I thought this was a shed. Never mind, this is far better.’

"From the looks of it, someone lives here," Martin conjectured.

I knocked a few times; nobody answered. A male rookie peeped through the open window and saw the place was left vacant. Without further delay, we broke the door open and barged in. Truly, the house was abandoned. Its interior was neatly decorated as well.

We thought fortune smiled on us. I and the others promised ourselves not to touch the owner’s belongings, aside from their provisions, of course. That night, all ten of us managed to squeeze into the small home; some slept in the cupboard, some on the furniture, and others on the floor. No one dared to sleep on the bed; that much was crossing the line.

The warm flame eased our freezing bodies. Comfy as it was, the tight sleeping arrangement was a nuisance. Frankly, it was my fault for assuming our fraudulent peace would carry on to the next morning.