I practically dragged Anne, trying to get to Saris. He had been the first person to help me when I arrived here and I had come to call him my friend. I had to help him. He was outnumbered and one of the people after him was Zack. I knew how strong Zack was and I knew Saris would need my help. Saris was the strongest person I knew but I didn't think he would be able to beat a team of five if one of them was Zack. I once saw Saris single-handedly take out a team of four, but they weren't ready for him and it looked like this team had found Saris and Zack was going to sneak up to help take him out. We had to move faster.

Anne continued to protest against going, saying that if we showed up, we were still at a disadvantage and it was likely that it would just be the two of us against the five of them. She was confident that by the time we reached him, he would already be gone, but I couldn't think that way. I had to think optimistically. After all, it was Saris, and if anyone could survive against overwhelming odds, it was him.

We ran until it was painful to breathe. We finally reached the stretch of road on the edge of town that I was almost positive had been our destination, but it was deserted. I frantically searched for any hopeful signs, but blood on the pavement spoke of only one person surviving. I hoped it was Saris, but it felt like wishing for rain in the desert. I dropped to my knees, too tired to keep standing and too disappointed to keep searching.

"I'm sorry," Anne said, half out of breath. "He's gone. There's no way he beat all of them."

I nodded my head but protested in my mind, "Bad luck, I guess. Sorry, Saris. We didn't make it in time."

Anne offered me a hand up, "The Saris? Like, big sword, crazy good fighter Saris?" I nodded again. "I've heard so many stories about him but never met him. How do you know him?"

"He trained me when I arrived in the last cycle. We teamed up and...well, it's a long story." I was out of breath and didn't feel much like talking.

"Well, while we're here, let's go in there and take a look around." Anne pointed to the forest. "It should give us better cover than the town and maybe we'll be closer to finding May."

That seemed unlikely to me, not to mention I was worried about running into Zack. I still felt chills from being around Anne and I didn't want to risk being caught by surprise. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to run into Zack and pay him back for his involvement with killing Saris, again. I looked into the woods. Compared to the bright, sunny day, it was filled with shadows and felt eerily threatening. My emotions were a mixture of fear and determination and I didn't know which one to follow, so I followed Anne into the trees.

We were cautious not to make too much noise while in the woods. There was no telling if someone was near and we didn't want to give our position away too easily. It was a slow process and I found it unnerving how quiet everything was. There would be an occasional swaying of branches from the wind, but aside from that, all we could hear is the sound of our own footsteps. I half expected someone to rush up behind us but whenever I looked back, there was nothing but more trees. I was utterly lost and I hoped that Anne had some idea of where we were going; I'd hate to find out that we'd been walking in circles. Just as I was about to doubt Anne's internal compass, she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed up ahead. I followed her finger to see a house, hidden behind a layer of trees. This painfully reminded me of what I did when I first arrived here and I winced involuntarily as I relived getting arrested. I decided that I would not tell Anne, or anyone else, about that incident. The less anyone knew, the better. But I could tell that this was a different house. It was white and there was no steep hill from what I could see.

As we crept our way towards the house, several thoughts came into my head. First, I was still holding out hope for Saris. Maybe he'd be here and he would tell us how he had slain five people all on his own; no, he's not really the bragging type. The second thought I had was that maybe May would be here. That would be great for Anne and we would have another ally with us. That made me wonder if Demi might be with May or just in the house alone. I really wanted to see her. It felt just like yesterday when she vanished after Zack cleaved her in two. I wanted to make sure she was alright, but mostly, I just wanted her beside me. I missed talking with her and I missed her sense of humor. Anne was nice, but I didn't connect with her like I did with Demi.

But with all of the hopes, also came fears. Would Zack be in here? Maybe all five of the people who fought Saris would be hiding out and this was their base. Would they sense us and set a trap for us to walk into? Then again, what if we found nothing? That would be better than finding an enemy but it would also be disappointing. I think I was holding out too much hope for this lone building, hiding in the woods. It seemed like a good place that would serve as a great hideout, but what was the likelihood that anyone had found it? Who knows, maybe we would be the first ones.

As usual, we did a perimeter check when we arrived at the house. No one was in sight, but we couldn't rule out someone hiding behind a tree or waiting for us inside. Anne gestured to me, giving me the honors of opening the door. I did, gingerly. It was unlocked but I found no blade coming down at me, nor was there a trap hole to trip us up. It was just a normal, empty house. I breathed, relieved that it wasn't a death trap and not feeling as disappointed as I had expected to be.

Anne closed the door behind us. "Nice. We can rest up here."

The door led into a small living room with pale blue walls. A few chairs and a couch were set in a conversational circle as there was no television in the room. Dark wood flooring came from the kitchen to our right and led all the way to what appeared to be a short hallway on the far side of the living room.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, I learned that it was nearly six in the evening. We were both hungry and went into the kitchen. I raided the fridge, "Hmm. There's not much here," I said glancing up, then jumped, "Ahh!" A shade had walked into me. It didn't feel like anything, it was just creepy and made me uncomfortable.

Anne laughed, "You should have seen the look on your face."

I groaned, looking back in the fridge and taking out sliced meats, cheeses, some lettuce and the only condiment I could find, ketchup. After a quick look around, I found the bread box that had most of a loaf inside. "Jackpot."

"Sandwiches are jackpot worthy?"

"Well..." Sandwiches didn't rank any higher than most foods, but something about it made me think of being at Subway with Demi and I smiled. "Yeah. It is."

We prepared our food. I used everything that I had been able to find in the fridge, but Anne had hers plain; meat and cheese. Anne found a bag of pretzels and we sat down with our food and cups of water. That's when I heard a crack from the chair next to mine. It was empty, except for the shade, who apparently was having dinner with us, although I saw no plate or cup. I noticed a crack in the chair and gawked at it.

"How did that happen?" I asked.

"Shades can affect our reality just like we can affect theirs," Anne explained. "It's rare though. It has to be...like a shock to whatever they're interacting with. It wouldn't do anything if he just moved the chair, but if he breaks it, or apparently cracks it, then it shows up here."

"Why?" I asked, not sure how to form my question.

"I don't know. I'm not a scientist or magician or whatever. That's just how it is."

We ate in silence; well, that's not true. We ate, Anne talked about gardening and I didn't listen. I wasn't trying to be rude, I just wanted to go over the day in my mind. It was something that I was getting used to doing and it helped me explain what was going on when I texted Tommy and Michael; and now, Sidra. Moving past the shaky start to this cycle, Anne and I had left the police station but found people waiting for us. The archer got away but we got Wolverine. Although it hadn't lasted long, I felt like I had done okay in that fight. But I got the feeling that Anne struggled in battles. She had to get sliced open in order to connect with her attack and while she can heal really fast and survive crazy things, it still looked and sounded like it hurt. We hadn't run into anyone else for the rest of the day. We couldn't even rush into the battle that I wanted to fight and I doubted, but still hoped, that Saris had survived it. Then I wondered if we would have survived had we joined the battle.

"Anne?" I said, interrupting the details of her lawn dreams.

She didn't seem bothered that I had cut in, "What is it?"

"How would you rate your combat skills?"

Anne looked at her food, picking up a pretzel and tapping it on her plate, "Not very high. Pretty much every fight I'm in I get cut, maimed or something gets amputated." My nose wrinkled with the thought. "My healing is great and it keeps me going, but it's not like I enjoy getting torn to pieces."

I forced my face to relax and stopped imagining every way a person could get horribly injured without dying on the spot. "Would you want me to try and train you? I'm not on the level of Saris or anything, but he did train me."

"How long did he train you for? A day? I don't know if I'd call that 'training'."

"A week. Plus a few more days after that."

Anne seemed surprised, "Most people who claim that Saris trained them only got a few pointers from him. Why did you get so much time?"

"Uhh... I dunno. Maybe I was really bad or something."

Anne eyed me suspiciously. "Alright. I'm game for tonight. But I want to keep moving in the morning. I want to-"

"Find May. I know and I'm fine with that."

As we finished eating, I decided to listen instead of ignore her. The topic of conversation was now: birds. Apparently, she's not a dog person or a cat person, she's a bird person. Rather than tell her it was a sin not like cats or dogs, I kept my mouth shut and let her talk it out. She had a lot to say about the subject of pets but from what I gathered, she thought cats were emotionally unavailable, and dogs were either too big or too hyper and fish were just plain boring. She didn't really go into why birds were so great, not that I bothered to ask, she just made it clear that she thought everything else was worse.

When we were finally done eating I was ready to sleep, but there wasn't time for that. Since we were planning on leaving in the morning, we needed to get to work and start training. I didn't know where Anne was in her fighting ability. I hadn't really paid much attention while she was fighting, spending more time focusing on what I was doing and what my opponents were doing. So I was curious to see what she was capable of.

We looked through the house to find a place to train and found that one of the bedrooms had been emptied of nearly everything. The bedroom on the opposite side of the hallway was crammed with all of the furniture that was meant for this room. I had wondered if the owners had done this or if there was someone in the game that was using this house as a base. We might not want to stay here after all. Anne didn't seem to realize this and went into the room, waiting for me.

"What's with all the crumpled up paper?" She asked, picking one up and flattening it, "There's nothing even written on it."

I shrugged, "Dunno. Hey, do you think it's a good idea to stay here for the night?"

"Why not?"

"Looks like someone moved all of the stuff from this room to the one across the hall. Maybe a team knows about this place."

Anne considered this, "Well, we'll want a place to stay for the night. It's a bit risky to go out and start looking for one now. Sleeping outside doesn't really give us any cover and it's easier to defend a place like this than to fight out in the open. Besides, they could just be redecorating or something."

"Hmm. I guess," I said, wondering if Saris would have agreed. Shaking my head, I reminded myself that Anne and I were a team and that I would have to trust her. "Alright, let's get started," I summoned my sword and shield.

"Umm," Anne put up a hand, "We're practicing with real weapons?"

"Why not? You get more used to the feel of your sword. It's closer to the real thing." I shrugged. "Just don't go for any kill blows and we'll be okay. You can always heal me if I get hurt."

Anne raised her eyebrows, questioningly. "What about you hurting me?"

I set my sword down, "I won't use this." She agreed but looked doubtful. "Show me what you got."

I tried to remember how Saris had trained me. We would need to get a feel for where she was and how much work we would need to do. When I told her to start, I had to backpedal because she started attacking me without going into a stance of any kind. I stopped her and showed her the stance that Saris had started me on, knees bent, shoulders relaxed and weapon in front, far enough to react or attack but close enough to not tire too quickly.

"I feel stupid," She complained, gesturing to her stance.

"Yeah. I get it. But it helps in a fight and you want to survive more than you want to look cool."

She sighed, "You're right. What next?"

"Keep the stance, but try to hit me."

We spent a lot of time trying this. Anne kept losing her stance. Her knees would straighten or her sword would be too low or she would tense and lock up. I kept having to remind her how to stand and she kept having to readjust. Every time she went to attack me, it was obvious where she was going to strike and she swung too slow. It was easy to block her and I wondered if she ever connected without having to take a hit. She had the advantage to allow herself to be attacked, heal almost immediately, then attack back. This caught her opponents off guard and open for a strike. But I was trying to make her connect first, which wasn't working. I wondered what Saris would do.

"How's that?" Anne asked, out of breath.

"You're doing okay. Sorry, I'm probably not the best trainer."

"Hey, you're taking the time and I'm learning something. More training than I've had in this thing. You're doing fine. But I'm getting tired. How much longer should we go?"

I thought about the possibility of another team coming here during the night. "Let's just try one more time."

Anne gave a valiant effort but I didn't see much progress. Her stance was looking a little better, I didn't have to remind her to correct it so much. Instead, she noticed the issue and would correct it before attacking. Her strikes were still slow and there wasn't much power to them either. I got the feeling that if it wasn't for her healing ability, she wouldn't stand a chance against anyone. I really wanted her to improve more before we ventured out, but I didn't think I could convince her, nor did I feel confident that this house was as safe as we first believed.

We cleaned up the room. By that, I mean we let our weapons vanish. Anne went to wash up and I checked the house for any possible entrances or exits. I found two and moved several pieces of furniture in the way of the doors. If anyone would arrive here during the night while we were asleep, this would hopefully keep them out or at least give us enough warning of their arrival to get ourselves ready for a fight. Trying to stay up half the night to do watch patrol didn't seem possible to me and Anne looked more tired than I felt, so I told myself that the furniture blockade would be enough. Anne found a bed and I crashed on a couch that I had moved near the backdoor. Within minutes, I was asleep.