The Echelon Tower

Chapter 4 - Confrontation

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It was currently very dark and cold outside. The moon in the sky shined even though it was in front of the sun. However, everyone had things more important things than this to bother about.

'What's going on?' Jonathan woke up with a jolt, immediately jumping out of his tent and observing the situation.

Through the sound of the insects in the night, screams and coughing could be heard all around him. There was not much vision, so he immediately illuminated a torch he had prepared before hand.

Stephanie had also woken up and they headed towards the source of the noise.

While watching out to not injure themselves while running, both arrived at a nearby camp.

There were about 4 makeshift tents with people from their group.

You could see almost all of them on the ground heavily coughing. Two of them were also screaming.

Their face was pale white along with their eyes being bloodshot. Most were holding their stomach.

''What is wrong here?'' Stephanie asked out to the few who were up and helping the others.

"We don't know! They had woken up a few times complaining about their hunger, then some of them started screaming or coughing heavily."

"Get them some water or something then!" Stephanie started approaching the group of sickling when Jonathan grabbed her arm. "Why are you stopping me?"

"You idiot, this is obviously food poisoning. Going there will only get you potentially infected." Jonathan looked at the sick people with cold eyes.

The top priority in survival was keeping yourselves at a certain degree of healthiness. This was done by eating, drinking, sleeping as wall as avoiding injury and sickness or infections. How could he allow Stephanie to join that mess?

"What does that matter for? As long as I don't put my mouth on any of them I am fine. You think we should just stand there and watch their suffering? Hmph! If we do that, we aren't any better than street dogs." Stephanie was angry at her friend. She was a naturally benevolent person, so refusing to help when she clearly could be unacceptable for her.

"Street dogs? F*ck that. I'd rather be a street dog then be a dead dog. Helping them makes sense when we can afford to, but now we cannot. We don't have any food or water left. We can't hunt in the dark and feeding them random plants could very well send them straight to the gates of hell. Collecting water is also impossible, considering that we don't have any containers and building a ground boiler is already extremely hard. Don't forget that it's night right now. If you fall and break your ankle, who will carry you? Who will heal you? What medication will you take?"

"So what? How can you live with knowing that you let go people who needed your help? I'd rather die with people around me then in a pit all alone."

"Eh. You really think that? You don't understand what dying means and how much your life is worth. Cut your crap! You're no saint, nor should you delusion yourself into being one. You can only give as much as you have, but we have nothing."

"Give as much as we have? You have your little guide, don't you? If you don't want to touch them like they as if they are garbage, then at least tell them what they can do. And don't tell me some shit like how talking would take up too much of your energy." Stephanie was infuriated by the current situation.

Hearing her mention a little guide, the other group suddenly had a shine in their eyes. They had seen how the young man didn't want to help them and although they had found it a bit excessive, they still understood. However, they now had a sliver of hope since the request was so small.