An awkward silence fell over the group.
Being bunched together due to the circumstances didn't lead to pleasant conversation. None of them really knew each other, aside from Nyx and Silas.
And yet, even then, speaking felt like a luxury.
Together, the group was hiding out in a small, surprisingly intact building. Scorch marks on the wood still remained, though appeared to be sturdy enough to stay the dwindling night. The starfall had already ended... Nyx completely unbeknownst to its lifespan. Perhaps it'd been one odd hour or so, perhaps more. He didn't really care much, however.
The building felt incredibly decrepit. Scattering the floor was what seemed to be an endless supply of wooden crates and unmarked boxes, violently thrown and scattered around the room from the collapse. Cloth sheets were covering the tops of some, and others were piled on top of by layers upon layers of useless junk from a time now passed.
They spread themselves out in this building, all essentially claiming their own little area as theirs. The only two who chose to stick together were Nyx and Silas, placed in the back corner of the building.
Earlier, the group did manage to convince Rei to stay with them. She was against the idea at first, more orienting her mind on searching for those unfortunate enough to still be out in the city. The only thing that got her to stay was them pleading that they'd simply be killed without her. No matter how vain or egocentric she may seem, she clearly doesn't want them to die, at the very least.
She gave Nyx one of the blades, after all.
Even though they were safe, hidden away in a house, Nyx was still terrified. They all were. This mission, which wasn't even meant to have the cadets fight, had turned into nothing but a bloodbath.
The Phantoms are gone. The cadets are dead. They very well could be the last people in their unit- for all they know, the last people left of the whole Sixth Descent.
"It's so cold..." Silas murmured, curling his legs inwards as his whole body began to shake. "Are you not cold?"
Nyx slightly curled his brow. "I feel fine."
Taking a brief moment to glance at the others, Nyx could tell this wasn't a common sentiment. Everyone else appeared to be absolutely freezing.
Feeling quite bad, he quickly rose to his feet, grabbing one of the sheets atop the boxes and covering both him and Silas with it.
"Thanks..." he mumbled, resting the side of his head against a small crate. "Nyx, do you think... we'll make it out of this? Alive?"
Nyx set his gaze towards the arched roof, letting his eyes rest out of a small gap in the boards near its peak. "I don't know."
"We can't be the only ones left. There has to be others."
"Yeah."
Silas gave a slight pause before continuing, "What happened to you? After the ground caved from under us, I mean. I thought- well, I had thought the worst at the time."
"Thane pulled me out — I got lucky. After that, a Terror found and attacked us. Acher saved me. Then we made our way down the cliff and... well, here we are."
An oversimplification, Nyx knew, though he didn't want to talk about it. About the girl who was eaten alive before his eyes. About the cadet thrown from the cliff and into the bottomless hole below. About how he nearly died thinking he was completely useless, watching as his comrades died around him.
"You both willingly descended the cliff?" Silas exclaimed, "Have you gone mad?"
Nyx gave a slight chuckle. "We wanted to help. We couldn't leave you all down there- not without the guilt." He peered towards Silas, "What about you? How'd you make it out?"
Silas shook his head, a deep frown growing on his face. "I saw it, Nyx. I saw everything. Once the ground collapsed and I saw that Terror, I thought I was dead. Ryland had jumped down, shoving me and himself out of the way. Everyone else... was eaten. With just one bite, our entire squad was killed, Nyx. And I saw it happen..."
He gripped his mouth, clenching his eyes as if trying to purge the vision from his mind, "...Oh my god, the blood. Why was there so much blood? It makes me sick just thinking about it..."
"You don't need to reminisce-" Nyx interrupted, "I'm sorry for reminding you of it."
"No... it's fine. I'll probably forget soon and- well, while I remember, I want to think about it. That's the only way I can honor their deaths. The only way I can respect them."
Nyx nodded, placing his head against the wall and closing his eyes. "God, how the hell are we going to get out of this-?"
"-That should be obvious," Somebody spoke. Nyx, once again opening his eyes, traced the sound back to Seren, sitting halfway across the room with a cold expression glued to his face.
"You have a plan, Seren?"
"I have a theory." He muttered. "When Ryland and the other Phantoms left... It gave me a sour taste in my mouth. In my head, I was thinking 'They really just abandoned us? Left us to die?'"
Nyx could already tell his hypothesis. In truth, he thought the same was unbecoming of Phantoms once he heard of their disappearance. He had already came to the same conclusion: "You think they went somewhere..." Nyx murmured.
"Yes. And if I'm correct, I know exactly where they are. This canyon that appeared out of nowhere... something had to create it. More specifically, the canyon appears to stretch down towards the south. Do you remember what's to the south?"
Nyx nodded. "The nest."
"Exactly. The Sixth Descent was an operation to clear that nest. In other words, wherever the end of this canyon is..."
"...Is the location of the Phantoms."
Upon this realization, Nyx couldn't help but be filled with shreds of hope. Wherever this canyon ends, they could be saved. All they need to do was reach.
Seren, however, didn't seem to come to the same conclusion. "That's why we must leave the canyon immediately-"
"-Bullshit." The sudden statement almost caught Nyx off-guard, watching as Rei slowly paced her way over, stopping directly in the middle of all of them. Despite the situation, her voice remained soft-spoken, like that of an angel.
"You have a problem?" Seren spewed, his eyes slightly tightening with her sudden interjection.
"We're not leaving the canyon. We're going towards the Phantoms."
Nyx was almost in shock towards her brash statement, though in truth, he was fully on her side. To him, the Phantoms were their only hope of survival. It was the best chance they had.
"You're forgetting something," Seren murmured once more, coming to a stand and directly rivaling Rei's gaze, mere inches from her face.
"And what's that, princess?" Rei mockingly responded, voice still relatively indifferent in tone, though now carrying an undeniable trace of annoyance behind its delivery.
"The Phantoms still abandoned us. If they were heading to meet up with Omicron, they did so with no regard for our existence — they chose not to bring us. It's either something else is going on, or they deem our lives completely useless when compared to something greater. Or maybe..."
"Or maybe what?" Silas asked.
"Maybe whatever created this canyon is still alive. Maybe they ran to try and stop it. Maybe it's coming this way, and we should be trying to reach the surface before it arrives."
Rei scoffed. "What Terror could possibly wipe out an entire Unit of Phantoms?"
"An undiscovered one."
"We're not abandoning our only hope for survival based off of your 'hunch.' They're all we have right now-"
"-And they know that, and still chose to leave. We need to wait on the surface for reinforcements from Aria."
"That would take days... maybe weeks. And how would we scale the cliff? What would we do once we reach the surface? Feed ourselves to those demon wolves or what else is lurking up there after a Starfall-?"
"-It'd be better than risk walking towards a creature so powerful that it created a rift in the entire earth. They left us here for a reason, bitch, so for once drop your pride and-"
"-Drop my pride? I'm trying to save us-"
"-You're trying to get us killed! You know what your problem is? You never think about the concequences, only the outcome. What good is being saved if half of us are dismembered by the time we arrive?"
"...You know what your problem is? You're too stuck-up to realize our fate isn't in your hands, it's in theirs... a noble who's been pampered since birth and does nothing but cry when they don't get their way-"
Seren tugged on his holster. Rei on her tattered sheath.
Nyx leaped before them, a guttural roar echoing from his throat: "Everyone- just shut up!"
Everyone froze. They still kept their hands tucked on their weapons, fully expecting the other to break. Neither glared at Nyx, only at each other. They were at a stand-still.
Readjusting his voice into a whisper, he continued. "Any further would be in direct violation with the tenets... punishment public execution. We don't need to fight about this right now. We need rest. In the morning, we make a decision. Not now."
Silence. The air was still.
Silas raised himself, similarly interjecting himself between the two as a nervous, almost cracking smile started to warp, a clearly failing attempt at lightening the mood. "He's right... now's not the time. Please, let's just calm down."
Rei gave a slight shrug, finally releasing her hold over her hilt as Seren did the same. "I don't really care. Either way, I'm going towards them, with or without you."
'Well, there goes our convincing her...' Nyx thought to himself, though too exhausted to speak out.
Seren shook his head. "You're really full of yourself, you know that? No matter how strong you think you are, you can't keep going off on your own."
"I'll take my chances."
At long last, the argument was over. The building, which only moments ago was filled with chatter, came to a depressingly silent conclusion.
Acher hadn't spoken a word throughout the whole ordeal, though was clearly thinking of what the best decision was. They all were.
Regardless, for tonight they would rest. In the morning, they'd decide their fate.
Nyx couldn't help but provide a slight chuckle. 'This is great...' He thought to himself, 'This is just perfect... isn't it?'
A few moments later, against the injuries on his body and the countless thoughts urging him to stay awake, sleep finally managed to take him away.
And thus ended the first day of the Sixth Descent... and began a journey he'd soon deeply regret with every fiber of his being.
A journey which he'd be amiss to ever forget.