Brotherhood

Look What We Have Here

The next day we all traveled to one of the Brotherhood's safe houses. It was located in the forest just like the first hideout I saw, during my first contact with the guild. Back then I was a weak regular human, afraid of everything and oblivious of the real world I lived in. Those days were long gone.

The safe house looked like an old, abandoned wooden hut. The interior was a wreck, full of old cans and rusty saws. The floor was covered with wood residues and dust.

Adrian moved an old shelf and opened a trapdoor under it. One after the other we went down the ladder to arrive in a vast underground chamber. The chamber was furnished with only a wide and round table.

The chamber was quickly filled with people I've never met. Probably hundreds of Brotherhood's members.

With everyone present and ready, Emily placed a map of the forest on the table. She started explaining and marking on the map where the group of possible Weirdos was sighted, according to the anonymous tip.

The tip pointed to three locations. Emily drew a triangle by tracing a line joining the three location points.

"This is the presumable area of action," Emily stated. "We will surround the area and start closing on them. Team A will go from the northeast, Team B from the northwest and Team C from the south. Any questions?"

Everyone shook their head.

"Great, then let's go people. Good luck brothers!"

"You're with me and Levy," Igor whispered in my ear.

We all left the chamber and the hut in a row and start walking towards the zone we were assigned to.

We were almost reaching our zone when a voice came through the walkie-talkie Levy was carrying.

"Brothers, this is team C. We arrived at the starting point. Over."

"Team C, this is Team B. Roger that. Over," Levy replied.

Team A reported their arrival a few minutes later and was followed by us.

"All teams, this is Echo one. Initiate the action path. Over," Emily's voice spoke.

We formed a horizontal line and start walking towards the area where the Weirdos were seen.

The directive was simple, anyone who spotted a Weirdo should communicate it to the team captain. Other than that, we had to remain in silence to avoid giving out our positions.

We kept walking and closing in the area without finding any signs of Weirdos' presence.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Nothing.

Thirty minutes.

And still nothing.

After an hour Levy gestured us to stop.

"Roxanne can see the other teams already, but no sign of Weirdos," he whispered.

"It was a lie then. Either that or they already moved," I thought out loud. "Do you think we can track them from here?"

Levy simply shook his head in response.

"These ones are smarter, they don't leave tracks. Besides, we contaminated the air so tracking them through smell would impossible," Igor explained.

After receiving confirmation from Echo one, alias Emily, we started walking again, only this time with no hope in finding our enemies.

Apparently, we gave up too soon as a weak cough caught everyone's attention. It came from behind a big tree in front of us. Levy signaled us to keep our stances as he walked closer to the tree with Igor.