Celia and the others followed Danabel and Mr. Tim to a grouping of tents hidden within some dense forest near the factory. It was plagued by multiple predators, poisonous plants, criminal gangs, game wardens, and at times tough terrain. The people who inhabited this place were smart to be on the very edge of the area where all these threats existed at their least in terms of frequency.

However, the deeper a person went into this nationally-recognised nature preserve that was Paczoski-Valilov National Park, the more they flirted with death. This troublesome environment was greater than any man-made barrier due to Bale and the factory being boxed in by its many long-standing trees and other plants, with a few roads at the far west of the factory being the sole way to properly access the rest of Iridale.

The summation of these hazards was why both companies had no problem with them living there as long as they showed up for work. Even with this lethal list to confront, Celia and the others evaded each of them on a Sunday afternoon to acquire some bottled water. The shade provided by the canopy meant protection against the heat and there was a nearby creek to splash water on themselves for additional comfort.

Most of what those in the tents had were from smugglers affiliated with Ironside Protection Limited and Morgston Industrial and Steel. These were the ones greedy and opportunistic enough to make some extra money, and some were willing to smuggle people out of here for an exorbitant price.

Being the adult in their group, Mr. Tim spoke up to dissuade them from considering such a thing. He had long known the vast majority who attempted this were soon caught and returned, the punishments they received were severe, and based on how some described their experience, they realised the smugglers scammed them out of their money. More often than not, a worker would give up about a year's worth of savings just to learn they had little chance in escaping.

As they listened to his verbal resistance to an old man with scant shoulders and a walking stick he used but didn't need, the rest noticed that the people here were quite respectable, clean and owned lots of stuff. This was far removed from the descriptions that people like Celia's mother would tell her when she was younger. These people should be dirty, smelly, and living in their own filth. How could they be living better than so many in Bale Trailer Park?

None of it made sense to her. The homeless looked happier and healthier even though they went to the same factory to make a pittance of a wage.

If this was how they truly lived, then treating them as inferior beings was a big mistake for they were not the stereotype others depicted. At first glance, their tents, comprised of either blankets or a table cloth and propped up by branches from the surrounding native beech and oak trees, seemed meagre.

When given a peek of multiple interiors, however, they looked spacious while exuding the same good qualities of their residents. It could be how they arranged what was inside, but whatever they did helped to give the illusion of size.

There was also another thing that surprised Celia: seeing Danabel call everyone here by name as they walked past them. She was impressed with how she remembered all of them without hesitation. For Danabel, it was easy to remember the names of people who treated her well when no one else did.

Then a man ran up to her to give her friend a huge hug. "It's been a long time, Danabel. I've been waiting for you to visit for a while now."

"Things haven't been good with me and my friends recently so that's why I couldn't come sooner."

This sounded wrong to Dinkle. For her to say this must mean they were not treating her well. He pulled her away while in his arms to warn them about their supposed bad actions towards one of his closest friends. "Listen here, if you ever hurt Danab—"

She shoved her arms into his line of sight while denying this assumption. Danabel went into detail on how good they were as people to turn his perspective into a positive one.

"I must say sorry for what I have said. It was clear that I misunderstood you, but as you could see, I am protective of the people around me."

Celia found it fascinating that the man she perceived as a drunk was so strong, energetic and had good character—the opposite of her mother who remained horrible when sober. If her father were still around, maybe she wouldn't have to deal with her mother by herself and wouldn't have to leave home. But he had long abandoned them, so that was just a wish of something good in a shithole.

"Hey, Dinkle. I must compliment you for being so strong and full of energy. You're the first old person I've ever met that moves so well."

He put down Danabel while keeping her to his side to flex one of his biceps. "When you eat right and exercise like me, you can stay fit even in your old age."

This had to be the most peculiar old man she had ever seen. He was clearly one-of-a-kind.

Dinkle spared no time to invite them to his tent. To him, this was a home comparable to those in the trailer park. The outside was comprised of three sections: a deep purple satin sheet with frills at the front, an expansive embroidered kitchen cloth in the middle, and a towel at the rear he patched up with needle and thread. Eight sticks held up these sheets for a space that had large rugs, chairs, tables, silverware, multiple sets of white clothes and much more.

"Well then, do you enjoy my home?" He raised his arms as if he had revealed the greatest thing ever.

They were all so captivated, they spent over an hour examining his stuff and interacting with Dinkle.

For Celia's friend Avorie, she realised they had spent quite a bit of time here instead of purchasing and carrying a hefty multi-gallon bottle of water back to their trailer. She was grateful for her miraculous recovery thanks to praying for her every morning and night since that personal moment in her room. Believing in a being above was never Avorie's thing, but such results got her to consider doing it someday.

Leaving Danabel alone with Dinkle was wise as they were more than making up for lost time. Their conversation vanished from their hearing as they went to a food stall attached to the tent of a man with an eyepatch, a knee-high pants with a belt around the waist and specks of dust in his hair.

"What price are you willing to offer me?" The eyepatch vendor said this in a gruff voice after removing his hand from under his chin.

Mr. Tim took out a bunch of money equivalent to one hundred Morgston dollars and passed it to him.

"I think I need a bit more than that."

"There's no way I will pay for a bottle of water for more than what I offered you."

"If you add an extra fifty to that hundred, then I'll give you the water."

"There is no way I'll do that. The water is not worth the price you're asking."

Celia tapped his arm to gain his attention. Just give him the money. It's starting to get late and we don't want to walk through the forest path at night.

He comprehended her quiet sentiments, but could not abandon his stance. I'll show you how to deal with difficult sellers like him.

Mr. Tim turned his back and began to walk away. When he noticed that none of the children were following him, he persuaded them to leave alongside him. There were other options available, so they didn't need him for water.

Their walking almost got them to the other vendor, who was a lady in her thirties with a head wrap and excessive amounts of makeup. They called for her, and not long after this, she pulled back the curtains of her stall that had an overgrowth of flowering vines across rock trinkets on its exteriour to make some money. Mr. Tim took out the amount the man had refused and stretched his arm to give it to her.

"Wait!" He clambered over the countertop to run at them at full speed, exhausting himself in the process. "I'll take... the... hundred... dollars..."

"This is my customer, John Hustle! Don't think for a minute that you can come here and take them from me!" The lady pulled out a stick to swipe at him as he kept his distance and cursed her with expletives. This scene drew in those minding their business and this made Celia and the others uncomfortable.

Celia stressed her vocal cords to get them to stop fighting, but both ignored her. They were so engrossed in their arguing, Celia and the others went to a third seller near the centre of the tent village and got what they wanted for fifty dollars. Then they grabbed Danabel and left with the two insulting them from behind with angry pointing and a middle finger or two.

As they exited the tent village, Mr. Tim held the narrow neck while Danabel held the round-edged bottom of the large water bottle. At their sides were Avorie and Celia armed with metal pipes and Jo in the front with his gun at his waist and a screw-on plastic tap they got for an additional five dollars. The sudden rustling of bushes and shrubs indicated the bandits they were warned about were near.

Jo would have none this, for he moved swiftly to take out his revolver to pop a few shots in the air. They were unwise to come at him when he was quite irritable. Also, it was good that the helicopter seldom functioned during the day since its main purpose was to spot runaways through the night, when ninety-five percent of said attempts took place.

That, and being quite costly to operate and maintain, was why it often remained parked on a helipad adjacent to the large apartment complex for guards. Therefore, being exposed from above wasn't a concern.

What gave him some relief from the problems caused by his nightmares was a drink that Mr. Tim offered. Adhering to directions meant utilising leaves, stems and roots of multiple rare weeds their neighbours removed from the road. These wild plants had properties against sleep deprivation, according to an old book on herbs where some of its pages were falling out. This, in turn, gave him more consistent periods of sleep.

However, it did not provide true relief. There were still instances of raw horror he struggled to face, and this had him desperate to have the clinic restart the creation of appointments to manage his trauma appropriately.

The rest of their walk was peaceful, with the exasperated Jo keeping watch until they came up on a very narrow section of road between the forest and trailer park. They checked both ways from the peak of an elevated piece of land that had much of its lower area removed for larger vehicles. It was now reinforced with a concrete wall and had a tree with expansive roots, a squirrel living in a hallowed-out hole in its trunk from a woodpecker's beak and overgrown leaves on its branches.

They would take a rope from its hiding place in the bushes to tie the water bottle and lower it to the ground. Afterwards, each went down the long and flat top of the wall until all who remained was Mr. Tim. Doing it like this was logical, since who would put away the rope once they were done with it? Exactly. No one.

Nobody amongst them couldn't leave any evidence of their trip, so using the wall was their best option. Those at the bottom then removed the rope, coiled it up and waited for him to attempt it.

There was some extra caution considering his size, but once he was mindful of where he stepped, Mr. Tim was soon four-fifths of the way down. Reaching that point gave him a sense of jubilation that it was almost over until a humvee was seen speeding towards their direction.

Fearing they were seen, they bolted into the trailer park dropping basically everything they had. Jo, however, wanted to stand his ground and unleash his remaining rounds. "You bastard. I'm going to ge—"

"Jo, what are you doing?!" Celia wouldn't let him commit such likely suicide, so she yanked him from the direction of the fast-moving humvee to have them fall over. She couldn't afford to lose her dearest of friends or she would be lost in this world.

"Get off me, Celia. I wanna kill them!" For Jo, there was a growing impulse to hurt Celia. He sought to be free to hustle the guards to the next life. "I'm fed up of being like this. Like losers! As being less than human!"

"Do you think you can beat them, Jo? Be honest with me."

There wasn't much he could say. Jo was probably overreacting to the situation. To act like this wasn't what they required at this time.

The two were able to get up running as the humvee turned to chase them. A guard got up to prepare firing rubber bullets from the mounted gun on top. This had drawn itself out. Just when their day felt so leisurely, they had to be in Bale hunting down vermin.

People indoors and outdoors were spooked by the trail of chaos caused by the vehicle spraying at them while swerving. At times, it crashed into tall piles of trash created to discourage vehicles from driving here. Danabel got herself on the roof of a trailer to hide from the humvee while Mr. Tim and Avorie went inside an empty trailer to hide, leaving Celia and Jo alone to run for their lives.

Searching for a hiding spot comparable to their friends was paramount, but Jo knew that if all of them hid, the persistence of the guards would transfer from wheels to on foot, leading to more of this tit for tat. This was not a game he wanted to play at all. They had to be the winners for once for their sake. To achieve that, he broke out of Celia's grip and fired his rounds towards their tires while jumping out of the path of fire.

The driver did what he could to avoid them, but he could feel their ride become rough because of a punctured and deflating tire from a bullet. He tried to impose control onto the vehicle, but it did little to ease the now bumpy drive until a sudden jolt from a hard object startled those inside, causing it to flip over.

"Guys! Let's go back to get our stuff and leave!" Celia and Jo took this chance to scream frantically to have everyone go back for the water, rope and other items and flee together.

Those in the trailers got out happy to see the guards trying their hardest to get out. They loved what they saw and decided to have the guards remain trapped after seeing oil leak from it. A gap-toothed man who had a lighter for his cigarettes, lit the growing dark puddle to start a fire that ate the substance and enveloped the humvee.

Each of the descendants of Hesklo danced with enthusiasm and sang joyous songs around the burning vehicle. These celebrations brought about a spark in their hearts, voices, bodies, and thoughts only for an explosion to ruin that because of a few actual sparks.

Luckily, no one was hurt and they rushed to their homes where smoke with the scent of fuel, metal, and flesh drenched the air. Even with their impromptu party cut short, they danced and sang indoors for three people of the group they hated were dead.