SURVIVORS
Chapter 16 Light Blue Greenish (revision)
Dean's team begins the journey down before the sun is high. But they have already prepared a stockpile of firewood for the next 2 teams. The journey is no longer easy because of the declining road and the thick snow. But the hope of coming home soon strengthened them.
By midday they arrived at the second shelter. Dean checked and found no damage. They kept all the bags and started the fire and warmed themselves. Dean asks Sunil and Alan to find firewood and cut down some trees to make another shelter. Then he and Gilang walked down to the river.
Dean saw that the entire surface of the valley was already covered in thick snow. That means the previously created ice hole has also closed due to frost. But he still remembered where it was. Dean walked carefully so as not to misstep and mired into the cold water. After shoveling snow several times with his feet, Dean found some frozen fish behind a pile of snow.
"Meet!" Dean was happy.
He crouched down and took the fish.
"Try to find, is there any other fish here."
Gilang crouched down and put away the snow with his hands to look for other fish. He found some fish that had frozen.
Dean cleared the snow surface in one place. He found a surface of ice that was like glass. He struck a few times with his hands, but the ice did not crack in the slightest. Dean's eyes then looked around, looking for something that could be used to hit the surface of the ice.
Dean walked in the other direction and shook off the pile of snow. And he found a rock quite large, then took one that was slightly larger in size than his grasp. Walk back to where it was and crouch.
Brakk... brakk...!
The ice surface was cracked after the second stone punch. Gilang looked towards Dean while showing his search results. Smile develops. Their dinner was quite a lot. Dean nodded.
"Try to the edge first. I'm going to break this ice hole, afraid this crack is going all the way up there" Dean said.
Gilang immediately got out of the way with his fish.
Dean can break the ice surface in the next blow. The hole created was not big enough, so Dean knocked a few more times until the surface of the water looked quite wide. Dean returned to Gilang and examined the fish. But it was too hard as a rock to split clean his entrails. So let it go. They'll be back at the shelter soon. A pile of dried twigs was already in front of the shelter.
"It's for our dinner." Gilang handed over the fish he was carrying and followed Dean to the side of the shelter.
"We'll create an additional shelter here. We'll make a hole to connect to the side."
Dean pointed at the thick pile of snow on the slope of that mountain. Gilang. They dredge snow with a tray that Dean and Indra used to make a shelter.
"Do you need help or do we keep looking for wood?" Sunil asked as he returned with the wood.
Dean looked towards the voice.
"Find more wood and pine leaves too."
Sunil nodded then returned to where Alan had cut down the tree. They do need more wood for the roof of the shelter and firewood stock.
The sun was already tilted west when the hole in the snow pile was considered finished.4 The man together arranged the wood to become a roof support and covered it with pine leaves and hoarded it again with snow.
The shape of this additional shelter is not much different from its side. Both are connected by a window-like hole but large enough to be traversed while crawling.
Examples of shelters on the slopes of thick snowy mountains.
The sky was dark when all the work was done. The men were exhausted and hungry. Luckily dinner was ready, so they immediately ate so they could quickly rest. They must leave early tomorrow, because at the next stop they still have to build a shelter.
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That morning after breakfast, team 2 moved on. Indra leads the way because he knows where the shelter is. Followed by Marianne, Silvia, Angelina, Toni, Leon and Liam.
Actually their job is not as difficult as the first team. They just have to start looking for their own food.
For dinner, they had Robert on hand that morning. The rest they have to find themselves.
I set a trap to the left of the shelter, follow the instructions.
He went inside and put down the bag, seeing the embers still smoky. Indra added wood to the coals and blew them away. The fire immediately lit up.
"Come in. It's cold outside" Indra exclaimed to the others.
They all started to come in one by one and warmed up. The room was very warm and cozy, as Dean purposely let the fire keep burning for team 2.
Soon Indra invites Leon, Liam and Toni to check into the forest for food. Angel and Silvia begin to prepare their supplies. Marianne is out picking up snow to cook water.
Indra finally finds a trap set by Dean, after seeing 2 rabbits entangled. They took the rabbit and reassembled the trap for tomorrow. Enough food until breakfast. They immediately returned while retrieving some old and dead twigs found on the way.
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Team 3.
This time Robert accompanied Michael to stand guard near the fire. After dinner, the others immediately entered the cabin to rest.
Tonight felt very lonely after 2 teams left. Usually in crowded cabins, even they could only sit on the floor. Now all cabin seats can be used for sleeping. Baras, Niken, Lena, Alex and Dr. Chandra can sleep quite comfortably.
The team will leave after breakfast. All needs have been prepared since 2 days before.
Robert came back with 3 uncured rabbits in his hands. He'll clean it up at the second shelter only. So Robert immediately came back after getting the results and immediately warmed up. The others were ready for breakfast so that they could leave immediately.
They're all set. The shelter door in the rubble has been closed again so that it can be used safely by any mountain climber who finds it.
They walked towards the forest. Before he completely disappeared from sight, Robert stopped and turned around for a moment to look at the place one last time.
There was a pile of grief that cut his heart. No matter how fresh he was on the surface, this experience still had a huge impact on his life.
Robert looked at the clear sky then was suddenly stunned while furrowing his brows. What was that was like a flash of greenish-blue light far high near the top of the tree furthest away.
Whatisit? It does not look like aurora. Not rainbows and not sun bias. It was like a transparent curtain. Robert thought hard.
"Robert, what's wrong?"
Chandra's voice surprised Robert.
"Let's look up. Did you see the greenish-blue light up there?" point Robert towards the sky.
Dr. Chandra watched closely. But he didn't see any light in the sky.
"There's nothing there" Chandra's doctor confirmed.
"Surprisingly, there was. Now there is none." murmured Robert.
He made sure again, observing for quite a while before shaking his head.
"Hey, why did you stop? Did you see anything in the sky? Is there a rescue team plane looking?"
Barrels shouted from a distance. Robert shakes.
"Let's follow them doc."
Robert took Dr. Chandra. And a nod of approval. They stepped closer to the team that was already walking in front.
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