Mike paused, looking at their expressions. They were staring at him like he was crazy, but he continued talking.
"To do this, we first need to reach Fana. To get there, we'll have to walk."
"But that'll take us two days..."
"Yeah, but we don't have another choice... Fana is known for its high crime rate and its poverty, so when we get there, we'll need to find an abandoned building to stay in. The building should be away from the center, or somewhere with no people around."
One person asked, "And where will we get food?"
This time, Samantha spoke up.
"Fana is known for its poverty, but it has warehouses and factories with food. Even Elxis gets their supplies from Fana... We just need to get into a small warehouse and take some food."
Mike looked at the other slaves and saw in their eyes that some of them regretted not going with the scarred man.
"I know you don't trust me yet, but we need to get moving now. We've wasted too much time, and in our case, time is precious. We have to leave. Once we get there, I'll tell you how we'll get the food."
He didn't have a plan. He just pretended that he did so they'd trust him more.
Mike stood up, and Samantha helped him fold the map, putting it into that makeshift backpack. That's all they had. No one had anything to take with them because they were all slaves—their whole lives they had belonged to someone else, but nothing had ever belonged to them.
For the next two days, they followed the map along the road to Fana. Outside the wall, there was nothing but desolation—a vast desert with roads running through it. Of course, they avoided the roads where cars passed, not wanting to draw attention.
Hunger was something they were used to—they'd gone their whole lives eating almost nothing—but the thirst was unbearable. Mike felt his mouth dry, his throat craving just a few drops of water, and with every step, his ribs ached more and more. That's how the two days passed, and finally they reached Fana, seeing the city's buildings in the distance. Mike and the others felt an indescribable joy, but they didn't enter Fana immediately. They sat down at a spot they found, and Mike began explaining the plan.
"You need to wait here. Zero-nine-eight and I will go find a place for us to stay tonight."
"Just the two of you?" someone asked.
"Yeah, if we all go together, we'll look suspicious... but we could use a couple more people."
A slave who looked almost like a child stepped forward, along with another girl who seemed around the same age as Mike and Samantha.
"Anyone else want to come with us?"
But this time, no one else stepped forward.
"Then it's decided. The four of us will go into Fana."