Hamadi's eyes were fixed on the animal tracks; he knew he was supposed to be afraid, but something—the thought of food perhaps—converted his fear to excitement. His days as a gourmet chef were over, but the instincts were still there. As his mind wandered through recipes of days past, his stomach began to protest. The loud yelp emitted from his grumpy stomach was loud enough to jolt Gabrielle, who was crouched to the ground beside him.

When she glanced up at him, her eyes may have met his, but he could tell she wasn't looking at him. Gabrielle was the quietest of the group; she trudged along with the rest of them, but she kept quiet. Every once in a while, when Hamadi would see her wipe tears from her eyes, he would glance at the others to see if anyone else noticed, and three pairs of sympathetic eyes would be peering back at him. Each one of them had lost family and sacrificed everything they'd known to be there, for the chance of mankind's survival. Everyone understood that they couldn't let pain interfere with progress, even Gabrielle, who sniffled when she thought no one was listening and let the tears fall when she thought no one was watching.

"Let's follow it," Chao suggested after a while. "Water and food are sure to be nearby."

"So is the animal," Anaya sighed. "I was so certain the scientists were right, but now I don't know what to think."

"We've come this far," Chao shrugged. "We have no food. No water and no other ideas. What else is there?"

Anaya and Raphael, as if sharing the same thought, both gazed up at the sky above them, but it was Anaya who spoke. "It's going to be dark soon. We don't want to go sneaking up on an unknown creature in the dark."

Raphael nodded in agreement. The sun was already dropping below the horizon, and he had already seen enough in the dark on Earth to scar him for life. "Let's just camp out here, where there a rocks to hide behind or throw, for the night. We can take off on an adventure tomorrow."

Gabrielle glanced at Hamadi's stomach, met his eyes absentmindedly, then turned to Raphael. "There's still a good two hours left of daylight. Do you know how far we can get in two hours?" Gabrielle pointed to Hamadi's stomach, and then to her own. "We need to make good use of time until we find more food. Then you can go back to sleep until one or whatever you did on Earth."

"You know nothing about me!" Raphael scowled. "You open your mouth once an hour and suddenly you know what's best?"

"Obviously I know more than you if you're willing to throw away two hours because you're scared of the dark."

"Knock it off," Chao rolled his eyes. "This isn't high school or a government meeting. This is our survival we're talking about—"

Hamadi nodded. "Yeah, we have to make decisions without ripping each other's heads off, otherwise we're never going to make it out here."

"We're like a herd now," Chao continued. "Or a tribe. We need trust and loyalty and friendship more than ever."

Gabrielle raised her eyebrow. "We need a plan." When all four sets of eyes glared at her, she waved them off with her hands. "I get what Chao is saying. He's right, but we really do need a plan."

So they compromised, instead of running off behind the phantom animal tracks or wasting the last two hours of daylight, they sat in a circle and began to formulate a plan.