Chapter Text
“Can you not smell that?” Edward asked.
Solomon adjusted the waist of his slops for the nth time in the last hour of walking. “What is it you think you smell, Little?” Solomon asked, thumb under the remaining suspender to yank it upwards. The next shamble of a camp they came across, Solomon planned to search for a needle and thread to mend what he could. He wasn't worried about exposing his body to the cold— he couldn't feel the temperature around him anymore— but he still had some sense of propriety. Rather, he loathed to be so underdressed beside Lieutenant Little, still in uniform.
“It's the smell of… of rot,” Edward answered, gaze lost on the horizon. “Decay. A carcass, upwind, if not several.”
Solomon licked his gums, which had receded without fresh blood to maintain them. Months ago, he would have worried about his teeth falling out. Months ago, he had been a man with a beating heart. “One of ours, you think?”
Edward wished it weren't so, but he nodded. It had to be. They hadn't once seen any living creature to hunt down and feast on; all they had come across were the bodies of their former crewmates. After so long, he doubted there were any other bodies to find. He knew approximately where every downed man laid on the shale. Every man but the Captain. “We should head there and use the landmark to reorient ourselves,” he sighed. The lack of stars in their long, endless nights had dragged the two of them in circles. The sooner they found any landmark, the sooner they could turn towards hope of rescue.