The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 172

The four of them returned to the vehicle, grabbed tactical shovels, and headed back to the ruins of the supply station.

Professor Harrison crouched down, found a spot near the edge of the toughest permafrost, and traced out a rectangle.

"Dig here."

"Alright."

Thud.

Josh drove his shovel down. A chunk of frozen earth popped up, scattering icy debris across his face, but he didn't even blink. He swung a second time, then a third, putting his entire body weight behind every strike. The metal blade struck the permafrost with the sharp, ringing crunch of hitting solid rock.

Diego dug beside him. After a couple of scoops, he had to stop to catch his breath before resuming.

His movements were aggressive but sloppy, tossing uneven chunks of dirt haphazardly around the edge of the pit.

"Slow down," Professor Harrison instructed. "Don't just use brute force. Chip away at it little by little."

Standing nearby, Sloane reached for a shovel, but Josh firmly caught her hand.

"Sloane, you don't need to dig. Just go rest over there."

"I'm not useless—"

"I know you aren't." Josh didn't look at her, never breaking his rhythm with the shovel. "But you need to conserve your energy right now. We still have a mission ahead of us."

Sloane watched him. Sweat was already beading on his forehead, instantly crystallizing into a thin layer of frost in the negative forty-degree air.

She didn't argue further.

After a while, the grave was ready. It wasn't deep. The permafrost was simply too hard, so they only managed to dig down to knee-level. But it was enough. Enough to lay a man to rest.

The four of them gathered at the edge of the ruins to lift the body.

"Our current food rations... should last us about ten days. If we stretch it, we can hold out a little longer."

"The real issue is the vehicle. We only have about a hundred and ten miles of battery left, and we are still a hundred and eighty miles away from The White Lake."

He looked up at the group, his voice tight.

"So here is our reality. We can't move forward, and we can't go back. What... what do we do?"

"Is there another supply station ahead?" Sloane asked.

"There's one at The White Lake. The United States built a new research outpost there specifically for this operation," Josh said. "It was just completed three months ago."

"Yeah, it's not massive, but it should be fully equipped," Diego added. "But the problem is... how the hell do we get there?!"

"The only way..." Professor Harrison kept his eyes locked on the map in his hands before finally speaking up, "Is to keep moving forward."