Adam had fractured away from the collective. It wasn't merely a physical distance; he had become his own containment unit, a solitary faction of one. Since his return from the woods, he remained coiled within himself, refusing to engage in the shared dialect of survival.
"We need to resolve this," Nour said, her gaze fixed on Jamal's remains. The corpse lay sprawled where it had fallen, a heavy, silent indictment of their situation. "The odor is becoming a toxicity of its own. If we don't move him, the air itself will betray us."
The group drifted toward her, forming a loose, hesitant semi-circle around the body. For days, the corpse had been a part of the landscape—a piece of furniture they had learned to look past. But the reality of biological decay had finally overridden their denial. Adam remained aloof, a dark shape against the gray concrete, pointedly ignoring the gathering.
"We'll need leverage," Elias noted, his voice clinical. "Sturdy branches to slide beneath him. He's too heavy for a direct lift in our state." He looked toward the treeline, then back at the others. "It'll require four of us to maintain the balance. I don't expect Adam to volunteer. He's... elsewhere."
Fadi stole a quick, guarded glance at Adam's rigid back before nodding.
"Fine. Let's scavenge the timber first and decide on the mechanics," Fadi said, his breath hitching. "I'll take the first foray." He paused, looking at Nour. "If you find more of those succulents, bring them. But don't consume them in the field. We need to regulate the intake."
Fadi returned shortly, dragging a massive, lightning-scarred limb he had wrenched from a fallen pine. In his other hand, he clutched a meager offering of green stalks. He dropped the timber and approached Adam, his posture hesitant, burdened by a residual guilt he couldn't quite name. He extended the herbs—a silent olive branch—but Adam remained a statue, eyes fixed on the horizon, refusing to acknowledge the gesture.
Nearby, a sharp crack echoed through the clearing. Elias was wrestling with a second branch, the wood groaning and clinging to its bark with a stubborn, fibrous tenacity. Eventually, it gave way. He hauled it to the corpse, which had begun the gruesome process of bloating, its skin tightening like an overfilled drum. He laid the two branches parallel, half a meter apart.
"We roll him onto the wood," Elias commanded. "Then we carry the litter."
They moved in, hands clamped over their noses as the cloying, sweet-rot stench of putrefaction hit them. It was a physical wall, thick enough to taste.
"Where are we taking him?" Nour whispered behind her fingers.
"The silt bog," Elias replied. "The earth there is hungry. It will provide a more efficient burial than we can dig."
A moment of silent, grim consensus passed between them. In this place, efficiency was the only form of dignity left.
"One... two... lift!"
The weight was staggering. They moved with a desperate, stumbling urgency toward the swampy depression. The ground beneath them grew soft and treacherous, the air humming with the sound of insects.
"Stay back from the lip," Nour warned, her voice trembling. "Don't let the mire claim the living along with the dead."
They reached the edge of the dark, bubbling sludge—the same throat of earth that had already claimed one of their own. With a coordinated heave, they used the branches to slide Jamal's body into the muck. The bog accepted him with a slow, wet suction, a sound like a heavy sigh. There was no eulogy. No moment of silence. There was only the frantic, breathless scramble back toward the safety of the circle. They ran until their lungs burned, driven by the terror of the void behind them, returning to the concrete in a state of shattered, silent exhaustion.