Happiness

He followed the young woman as she crept back to the inhabited part of the room. She crawled on her hands and knees in the darkness. Though she could not see, she was guided by the faint glow in the room's center and used that to orient herself. She was taking a circuitous route, one which would allow her to return with minimal suspicion.

He saw the looming, black outline of the larger edifice seen earlier grow nearer as she made her way around the area. He could see, from this new angle, that a road of sorts lay in a straight line leading from the center of the room to the front of that structure. The road's boundaries were delineated by poles hammered into the earth. Their tops glowed faintly with the same luminescent paste used elsewhere. No one stood on the road.

The young woman nodded in satisfaction, then changed direction to return to the center of the place. She regained her feet and walked, carefully at first, but with more confidence as she came closer to the center. None of the strangers in red were near when she passed reached the shabby set of walls at the outermost edge. She walked past the structure, past a gap in the walls, and looked around warily. He, meanwhile, peered inside.

A group of residents were within. One of them was frail and wasted and lay upon a crude mattress of spongy material. Two others stood nearby. One held a small container filled with the concoction prepared in the cookpots to the first's mouth. They spoke in hushed voices.

The young woman returned then to look within as well. The two recoiled at her appearance in surprise, but relaxed when they saw that she was not one of the strangers in red. She spoke, and their reaction changed even more. They became animated, excited, and the younger of the two crossed the small enclosure to hold the young woman in a tight embrace. They spoke quickly and quietly, then the young women went to kneel next to the one resting on the floor.

He watched the four. They radiated something rare and precious in this strange and uncaring place, where options seemed limited deciding between the risks found beneath an endless, burning light and frequent storms of dirt and rock, or under the harsh, unyielding, and mysterious influence and power of the strangers in red.

The young women spoke with the others for some time. She seemed at peace as she did. She told them of the container of legless scarabs she had hidden and gave detailed instructions on how they could retrieve it. The resident which had not embraced her seemed appalled by this news, but the other resident reacted more calmly and assured the young woman that the trove would be claimed before the strangers in red could find out about it.

The young woman then turned to go. The others did not want this. Even the weak one upon the floor pleaded for her to delay. He heard her explain that the strangers in red would wonder where she had gone once the bounty of scarabs had been processed and they could take more careful stock of the situation. She embraced the one resident again, then exited the enclosure.

He saw she did not wish things to be this way, either.