something spooky - (cool kids corner - day 2)

The creepy, dead woods were getting to her. Xov found herself looking over her shoulder every few minutes just to make sure she wasn’t being followed by anyone–or anything–besides Juno and Marcus. The weird fire ritual they’d encountered had been enough to make her feel like they were surrounded on all sides by some invisible beings, maybe something hiding in the trees? It was hard to tell what the Gamemakers’ minds had come up with, creatures less amicable than the ones they had befriended.

When they came across the ruined cabin, she paused in front of the doorway, hesitant. Gus blew a puff of hot air through his nose, planting his hooves as if to say he would go no further. But if she knew anything about this arena so far, it was that a landmark like this could mean supplies, and supplies could be the difference between life and death. Xov took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Cobwebs and broken glass lined the corners of the dim room. A shelf of dolls stared back at her, their ceramic eyes glassy and empty. A spider crawled sleepy from a crack in the porcelain.

”It seems empty,” she said to the boys behind her, although that wasn’t quite true. When a gust of wind blew through a door, causing it to creak on its hinges, it almost sounded like a voice laughing. Empty of the living, she corrected herself silently.

Remembering the sage smudge stick she had found on her scouting endeavor, Xov pulled the little bundle out of her pack. Though she’d been saving it for an emergency, she thought now was a better time than any to use it. She placed it on the ground in one of the few spots vacant of broken glass.

With some difficulty, she held the end of her pike and struck her piece of flint against the steel.

”Ahh!”

Xov cursed under her breath as one of her fingers got smashed between the steel and the rock. Of all the times to be clumsy. Her hands had been shaking, from the cold or from the creeps, she wasn’t sure. She shook her hand at the wrist and tried again.

The fourth time, she hit it hard enough that a few sparks caught the dried leaves. Xov covered the glowing end with her hands and blew softly until a fragrant smoke rose from the bundle. She held it up in front of her, waving it in an arc.

She felt the need to explain to her friends. ”It just… makes me feel a little safer. This place has some bad energy. We need all the help we can get, right?

”Should we split up and look around? There could be something useful here,” she said, looking around at the scorched walls. Then more doubtfully, ”Something, maybe.”