A place to rest... [ATOA'S TRIO!]
Nov 6, 2009 18:22:14 GMT -5
Post by hg1f10 on Nov 6, 2009 18:22:14 GMT -5
I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was following. From my knowledge, we were probably the largest group in the forest, and when one of your members had a broken leg...
I turned back to face the front. Huge snowflake clumps clung to his brown hair and left water drops on his glasses. He looked a little pale next to the snow, but he could be worse. He could be dead.
In front of him Zanne was in the lead with a pike and the rest of our supplies. Her senses were better trained for leading, and I was good at
"feeling" eyes on my back. In the practices before I proved to be a better archer than Zanne (which was odd, considering I don't touch a real bow that often), so I was the official sniper. Maybe it was because I was better at shooting moving targets, as I did with a rabbit we happened to encounter. Terry could still kill with a pike, so he used it as a support for his leg. Every now and then we had to stop and tighten the splint; I had a feeling it was going to be like this for a while.
While I tightened the strings, Zanne would scout around the perimeter for a good place to stay. This time she came back, reporting a thick grove of bushes, brambles, and dense trees. "It's not much," she said, "but it'll keep the snow out and the warmth in."
She was right: it wasn't perfect. We spent a good deal of time clearing an opening in the thick thorny mesh before Zanne was able to squeeze through (she was the tallest of us all). The snow still fell, but it was lighter thanks to the thick foliage of trees above us. A three-foot cushion of snow layer the ground, making it almost impossible for Terry to walk. Following where we cleared a path, Terry looked around.
"Well, better than nothing," he commented, burrowing down in the snow at the base of a tree. All that walking and the strained leg had drained him. From the tone of voice and the lack of movement, I could tell that he was pretty down from fatigue. But when I suggested he sleep, he shot back, "No! It's not THAT dark." I shrugged and climbed up another tree to keep watch.
I don't know how much time passed, but for that time we all just sat there, staring at each other, staring at the trees. I wondered how long all this would last. I could die tomorrow in an infinite number of ways. Terry could be dead this next second. My hands were freezing as I fretted over the Games. My name and Terry’s name, out of all the names that were chosen…well, I guess it was simply inevitable.