MrMuddyPaws: Same here, I'd just curl up and hope someone killed me quickly. You're welcome! I've been trying to give subtle hints as to who the narrator is, but they're probably too subtle and nobody picks up on them. You'll know for sure eventually.
Dirtkid123: Well, in the Disney Games, killing is everyone's job.
Melon-Lord-of-Fire: I can't say who Stan killed, but you should be able to figure it out eventually. I kinds forgot whether I put it in any of the coming chapters. As for volunteering as tribute, I have a backstory for that, which you'll see later. I agree, he would totally take their place if given the chance.
Skoliver4Ever: I hope this is fast enough for you! I'm trying my best!
Chapter 12: Davenport's First Kill
The next day, Ferb returned from his endeavor and confirmed that all alternate sources of water had been destroyed. Davenport and I told him about the traps we'd set, and the success of damming the river. He approved of our abandoned-camp-of-death idea, and looked almost upset that he hadn't come up with the idea himself. It was difficult to tell, since he hardly ever spoke.
"How long do you think it'll take for people to realize the only water source is here?" I asked Davenport.
"I don't know," he replied. "It depends entirely on how much they had stored, and how far away they are. It could take a day or two for people to start showing up, and even then, there's no telling how many will fall into a trap."
"And until then, we do what?" I questioned. That seemed to be something I asked quite often, the Games had a lot more waiting around than I expected them to.
"There's nothing more to do except listen for bugle call and keep ourselves alive. Ferb, did you happen to bring back any food?" Ferb responded by pulling a dead groundhog out of his backpack. I suddenly wondered how he avoided falling over backwards while wearing a backpack, but decided it would probably be rude to ask.
"Fantastic!" I exclaimed. I hadn't eaten in a while, since all the plants I'd gathered were poisonous, leaving little opportunity for snacking.
"Ferb, why don't you go ahead and skin it, and then set it up to cook. We'll go look for some wild herbs to spice it up a little bit," Davenport instructed. He nodded in reply, then proceeded to peel the fur off of the carcass. I followed Davenport into the woods to look for wild herbs.
"Why do we need to spice it up? We haven't eaten in so long, flavor almost won't matter," I complained. I'd spent all yesterday combing through the undergrowth in search of specific plants, and was none too keen to do it again.
"We succeeded in our plan to win, this is worthy of celebration! Plain cooked groundhog just won't do."
I reluctantly searched for good spices alongside Davenport, but my heart just wasn't in it. Boredom was not an issue that I had expected to face in the Games, but it was really bringing me down.
"I'm bored," I whined, releasing a thin branch of a tree to spring back into place.
"Stop complaining, better bored than dead," he retorted. I realized that he was right, I'd much rather be here with nothing to do than not be here at all. But, I decided to leave him to find herbs himself, we really didn't need two people on that job.
"I'm going to look for some other stuff, if that's okay with you," I said, heading off into another area of forest.
"Don't do anything stupid," he warned.
"I won't," I called back. I traipsed through the forest, scanning the ground for anything of use. I had something in mind that would hopefully lighten everyone's spirits, and bring us closer together as a team. After scrutinizing the forest floor for nearly an hour, gathering various trinkets, I returned to camp with the haul. I grabbed a thin stick, and sat down in front of a small clearing in the grass, and began to draw in the dirt. I scored line after line, eventually connecting them all in a crude but legible board-game-like structure. Ferb walked over and gave me a quizzical expression, but then returned to tend the cooking meat without question.
"What the heck is this?" Davenport questioned upon returning to camp with a load of spices clenched in his hand.
"It's a board game," I replied, trying not to take offense at his mocking tone.
"What would we need a board game for?"
"To play, duh."
"We don't have time to play, there's work to be done!"
"Well you had the time to look for non-essential spices for meat that would be perfectly good without them, so I had time to set up a non-essential board game that will only make this celebration of a job well done more fun," I responded curtly.
"I guess you're right," he sighed. "I guess we can play while we eat. Ferb, how's it cooking?"
Ferb answered with a thumbs-up and carried the strips of meat over for Davenport to season them. I explained the concept of my game to them, it wasn't very complicated, but it didn't need to be. Just the notion of playing a game in this situation was enough to lighten the somber mood, and I noticed tension in their shoulders melt away as we got ready to play.
"I guess I'll be the acorn," Davenport said, grabbing it from the small pile of nature knick-knacks I had collected. Ferb took the pebble with moss growing on the side, leaving me to play as a miniature pine cone.
"Okay, there's really nothing to it," I explained. "You just throw this stick up in the air, and see which number on this spinner," I pointed to a sketched spinner in the dirt with numbers one through four, "the pointed end of the stick is indicating, and move that number of spaces."
"That's it?" Davenport asked.
"I don't exactly have the resources to make it any more complicated than this, Davenport," I defended. "Not everybody can be as much of a genius as you claim to be."
"Hey, I don't just claim it, I prove it with my genuine intelligence. We can make it more fun by adding obstacles, like this," he said, and dug the dirt out of one of the spaces drawn in the soil. "There. Now, if you land on that space, you have to go back to start."
"Okay, that works. Let's start playing."
For the next hour, we just played the stupid little game over and over again, each time adding a new challenge space, each more ridiculous than the last. We talked and laughed at our own frivolous ideas, such as the space with the berry on it that required you to attempt to catch a berry in your mouth by throwing it. If you caught it, forward a space; if you didn't, backward two spaces. Ferb came up with the 'floodwater' space: if you landed on it, you got to pour enough water on another player's chip until it washed off to another space, but chance determined if the new space was forward or backward. It was the most fun I'd ever had playing a board game in my entire life, but that may have just been because it was surrounded in time with so many un-fun experiences that it seemed astronomically better by comparison. By the time our game was interrupted, we had at least twenty different challenge spaces, expanded the board to twice its original size, and had each racked up at least three victories. But sadly, all good things must come to an end, and this was no exception.
"What happens if the floodwater space washes you away to a space that occupied by another player?" I asked, as the trickling water forced the pine cone on top of Ferb's pebble.
"Let me consult the rule book," Davenport joked, pretending to leaf through pages of a thick book. even licking him fingertips in between. "Page 692, paragraph 5, clause 19 says that you push the third player's piece forward all the way to the end."
"That's bogus!" I exclaimed, attempting to stifle my laughter.
"It's right here in the book!" he replied, holding the imaginary book out for me to look at.
"I don't know what game you're playing, but it sure isn't the same one I am."
"I don't know what game I'm playing either," he laughed. "I don't think any of us know what game this is."
As we all dissolved into raucous, laughter, a haunting bugle call sounded in the distance.
"What was that?!" I asked nervously, immediately ceasing my laughter.
"Someone died," Davenport replied.
"Well I know that, but who? Was it one of our traps?"
"I don't know, most likely."
Just as he said that, a small box attached to a parachute drifted lazily down through the trees. I snatched it out of the air, and read the note attached to it.
"What does it say?" Davenport questioned urgently.
"Donald Davenport: Sector 11," I read, shakily handing him the package. He cautiously opened it, and his face contorted into one of utter shock and fear the second he caught a glimpse of its contents. "What? What is it?" I asked concernedly. He tilted the box towards me, and I'm sure I had the same look of terror upon seeing it.
Inside the box was a little circular badge with KC Undercover girl's face on it.
"W-What does it mean?" Davenport stuttered. In this moment, his genius seemed to be failing him.
"Davenport, it means you killed her."
"But-but that's not possible. I wasn't anywhere near her when the bugle call sounded! This can't be right! Take it back!" he shouted, chucking the box at the sky, only for it to fall right back down at his feet. I had no idea why the idea that he had killed her was upsetting Davenport so much.
"Davenport, why are you so upset? This is a good thing! Now we don't have to worry about her killing us," I assured, but Davenport wouldn't hear a word of it.
"How could I have killed her? She's not even around?"
"Davenport, you said it yourself when it happened: the head wound you gave her could kill her over time. That time is now," I said. There was no other possible explanation for Davenport receiving credit for her death, the trauma or infection from that hit to the head killed her.
"But I didn't kill her, I just provided a gateway for things to infect her! Disney, give this stupid badge to some bacteria, it's their fault!"
"Davenport, relax!" I urged. "Just don't wear the badge, I don't see why you have to."
"You're right, I just won't wear it. There is absolutely no reason for me to display this as a token of honor."
He threw the badge onto the ground and stomped on it for good measure. But, just as he did so, the box from which the badge had come started blinking rapidly.
"If badge is not applied in ten seconds, box will self destruct," a monotonous voice said.
"Nevermind, you do have to wear it!" I exclaimed, picking up the badge and thrusting it back into Davenport's hand.
"No, I refuse!" he insisted.
"Nine... Eight... Seven," the box counted.
"If you don't put it on, we're going to die! The box is a freaking bomb that's going to kill us if you don't put the badge on!"
"Six... Five... Four," it continued, the blinking of the box speeding up. Before he could move, I snatched the badge back from Davenport and slapped it onto his sleeve. The box stopped its countdown and went dim.
"What'd you do that for?" Davenport accused.
"Did you want to get us killed?"
He picked at the badge, and complained, "It's stuck! It won't come off!"
"Of course it won't come off, that would defeat the purpose of the exploding box."
"But I want it to come off!" he whined. His childlike behavior caught me off guard, he did not strike me as the type of person to throw tantrums.
"Davenport, there's nothing you can do about it. Just wear the stupid badge and try not to think about it," I said, and he finally agreed with a harrumph. I had no idea what made him so anxious about wearing the badge, but I decided not to probe him in this state, for fear he'd lash out at me. How quickly things had changed; just a minute or two ago we were laughing and joking like little kids, but now a sepulchral mood hung over the whole camp.
Suddenly, a horrible thought crossed my mind: if one of our traps killed someone, who would be forced to wear the badge? If it was Davenport, how would he react? If I wasn't around to force him to wear it, would he go so far as to allow the box to blow him up? I made a mental note to make sure to be near him at the next sound of a bugle call. Hopefully, things would go more smoothly next time.
A bit of a plot twist in there, I'll bet most of you expected Davenport's first kill to be a result of one of the traps. Or you all saw it coming. Regardless, that loose thread is now tied up. Why do you think he reacted so strongly to being forced to wear the badge? I love hearing guesses (plus, I might take some of your suggestions into account when the narrator actually finds out why). Did you like the bit of humor incorporated in the beginning? I decided to let the characters have one last laugh before things get even more intense. This is only the beginning, my friends. Until next chapter, please read and review!