Chapter 44- Oak Peacewood
Aldar shakes me awake. We switched shifts early this morning and I've been asleep since then. "What's going on?" I ask. "Nothing. Just time to wake up. Welcome to day five." I sit up; it's past noon I think. Day five. How is only day five?
"Right, I think today we focus on finding food," Aldar says. He's crouching by the edge of the pond. Despite the mountain beating yesterday he looks alright. "How's your leg?" I ask. "It's fine now. How's yours?" "Seems alright." I wiggle the ankle back and forth and there's no pain. That shot even helped my knee; there's hardly any swelling now.
I pick at my torn leggings. For some reason I'm thinking of the dress of paper that Orden put me in for the interviews. It was so beautiful. I'm not too happy with how I'm looking now, but I never was too concerned. But that paper dress was so beautiful.
"Oak? Come on, we have to start moving." I snap out of my daydreaming and get up. "Let's go then."
Two hours walking through the woods later and we still haven't found anything. And the birds have stopped singing. What's with that? The whole forest is eerily quiet.
I count on my fingers how many people are still in the arena. Eight. Eight of us are spread out. I'm not so worried about being caught anymore. There's hardly anyone left.
"Shh!" Aldar stops abruptly, so abruptly I almost knock into him. He points to a grove of trees lit by sunlight. A group of rabbits going about their business. I mouth to Aldar, "How are we supposed to catch them?" We have no weapons, and we probably should have thought of that sooner.
With ease and with absolute silence Aldar reaches down and picks up a rock. Slowly, slowly… Then he throws it into the midst of the rabbits, hitting one on the head. While the rest of them run, that one is stunned and Aldar rushes in to grab it and snap its neck.
"I'm impressed with your aim," I say. Aldar takes a small bow with a grin. "Let's go back to camp."
On the two hour walk back to the pond we get a bird too, and we are quite satisfied with ourselves. We'll be well fed tonight. And I've been so hungry lately. More than I've ever been at home. I don't think I've properly eaten for the past five days and I'm starting to get weak. Once we get back to the pond I can barely stand.
The rest of the day is spent quietly. We make a small fire then smother it and cook the rabbit and the bird in the coals. By the time the anthem plays we're as stuffed as we can be. To be safe we hide back into our bush. It'll keep us concealed if anyone or anything comes by.
No faces in the sky today. Tomorrow will be interesting then. But tonight, I am content to be with my best friend and as safe as we can be.