Author's Note:
Is this my birthday? I got ANOTHER review! Yay! I'm on a roll, people! This is probably the fastest I have ever updated on this story. I can't help it! I'm too excited.
Change of topic. How many of you can do parkour? Or however it's spelled? Like it?
Whatever.
2, 4, 6, 8, what do I appreciate? R-E-V-I-E-W-S!
The next day, Mercury decides for us to move.
"That's it," he says. "I'm sick of these cave walls. Pack your bags, we're going to New Brooklyn."
We oblige. There isn't much to pack. My water's nearly gone, though I didn't touch my bag of smoked meat. I have counted sixteen knives in total, all varying in size. My now-beaten up walkie talkie, my slightly elongated rope, several changes of clothes, my gun and my darts are still in my belt. I stuff them all in my bag and slot two knives on either side of my belt. Done.
Marlin is checking his bag. He pulls out five heavy-looking rocks and gives me a death glare. Heh.
"Well, you didn't leave," I scold.
Unfortunately, Zee hears me. "Leave?"
Uh oh. Come on Rooba. Lie! "Uh, he wouldn't leave the bathroom?" Idiot! There is not bathroom in the wild! I look into Zee's disbelieving eyes. "I mean, back in District 13. I always remember grudges. A brother-sister thing." I laugh nervously.
"Okay?" she says, just as nervously.
"Yeah."
Awkward silence.
"We should probably get going," Marlin interjects.
"Yeah," I agree heartily. Then, I walk past Zee to the little hole we have as an entrance. The morning sun burns my eyes as it greets me like an old friend. A stalker-ish old friend. I keep my gaze to the ground for the whole hike.
This time, Mercury takes us through dense forests, seeming paranoid for hovercrafts overhead. At the end of a stretch of closely interwoven trees, my face is filled with scratches from branches filled with thorns. I also have my share of spills from awaiting roots. Everyone looks like a hyperactive cat pounced on them, like what they do in the cartoons. What's more is that everytime someone makes so much a sound, he tells us to shut up. I'm tempted to get my knife out and cut the branches off but Mercury says that we can't leave a trail. What idiot wants to go through here for fun? If anything, we'll be doing a favor for another Evacuator. But noooo.
Then, something jolts me back to reality. A skeleton.
I had tripped over a root and fallen into some bushes headfirst. I turned and saw a smiling skull.
I yell in surprise until I stuff my fists into my mouth. I get up and back away. I bump to Zee.
"What? What's wrong?" she asks urgently.
All I can do is point. "Don't go there. There's a dead person."
Mercury does not heed my advice and comes swooping into the gap I made in the bushes. He flinches but forces himself to crawl deeper in the bushes. I hear a clattering sound. Then, Mercury pulls the entire skeleton out.
I gasp. It's stark white, with a bit of dried blood on it. It's also still wearing a jacket, some pants and heavy-duty boots. There's also a backpack. It stinks like death.
Mercury takes big intakes of breath. "It's not an Evacuator." He says this like it's supposed to reassure us. "Just a lost escapee. Looks like a kid. A thirteen-year-old at most."
A thirteen-year-old? That's already older than Marlin. I look at him. Instead of looking horrified, he looks curious.
I hear a ripping noise. Mercury is opening his backpack with a knife. The contents spilled over. "We can't use the bag. There's no room and it's coming apart," he comments. "But we can use the things inside.
The following are the contents:
-Two pairs of socks.
-A full waterbottle.
-A plastic bag full of nuts.
-A plastic bag full of smoked meat. (Which Mercury deemed rotten.)
-A towel.
-Several pieces of underwear.
-Fresh clothes.
-No weapons. (For which I am disapointed.)
"The poor guy probably died of some kind of sickeness. He has a lot of supplies and he's still intact."
"Great. Thank you, forensic scientist. Can we go?" I ask.
"Now, Rooba. Let's not waste an opportunity like this. Underwear, Marlin?"
We divided the skeleton's spoils. We evenly seperated the clothes, which were nice and big. Marlin got its jacket, though, because his were thinner than ours. We left the shirt that the skeleton is wearing on him, purely out of respect, because would you like to be dead and naked? It was holey anyway.
We threw out the smoked meat and Mercury got to keep the bag of nuts. Then, he threw the towel at Zee and I because he said that girls take so long to take a shower and dry their hair and that the towel will speed the process up if we find a stream to take a shower in. I smacked him with the towel but put it in my bag anyway. I also got the waterbottle because mine's almost finished. Mercury also extracts the steel-toed boots from the skeleton's bony feet and hand it to Zee as well as a pair of socks because it's useful to her combating style, which is charging at things with two knives and beating them to oblivion. Marlin got the other pair of socks.
After that, we got to go, our backpacks feeling heavier than ever.
At the end of the day, we found a hollow tree to rest for the night. It's the size of a huge closet and everyone needs to sleep sitting up and leaning against the walls. It barely fits us and if Horus was here, we wouldn't fit at all. We had rolled a boulder in the front for some kind of safety.
It's nighttime and I can hear crickets and a wolf howling in the distance. For some reason I can't sleep. I'm not exhausted, like yesterday, and the sounds sound foreigm. I guess I'm used to the hum of engines in District 13.
Instead, I look at everyone's faces. Marlin has a smile on his face. I can only guess at what he's dreaming about. A lot of things make him happy, such as pranks and Flyer. Maybe it's pranking Flyer. Zee's head lolls to Mercury's shoulder. They look like an old couple, but Mercury has his elbow propped on his knee and is holding his forehead with his fists, the very picture of a stressed boy. Even in his sleep, he's still thinking.
I look at the sky through the narrow gap between the boulder and the tree trunk. The stars glitter like gems, as if someone had scattered diamonds across the atmosphere. The moon... looks like a shiny banana.
I'm not joking. There's no other way to explain it. It's perfectly bendy. Sometimes I wonder how the moon looks like that. I'm no astrologer, but I think I'd rather keep it a secret than know exactly why it happens. When I was smaller, I used to think a rude giant took a big bite of it and didn't finish it. You don't see skies like these in District 13. I consider going out and getting some fresh air, but I've gotten a wee bit paranoid since the encounter with the skeleton. So I stay and just gaze out, breathing in the moonlight.
My thoughts wander. It became a chain that starts from my old life in District 6, Coin, Distict 13, meeting Zee, getting soaked with waterguns (courtesy of Marlin), getting aquainted with Mercury and finally ending with Horus.
Is this my life flashing before my eyes? Doesn't this happen to people who's about to die? I shudder. Thankfully, I am reassured when my thoughts start to wander to turtles. Maybe my brain just feels sorry for me, or maybe I'm showing signs of schizophernia.
Then I doze off, still about turtles.
The next week is uneventful. We get attacked by a pair of lycanthropes, which were not a big of a deal. We basically just hiked through the week, literally. Mercury is besotted with spiky hurtful forests. We didn't see anymore hovercrafts, though, which is lucky because now Mercury lets us slash through the leaves and pines. We climb the trees occasionally, to see where the heck we are, though it doesn't make a lot of things clear to me. All I can see a sea of green, some mountains in the background, the blue sky and up until the second day, the white, gleaming Flying Colors building. Where Horus is being held captive. Mercury had pointed to a river and said, "Shower!"
We took a bath in the freezing autumn river. It took a jump and a quick scrub with some kind of plant that Mercury found. It's a good thing I got that towel. We're still freezing afterwards and had to take an early break, huddled together and rubbing each other's hands. But it was worth it, feeling fresh and huggable, instead of wild, stinky and caveman-like.
At night, I stare out again at the bejeweled sky, and on the day, I learn. Mercury taught us all sorts of survival skills that I didn't even know when we were living off the earth when it was just me, Marlin and Coin.
Zee and Mercury grows closer together, sometimes talking inaudibly, heads together. One time, I caught Mercury grabbing Zee's hand, giving it a squeeze and quickly letting go, as if reassuring her of something. Not that it matters, but Rae Fennels, the school gossip, would've spread the news like a wildfire. Not that I would tell her.
Marlin and I have developed a more intelligent game than 'I Spy.' It's called 'Sentences.'
Yeah, I know. Lame title, but it makes up in fun. Two people have to make a story. We don't tell each other the plot we want and one begins with a sentence. The other person makes another sentence, joining it to the previous person. Then, Person One says another sentence. Then, Person Two continues. It goes on until we make a story.
"There once was a boy named Lotso," I had said.
"He was an idiot who breaks into his teacher's room and steals her underwear," Marlin said after a pause.
"Gross!" I say, laughing. "He would always hide it in his friend's bag to cover up the evidence."
"Hahaha! Ok, ok. I got one. He..." Marlin always bursts out in laughter before he finishes his funny sentence. Then he forgets it.
It's not always a joy being with Marlin. Sometimes, it's just plain depressing. I sometimes catch him murmuring the chorus of that drunk song.
"Oh, better far to live and die
Under the brave black flag I fly,
Than play a sanctimonious part,
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where pirates all are well-to-do;
But I'll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a Pirate King!"
Marlin's always thinking of Horus. Everytime he so much hums the tune, I just want to punch someone and demand them to get Horus. Maybe a tree, but that wouldn't do much good.
Horus was a juvenile delinquent. He stole and maybe this was a sort of karma. He's true to the song he sings.
And he'll probably live and die like a pirate king, too.
Author's Note:
Not my best ending. This is a mostly filler chapter but I promise next will be full of twist and turns. As well as blood. MUAHAHAH!
Please review! If more people review, we will be a big happy review family!
DISCLAIMER: I took the above 'big happy family' quote from a classmate (who I modeled Mercury off, though he's slightly more tolerable than said fictional character) who was reffering to a game called Minecraft.
Any of you play it? I just downloaded it a few days ago. I played it. Interesting game, though I keep dying. Stupid creepers.