The ground rushed up to meet Clay as his knees buckled under the weight of the unseen force behind him.
He landed hard on the ground, adding new bruises to his growing collection. It also took him a few seconds to realize that he was lying on tip of a thorn bush, and the other person's weight was forcing him down on their sharp points.
"Get off!" he shouted, his squirming digging the thorns in farther. Surprisingly the pressure vanished from his body and he managed to crawl out from the thorn bush.
Hissing in pain he whirled around to face his attacker. Another scavenger started back at him, about the same height as him but skinner, and with less muscle. Unlike Clay, his skin was completely black, with dark hair on his head that seemed to curl naturally. His brown eyes stared unseeingly ahead, milky white at the edges.
A lightbulb went off in Clay's head.
"Starflight?" he asked hesitantly. The other scavenger's head shot up.
"Clay?" he asked, glancing vainly around in an attempt to pinpoint Clay's location. Clay reached out his hand and grabbed his arm. Starflight jumped away and shrieked in a shrill voice. "What was that?! What touched my arm!? It felt really cold and clammy and gross."
"Starflight, it was me."
"Oh."
There was an awkward pause. Clay reached out again and touched Starflight and this time he didn't jump away.
"Come one." Clay started walking, pulling Starflight along behind. "We need to find the others."
The next several hours were tough for Clay.
The woods only seemed to get darker and more abundant with sharp sticks, rocks, and stickers leading the way. Unused to his easily-penetrated skin, Clay constantly forgot he didn't have tough scales and gave himself bruises and cuts to make himself look like he fell off a cliff. After every new bruise and cut he turned to help Starflight avoid the same fate, but he did a bad job of it. Soon they both looked like an army of cats had attacked them.
They found Sunny sitting underneath a tree, shivering in the cold night air. Her pale skin was easy to pick out, even in the almost-absolute darkness. Short blonde hair made her dark brown eyes pop, and she screamed with delight when she saw Clay and Starflight.
They found Glory next. Her tan body and raven-black were harder to see, and it was the reason that they practically ran her over before they saw her.
With most of his friends found, Clay began to slow, his bruised body and the long night starting to take its toll. At the urging of the others Clay stopped under a towering oak, its leaves making a loud cracking noise as the wind whistled through them.
There was silence as everyone caught their breath and assessed their bleeding feet.
"What are we going to do?" exclaimed Sunny, building the tension that had somewhat waned with their rest.
Clay felt the rising panic spread through the air and fought to regain control of the situation.
"Calm down, Sunny. We'll work it out, I promise. In the meantime, we need to find Tsunami."
"Yeah, you didn't really find me; you stumbled upon me." They jumped at the sound of Tsunami's voice, looking around but not finding her.
"Tsunami, where are you?" asked Glory, scanning the surrounding foliage in vain.
"Look up." They did, and finally found Tsunami.
A very tan scavenger female glared down at them with sea-green eyes, hanging literally by a thread, her foot caught in strands of vine. It was the only thing keeping her from breaking her face on the ground.
Tsunami continued to glare at them as they fought to control their laughter. "Get me
down," she hissed through clenched teeth.
Sunny backed up, then ran at the tree and up the trunk. managing to grab the lowest
branch.
Hoisting herself up with more arm strength than Clay thought she possessed, Sunny scrambled until she was level with Tsunami's foot.
"I think I got it," Sunny said, examining the vines. "Clay, I'm going to need you to catch her so she doesn't break her neck, okay?"
"Right." Clay maneuvered himself underneath Tsunami until she was directly above him.
"Ready?"
"Yeah." Sunny reached over and rummaged through the tangle of vines and with a snap like the cracking of bone and Tsunami came hurtling toward him.
He reached out his arms and caught her before they both fell to the ground, Clay cushioning Tsunami's fall.
It was a bad day for Clay.