Hello and good day to anyone who's reading. This update will be a bit quicker because I have a slight lull in schoolwork this week and have finally replaced my USB drive. There is a poll up on my profile for the pairing of this fanfiction and I encourage you all to go and vote. I hope it stays as I intend it to be, however I will respect your voting. I will say that if a chapter takes longer than a couple of weeks that there is probably an issue between my lovely beta Pixel and Stephanie Forever, and not something else. With the last chapter for whatever reason I emailed it to him and it took a week to get it, he blames it on people voting for a change to Harry/Hannah so that could be an issue. One last issue is their oddities in classes, why the older students have classes with younger ones? Cadets are brought in at any time, so someone older will have to at least go through a few months of a basic class to get up to speed. Anyway hope you enjoy the chapter, and I hope you review.
Thetford, Norfolk
18 November 1987
Royal Junior Thetford Academy
Classroom 112
Harry and his squad mates where currently in the middle of a battlefield. As odd as that may sound for being in the Art classroom on a Wednesday afternoon. It had all begun nearly twenty minutes or so when the Art teacher had left to go to a meeting with the administrators. Shortly thereafter an older cadet had slipped on some spilled paint and crashed into another's art project. Not long after that the entire room descended into madness as the cadets began throwing paint brushes, markers, and just about anything they could reach at one another.
Harry, Hannah, and Cedric had taken cover behind an upturned work table and were making good use of the supply cabinet to continually lob objects at the other students. Harry and Hannah wanted to use drawing pins as cluster bombs, but Cedric replied he thought that that broke the Geneva Convention. With how much noise they were making it was surprising that the Music professor in the classroom down the hall hadn't come to check on them. Zoe and Ariel were a few meters from them slowly trying to make their way over to Harry's group, Walter was nowhere to be seen and was therefore presumed to be missing in action. A whistle blew from the door, bringing everyone to attention facing the door. A few older students accompanied by the Art teacher made their way into the room, she sent a disapproving glare about the room.
"Well it isn't going to pick itself up now is it?" When the cadets didn't get going fast enough she barked out "Get to it!"
An hour later and the classroom was clean, and they were allowed to go to the showers. They had missed their science class entirely and had to run to make it into their English class. They sat down a few minutes before the bell tolled and breathed a sigh of relief as they pulled out their notebooks. They spent most of the class taking notes before getting homework and heading off to dinner. Over dinner their class's exploits that afternoon was the main bit of gossip going around and Harry's class kept getting amused looks from others. They spent most of dinner talking about the homework they had to do that evening and the reading's they had to do to get a little ahead. That was the good thing about having Cedric as their Captain, he never pushed them to be too far ahead but just enough that they never had to do homework the night or class before it was due. At the end of dinner the C.O. rose and motioned for silence.
"Starting tonight we will have a sign-up for an extra-curricular activity this weekend. It will be something of a camping trip. Except you will only be issued water, a flint and steel, a knife, a compass, and a radio in case of emergencies. You will have to survive in the forest for 48 hours making your own shelter, finding your own food, and starting your own fires. You will be teamed with your squads and Cadet Captains will not be obligated to go unless only one squad member wants to go. Dismissed." He said turning back to what was left of his dessert. As one Harry's squad snapped to Cedric and started begging him to sign them up.
Thetford, Norfolk
20 November 1987
Thetford Forest
Somewhere
The cadets that had elected to go into the forest had been dropped off half an hour ago, and led into the forest by four instructors. Since then, Harry and his group had made their way farther into the middle of the forest in search of a place to set up camp. So far the most promising place had been a clearing fifteen minutes ago, but it was pretty open to the elements, and it was meant to rain that evening. So they were taking a lovely stroll through the forest at the moment, keeping an eye out for anything slightly sheltered. They eventually found a small clearing with some tree coverage and set up for the night.
While the C.O. had said that they weren't going to be getting any food for the duration of the trip, they had been given a few protein bars, for emergencies of course. Hannah, however, had been given a small box to last her a few days as she had a medical condition that meant she had to be given certain foods to eat if she fell ill. Once they had set up their bags in the clearing Cedric and Ariel went to go and set up some traps they'd learnt in their survival classes, while the rest of them broke off branches and did their best to set up a lean-to shelter, and dig a fire-pit. The lean-to was rather shoddy once it was finished, it was rather flimsy and nearly fell over once or twice. Cedric and Ariel came back and helped them straighten it out while Harry and Hannah went to go and grab something resembling firewood. They walked deeper into the forest to try and find some bigger pieces, because the branches nearer to camp were either too small, or making up their home for the night. They got about ten minutes away from camp when Harry stumbled into a small animal trap, having it tighten around his ankle and throwing him to the ground. Hannah stopped and helped him up, as soon as she could stop laughing at him. They reset the trap as best they could and continued on, their original goal replaced by the beauty of their surroundings. They ran around like kids and went exploring for a while before turning around to go back before realizing that they had gotten rather turned around.
"It'll be fine" Harry said, giving Hannah a small pat on the back "We'll just retrace our steps, besides if we do get lost the others will find us."
An hour and a half later Harry and Hannah were sitting silently on a larger rock, holding onto one another and trying to fight back tears. They had tried retracing their steps, but they hadn't really known where to start. There were very few landmarks in the park that weren't trail markers, and the ground had been too dry to leave any viable footprints. So they had decided to stay put and hope that the rest of their squad came for them. They had one protein bar each that they were saving until once the sun went down, but besides that they were completely without any form of food or water. Hannah had suggested picking a direction and hoping to find civilization but Harry had been against it, saying that they would only get more lost. So here they were, huddled together on a rock watching the sun slowly descend below the horizon and trying not to cry. They had done their best to put up landmarks as to where they were, so that if the rest of the group was headed in the right direction they'd be led to them, hopefully.
#
Cedric was losing his bloody mind, it had been over two hours since some of his youngest squad members had gone missing and the problem was that nobody had bothered to pay attention as to which way they fucking went. So Cedric and Zoe had headed north in search of them, while Walter and Ariel had gone south. They left specific directions to themselves in order to get back, marking up a tree or forming brush into patterns. They had met back up at the camp and repeated the search going west and east, but still they found nothing. Either they weren't going far enough or they were somewhere in-between their search parameters. Cedric was betting on the latter. They kept searching as safely as they could, dividing the water and protein bars. Cedric and Zoe were making their way northwest, and as of now had no luck. They had agreed to meet back up after sundown, since searching in the dark could have led to more of them getting lost. They called out for the two missing cadets every five or so minutes. The last thing that Cedric wanted to do was call the academy and tell them that two of their cadets had gone missing in the forest, but it was getting to the point where he wasn't sure he had a choice. Then he saw it, one of his crappy traps. It had been flipped upside down. Harry and Hannah were getting really cold right about now, freezing really. Despite their proximity to one another, there was no suppressing the fact that it was the middle of November. They had done their best to make a small shelter against a rock outcropping but without a fire they were going to have a tough time about it. Hannah had slipped into unconsciousness a few minutes ago, with Harry getting closer and closer to it. Harry barely heard voices echoing towards him, shouting something intelligible. He shocked back to alertness, waking Hannah in the process. He yelled out for help, hoping that he hadn't imagined the voices. In a break of the trees he saw people rushing towards them, and then his squad was around him.
"Harry! Hannah! Thank god you're alright." It was Ariel, her voice an octave higher than normal and sweat dripping from her nose.
"I am, but Hannah doesn't look too good" Harry pointed to where the girl had a greyness to her skin.
"Damn you two must be freezing, let's get them back to camp." Cedric managed to take control of the situation as he grabbed Harry by the shoulder and brought him to his feet. Ariel hugged the two and they started walking back to their camp. When they reached it, Cedric retrieved the radio and, after a moment's thought, turned it on and called for somebody to come and get Harry and Hannah. Whilst he was sure that Harry would want to carry on with the exercise, it was clear that neither of them should have been allowed to leave camp without one of the older cadets with them.
So this is where I'm gonna call it the end of the chapter. I fully intended for this to go up soon after the last one but then the lady that covers the night shift got sick and asked me to cover and I figured why not. So on top of five extra hours and school I just didn't have time. Do go and vote on the poll in my profile if you want me to change the pairing of this story – although you should be warned that Pixel and Stephanie will track you down and use methods of torture if you do vote for a change… He is very fond of Harry/Hannah. Even if you do, nothing serious will happen for a while. Tatty-Bye