Sounds of the Wild

07.

Thorn

She scoffed.

"I hardly think we ever made it to god-level."

"Still," I shrug.

"I think some of us played with fire, and we all got burned because of it."

My head had fallen, along with my mood.

Seeing Wren come back to the cabin, had given me a weird feeling. Like she was coming back to me.

I tried to act natural, which probably meant that I looked like the opposite.

During our conversation, I saw her eyes glance to my shoulder. I mentally cursed myself.

An hour or two ago, I had had the amazing idea to test the movement of my shoulder, which was a bad idea in itself.

And I paid for it, my left shoulder had been constantly throbbing since I moved it, and I was too scared to look underneath the bandage, even after the white gauze stained red.

I was trying to not draw any attention to it. Wren had already done so much, hell, she had practically saved my life, and here I was just making it worse.

"I'll get these prepped after lunch, maybe we can have them for dinner."

There was a pause, I was about to thank her again for all that she had already done, but then she spoke again.

"And I'll look at your shoulder again as well."

Shit.

I could feel her smirking from behind my back.

The sound of chopping echoed throughout the small cabin as Wren started on the promised lunch.

I felt just as useless as I had earlier, the fact that I couldn't really move without pain to shoot up my body didn't help either.

"You sounded so serious."

I paused.

"What do you mean."

I was able to crane my neck enough to see Wren. she had stopped moving and now stood with a hand on her hip, and a cutting knife in the other. She gestured with the knife.

"All that talk about punishment and playing with fire. It won't do you any good now."

"It was a little self-deprecating wasn't that?"

She shook her head, turning back to continue cutting up greens.

"That's not it. You shouldn't spend your time thinking about the coulda shoulda woulda of the past. Yes, our world leaders decided to blow up each other and it made the air toxic to most men. There was nothing you could've done about it then, and there's nothing you can do about it now, except to live and move on."

Wren seemed to be lost in thought as she finished.

"Trust me when I say, sometimes just existing can be the hardest thing you ever do."

I guess when you put it like that, she was right in a way. I can't be spending my time worrying about what's already happened. It remind me of the family that I had at the colony.

"Hey Wren?" I piped.

"You don't happen to have a HAM radio do you?"

She snorted. Like, actually snorted. Laughter started to erupt from her after.

"What?"

"Nothing," she gasped out in between laughs before quitting back down.

"Yeah no, don't got one of those."