The Fall

50. Trip

3.5.21

Connor's POV

The next morning, the sun rose too early. I wasn't ready for the eyelid piercing light to be heading right into my face, but I was at least intelligent enough to turn my head before I opened my eyes. Birds chirped around me, welcoming the sun to its position in the sky. I wish that I could force the entire world to go right back to sleep just for a few more minutes. However, now that Benji is out for the count, I have a lot more that I need to do.

I had infiltrated his planning notebook for what to do after getting to the clearing if we lost. There's so much information in that tiny thing, and only half of it is necessary. I don't know which teacher of his taught him it was the best idea to brain dump on paper, but it was one of them. He seems to have taken it to heart in every sense. No one needs to know how much he enjoyed the spaghetti three nights ago. Then again, thinking about Benji, there's probably some kind of purpose. It seems like something that he would only do if there was a specific reason for doing it.

Anyways, we were supposed to spend the night in the clearing then go back the next morning. Of course, that is right now, so I should probably be in the camp making sure that everyone is ready to go home. I hopped down from the tree at the thought of needing to be responsible and walked back to the hollow. It's a pretty nice morning for the bitter end of fall, and I allowed my mind to slip away for a little while. I don't have much of a reason to pay attention; if they were going to attack, they would have done it last night.

I wonder what we're going to do now. Without Benji, our main rallying point is going to have to be somewhere else. I don't think that it can possibly be me with the low amount of respect I get. Now that I think about it, this might be an opportunity to get my own place in the authority hierarchy. I may be Benji's right-hand man, but I'm not respected as such. I should get myself a little bit of respect before he has to pull all of the weight still injured. I want him to rest as much as he can so that he gets better faster.

I went back to thinking about my every move while I entered the clearing. The devastation the met my eyes made me tear up slightly, but I was quick to wipe my eyes. I don't want to look like a baby in front of everyone else. The injuries were unanimous. Whether I was looking at a woman, a runner, and even those whose only job was to watch the perimeter. They were all hurt in some way other than the doctors. They were the only ones that were never anywhere near the fighting, though. We didn't want to risk the few people that could help others.

I climbed onto the tallest rock in the clearing again, and it took a long time for anyone to notice I was looking for their attention. Man, if Benji was the one up here, they would have seen him 10 minutes ago. I didn't allow that fact to get to me, though, and just used the attention that I got while I had it. I don't trust these people to still care I exist in 5 minutes, so I may as well start.

"It's time to make the trek home. Anyone who was going to attack would have done it last night, so it's safe now. Everyone should know what their group assignment is, so please get into them." The people who were able to walk got to where they were supposed to be, and it saddened me to see how much smaller all of the groups were. This is going to make it take a lot more work to get any kind of advantage. However, I know that we can do it with enough hard work.

"Wings are to go first and survey the path from the sky. You must notify me if there are any hazards along the way so I can shift the route. After them, we'll have the wolves and vampires go to disarm any traps that may have been set on the ground. If one of you gets stuck, I trust that the rest will help them out. Please don't leave each other behind; this is reliant that everyone stays with at least one buddy. Think of it as a middle school field trip. You can go off without a chaperone, but don't go alone, or a creepy old guy will kidnap you."

The humor paid off, and I could see a few laughs among the crowd. I have to appeal to their pathos to make the mood a bit better. I know that Benji is pretty good at making light out of a bad situation, so I take it as a part of leadership. "After that, everyone else will go in small groups. We don't want to make it obvious what we're doing, so the groups will be far apart. Important leaders will be scattered at random through those groups so that the humans can't assassinate everyone of value in one swoop. Any questions?"

The thundering sound of silence was all that reached my ears, and I gave the signal for all of them to go. It took about two hours for the evacuation effort to come to me, and I went to the doctor's tent to get Benji. It's not the safest thing ever for me and him to be in the same space at the same time, but there isn't another way. I don't trust anyone else with him other than maybe Mikey, but he's already gone. I'm the only solution.

I lifted his sleeping body the same way that the doctor taught me to minimize the movement he would feel while I walked. I don't want to have any accidents. If he were to die right now, it would be directly my fault. I refuse to be the one responsible for my friend's death. I left the tent with him in my arms, being haunted by the sweat on his brow. The doctor had said that he would begin to feel a minor fever from the bit of infection he caught. He was able to keep it from being too extreme, but Benji would still have minor symptoms. I don't like all of the things happening to his body at once; they scare me.

I made the journey through the woods with the doctor, and it was deathly silent between us both. He wouldn't let me talk because I had to focus on not jarring Benji too hard. I don't really mind, though, because I don't want to talk to him. It's not that I don't like him, he's just the messenger, and that sucks for him since I can't put up with the message he brings. I just hope that the rest of this trip goes without a hitch.