Author Games: World Seasons

Task Four - Oh So Grassy - Christmas Tributes

[Gamemaker's Note - Robots/Alithia. Okay. Well, this sounds really stupid but we've been suffering some serious communication issues. Every so often, Jack deletes everything in the inbox - no, I don't know why - which means that any entries sent before a specific time, I have been unable to access. I'm sure Jack has them on his computer somewhere. So 'have not received' does not necessarily mean 'has not handed in'. I'll repeat this every so often because  I doubt everybody will read this]

Rudolf Snow:

“Do you think he’s dead, or just asleep?”

“He’s obviously asleep! His back isn’t moving at all, which means he’s not breathing. Either that or he’s held his breath for a couple of hours, which isn’t humanly possible.”

“It’s kind of unfortunate he had to die behind out tree though…”

“…Should we just leave him there?”

“Well I’m not moving him, and I’m not letting you two either.”
Clover, Jeff and I decided to find another tree after the whole Buttons incident. About an hour (according to Clover’s guestimation powers) after we got to the tree we heard some stumbling from the other side of the tree, and a heavy thud. We found the Jack boy from Halloweens face down on the ground and I was so confused, but after Clover’s count of a couple hours, we’ve decided he’s dead.

And now here we are, with a dead tribute behind our tree. Since I know what the jam does now Clover trusts me to hold it. I clomp close to my body, in case anyone tries to steal it. 

“So…What now?” Jeff asks.

“Can we have a roll yet?” I ask, and Jeff automatically perks up.

“Can we!? Please Clover!?”

Clover throws her head back and overdramatically sighs. “Jefferson, hand me one of your rolls.” she says, and holds her hand out. Jeff sends me a confused glance and places one of his bread in her hand. “Rudolf?”

“Yes?” I reply, and look in her leafy green eyes.

“Give me your machete.” she demands, and hold out her other hand.

I take it out happily and place it into her outstretched hand. She scrunches her eyes up and scrutinizes the roll and raises the machete in the air. The Clover Whisk chops the roll into three pieces within five seconds.

“Yay!” Jeff and I cheer at the same time, and she hands each of us our piece of roll. The two of us devour our rolls like hungry children while Clover takes a dismissive bite of hers every now and then.

Something that sounds somewhat like rustling leaves flows into my ear, and I look to Clover. She seems to be listening to and has an alert look in her eyes. We hear it again and she orders me to put the jam down and rushes us into the nearest bush.

“Who is it?” I whisper, in the volume that Clover told us to talk in whenever we’re hiding.

“April Joy.” Clover replies, “The overly happy girl from Easter’s. I knew she’d eventually fall for the jam.”

“Ooooh.” Jefferson replies once the girl picks up the jam jar. 

Is she going to take some? I don’t know, but it’s become quite exciting whenever someone picks up the jam jar now.

“Sucker.” Clover laughs once April scoops up some jam and shoves it in her mouth. As usual it only takes a few seconds before whoever it is starts to wiggle and spazz out. She falls to the ground, and the three of us stalk out of the bush and to her body.

“Fucking bitch!” Clover growls at April. I frown, I don’t understand why Clover’s always so mean to dead people. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. “She ate too much of the jam!”

“Is there any left?” I ask hopefully.

“Not enough!” Clover responds, and angrily shoves the pot back onto the jam jar. She mumbles something whilst kicking the body of the girl who was once April Joy…at least I think that’s what her name was.

“I’m thirsty.”

Clover and I turn our heads to Jeff, who just declared that he was thirsty. My head tilts a bit as I think. Am I thirsty?... Well I haven’t had anything to drink for a few days? Or was it only one day… I don’t know… I think I’m thirsty. Yeah, I’m thirsty.

“Me too.” I say nodding my head.

Clover places a finger on her lips and looks around. “Yeah.” she says, “We need fucking water.”

“To the water!” I cry out happily.

“To the water!” Jeff repeats.

“Not that loud!” Clover growls!

“Yes Clover.” we whisper.

❄❄❄

“I’m still thirsty…” Jeff whines, dragging his feet along. The sun got really hot, and water’s running down my face. I dunno what’s happening though, stuff like this never happened in the Christmas District.

“Do you see a lake anywhere around here!?” Clover snaps, throwing her glance towards him. Clover told me it’s called sweating. And her hair is basically stuck to her face with this ‘sweat’.

“No…I guess not.” I reply, and stick my head down. The sun’s really, really hot. I’ve never felt the sun so hot before…

Everything that happens next is really confusing, and I don’t even know what really happens. All I remember is some man in the sky talking about grass, and how it’s day three. And I can’t even remember the details.

Suddenly I’m in the sky and thrown onto the ground somewhere and then I’m all alone.

All alone, and I have no idea where I am. The sun isn’t hot anymore, and I quickly realize that everything’s gone dark.

Oh my gosh! The grass is like tall! Really, really, really tall! It towers my small frame and I have no idea where I am. I try to walk through the grass, but it doesn’t work. The grass is stronger than me and I can’t push through it.

I decide to take out my machete and start hacking at the grass. It jerks and falls down, slamming the ground beside where I walk. This just keeps happening and nothing new happens. Until suddenly my machete chops something that’s not grass. It’s an…arrow! It’s an arrow!

My eyes look into another pair a few inches above me. It’s a boy, but that’s all I register before my instincts tell me to swing my machete at him. The silver blade of my machete meets with his neck and bright red blood falls from the wound.

“You little fucker!” the boys growls and lunges at me. He’s on top of me, and tries to stab me with another arrow. I don’t know what good that’ll do him… I always thought bows were meant to be shot. “Just stay still a little! Wh-“ he shouts, but stops in mid-sentence. He rolls off of me, my machete sticking out of his chest. 

I shrug and pull the machete out of his chest as the cannon sounds. It’s all bloody and gross.

“Ewwww!” I whine when the blood doesn’t wipe off on the grass. “Ewwww…”

Frantically I wave around the machete, hoping the blood will come off. All of a sudden a scream echoes as I’m waving it. “Agggghhhhh!” I mumble as I see more blood on it. I trip over what I think is a body as I’m still trying to get blood off of it. I sigh deeply and sit down against the grass once I realize the blood’s never coming off of it.

❄❄❄

I have no how long it’s been, but I’m still hacking the grass down. The blood’s turned brown and crusty on the sword, so I’ve given up on trying to get it off after I killed a third person with it. I didn’t bother trying to register who they are, because I didn’t think it mattered.

But still as I’m chopping the grass there’s one thought that haunts me; Where’s the jam jar?