Eleven

Salvation

    I blink really hard, not really registering what happened.  You. Just. Killed. A.  Person.   I slump to the ground, immersed in shame and guilt.  Am I really that heartless?  My stomach clenches and unclenches, the world slowly spinning above me.  I get up, grasping a tree for support.  The cut on my arm is bleeding horribly.  Just need to make to camp, I think. Find Rylan and Cypress. Get bandage. I begin my slow trek back.

   When I reach camp, I fumble for my backpack.  I unravel a strip of... linen, is it? Whatever it is, it looks expensive.  I tear a good sized piece off and wrapped it sloppily around my cut to stench the blood.  Then, I grab my stuff and climb over the wall for the second time today.  

   As I make my way through the maze of trees, a hand reaches over and touches my shoulder. 

"Hey."  I spin around, expecting some Careers or something. 

"Cypress!" I half-shriek, half-exclaim.  Behind her, Rylan stands, with a sort of amused expression on his face. 

"Javier?" He questions, and I meet his eye and nod slightly.  He seems to understand, because he nods too.

    We start wandering around meaninglessly.  I really have no idea where we are going, but I play along.   My stomach growls, and I realize I haven't eaten yet.  Cypress seems to understand, because she reaches in to her bag and pulls out some dried fruit  and hands some to each of us.  I munch greedily on my combination of apples, raisins, and some exotic tasting fruit I have never seen before. 

"What do we do now?"  I ask.

"Survive."  Cypress says it like it's obvious.

"How, exactly?" Rylan wonders, and no one  really seems to know the answer to that.

We are walking in to particularly large clearing, possibly the same one with the animal and I hear the faint sound of the river nearby.  I hear a thump behind us and I turn around, knife out.  Celeste, North and Orion are sort of right behind us.  Before I know it, North is standing over me, holding knife above my throat.

Game over, I think. I lose. But then, I honestly don't know how it happened, but an arrow is protruding through chest suddenly.  He collapses. A cannon fires. I just sort of sit there, trying to understand. So.. North is dead.  I am not. Okay. Okay okay okay.... what? How? My mind is a swirling whirlpool of confusion, sucking me in.  Well... I think I should get up now, I think to myself. So I do, pushing North's corpse away and Johanna Mason is standing a few feet away, holding a crossbow.

"What?" I say.

"Wow. Tactful, aren't you?" She laughs, in a sort of sarcastic way.  "Come on. Move. Let's go.  They're waiting."

Cypress and Rylan emerge from who-knows-where.

"What?" Rylan exclaims.

"Bllaagghh..." Johanna says, "What do they teach in school these days? Whatever. Move it."

We follow her numbly to the hovercraft nearby.  Amid all this confusion, my brain knows this, at least: We are saved.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>FIN<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Author's note: ...And we're done. :' )

Cover by the amazing @KhrisZayn22!