Little lies - NEWT

{2.11}

EDEN SCRAMBLED DOWN THE HILL as far as Winston had fallen. She lifted up his head from the sand and kept it at an angle that would make breathing the easiest for him, despite the fact that he could scarcely breathe in the first place."What do we do?" Theresa asked frantically and every head turned to Eden for an answer. She thought for a long moment, watching the rapid movements of Winston's chest. She quickly decided that they would fashion a stretcher that would be adequate enough to carry him across the desert. Eden didn't quite know all that went into making the bed, it looked to be a collection of various different scraps that they found amongst the rubble that they had just walked upwards. That plus a stretched sheet became a stretcher that Winston was then carried onto. The Stretcher itself was carried by two handles at the front, the bottom dragging across the floor. So they all took it in turns to take a handle. Minho and Thomas took the first half an hour. 

Eden stopped completely when it was about her turn. As she had been at the front of the group, she sat down in the sand and took a brief break until they caught up to where she was. Minho looked especially relieved when she started walking back toward him, ready to take the arm of the stretcher as Newt took the side from Thomas. Only when she had just about grasped onto the handle, Frypan's hand swopped underneath hers and took it before she could. "Not with your dodgy shoulder, can't have you getting hurt even more," he reasoned as she frowned at him, not moving a muscle.

"Fry-" she began but was cut off by Frypan's deliberate coughing - during which he started to walk off with the stretcher in hand. She quickened her steps, catching up to the three of them quickly. "Fry, you don't need to do that."

"Newt can you hear something?" he asked sincerely, turning all his attention away from her and toward Newt instead. Eden did appreciate the gesture but she felt awful that the others all had to carry Winston and she didn't just because of a stupid injury that didn't even hurt - that much- anymore. The stabbing pain had numbed to a dull ache that spread through her shoulder at the most random times.

Newt laughed, fighting the instinct to look toward Eden, "I don't hear anything."

"Oh very funny," she sighed, quickening her walk so there was enough gap between them that they would not trip over each others feet - which could have been catastrophic for poor Winston who was still deeply struggling to catch a breath. It only worsened the more the wind picked up, Just before she reached Aris, she turned and continued loudly, "Thank you Fry."

During the walk that seemed to never end, the mountains only getting further away, they walked past the tallest bridge she had ever seen - not that she had seen many bridges. It was odd to think that the entire area that they were walking through would have been covered in water. Mh, water. Her mouth dried even further at the thought. She did not take a swig out of their dwindling supplies though. The wind force grew expontarly, to a rate that carried clumps of sand straight up into the gales that blew fiercely in every direction. The sand scratched at their faces, irritated their eyes and only made a difficult walk harder. Everyone pulled various fabrics around their faces or above their heads to try and shelter themselves from this slicing sand, it had little effect. "We have to find shelter!"

"In there!" Following direction, the group's walk quickened somewhat as they headed toward a small building that still stood at the edge of the city line. They had to go back on themselves a little but no one cared at all, they just craved the shelter that would stop the wind from scraping against their faces. All eight people huddled into this small building, pretty much shoulder to shoulder as they sat on the floor to try and avoid the sand blown in through the long ago shattered windows.

Some slept, some ate and others talked quietly amongst themselves to pass the time. They did not know how long the sand storm would last but hoped it would only be for a few hours, they did not have the time to waste. Eden however mostly remained silent as she sat awake, just reliving every moment of the past few days in order to process it completely. For a while it had felt like her brain was doing catch up, like reality wasn't reality and like she was almost watching her own movements from up above. She had no explanation for it, simply hoped that reliving life and the passing of time would help with the unknown phenomenon.