❝I'd rather die kind and forgotten than be remembered for being brutal.❞
( *undergoing slight formatting tweaks & adjustments -- the story itself will otherwise remain readable and unchanged! )
⠀⠀⠀⠀ Had Bellamy not volunteered, he wouldn't be sent o...
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( ミ☆ ) NINETEEN it comes at night
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⠀ ⠀ ⠀ days in the arena... ⠀⠀⠀ 1 ⠀ ⠀ ⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀"If it really is an aquifer we're standing on," Demetria is saying several clicks out from their last location, "what is it we're looking for, exactly?"
⠀⠀⠀⠀"Look for any distortions on the horizon," Kip declares, being as he is their unofficial guide — for now. "Water evaporates."
⠀⠀⠀⠀With a breath and the wiping of sweat off his brow, Kip unstraps his backpack from his shoulders and drops it with a thump against the cracked and level ground. He then lowers himself down, almost cautiously, to sit beside an already crouching Bellamy.
⠀⠀⠀⠀"Hey," Kip whispers across to him, "get anything good in there?"
⠀⠀⠀⠀Bellamy, taking stock of the supplies in his own pack, stops to rest his hand on one knee with a huff. "Other than this?" He turns the knife he'd gotten from the District Three male tribute over in his free hand. He still hasn't stopped to think about it. Can't. Won't. "Not really, no. Just some matches, a tab of water purifiers — I think. A coil of paracord," — he pulls back the flap of his pack to reveal a blanket made of a thin grey cotton — "and this."
⠀⠀⠀⠀"A blanket? In this heat?"
⠀⠀⠀⠀"There's also this canteen here, but..." Bellamy picks the metal canteen out, unscrews the cap, turns and shakes it upside down... "Empty."
⠀⠀⠀⠀"Bummer."
⠀⠀⠀⠀A thin little shadow of a cloud rolls in above them. Craning his neck and breathing in skyward, Bellamy revels in its shade — a small reprieve from the desert sun. Then it passes, and he is once again a man on fire.
