Lavender

Liz

Charlotte stopped talking and the men cheered. I was scared. Target? Dispose? Are we killing people? We are definitely killing people. I tried to stand tall as the blonde man from before grabbed me and we walked back to camp. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Orville. What's yours?"

"Link."

"Cool."

"Am I going with you to 'dispose' of those guys?"

"You'll probably stay back with Charlotte. You can't keep up. No offense."

"Trust me, none taken. I've had enough action for my lifetime. I just want to be back home."

"Boring."

I laughed. "Maybe for you! Hey, why is there no women here?"

"There sometimes is. But Charlotte usually picks whoever is okay with being in these conditions. Sleeping on the ground, murdering random people without questioning it, occasionally fucking our God, eating whatever we can hunt or gather. We have one woman at camp right now. Her name's Liz. You can talk to her if you want. She might be nice to you since you're a guest."

"Okay I have to ask- 'Fucking god?'"

"Oh yeah, she gets bored sometimes. Chooses a random guy. It also keeps up morale, weirdly enough."

"Huh. I'd like to talk to Liz, if I could."

He stands up and extends a hand to me. I take it and stand. Every campfire has multiple people around it. Except for one. There's a small woman at it, with dirt on her face and no shirt on, just a sports bra. Her pants are roughed up, her hair is buzzed. There's a cut on her arm that's oozing blood.

"Hello." I wave.

She looks up. "Hi. You're the guest, right? What was your name again?"

"Yeah. Link. And you're Liz, right?"

She nods and motions for me to sit down across from her. Orville sits too, and her hand quickly moved to her side. Then a knife quickly sticks into the log in between Orville's legs. "Yeah, I'll go." He gets up and leaves.
She stands up and wrenches the knife from the log, putting it back into her belt.

"I don't feel like going on the hunt," she said in a monotone voice, "I'll stay back with you. Make sure nothing bad happens."

-

The next day, after falling asleep next to Liz on a tarp on the ground, we woke up to an empty camp. Only the fire next to us was still going. Liz got to her feet and walked away, over the logs people sit on, through the tall grass, and off into the woods. I sat on a log and waited for her to return. I missed Diversion Mansion. I missed my soulmates. I wondered how Luther was doing.

Liz returned, holding something in her hand. As she got closer, I saw chunks of raw meat in her hand. It kinda grossed me out, but I definitely wasn't about to tell her that. She reaches the fire pit next to me and put the meat on a stick over the fire. The fire was nearly out, but when she sat down it roared to life. Charlotte appeared before us. Liz nodded at her. I looked up at the towering woman. "So, you've almost lasted two days here." She stated in her thick accent.

I nodded. She continued. "How badly do you want to go back?"

I immediately felt tears begin in my eyes. "More than anything. I was just figuring out who I was. I was just finally finding happiness. I can't wait for the week to end."

"Diversion Mansion is down on morale. Too many people are sad, it's affecting me. A god is only as strong as it's followers. It's important you return as soon as possible."

"Really?" I grinned.

"This is not out of the kindness of my heart, this is purely business. No smiling. Let's go."

She grabbed my arm and I felt a searing pain run through my body. I shut my eyes and held my tongue. When the pain stopped, I opened my eyes. I was alone. I looked around and saw I was on the steps of Diversion Mansion. I ran inside as fast as I could.