Mother Earth // Bellamy Blake

Two Creatures • 141

I rolled over in the stiff bed to face Bellamy when I woke up. He was already awake, as I expected him to be, but he seemed like he's already been up and about today. "Good morning," he greeted me.

"You've been awake for a while," I pointed out.

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep for very long. Started to look around the bunker for anything useful," Bellamy told me as he stood up from the bed.

"What'd you find?" I asked curiously as I sat up.

Bellamy motioned his head to the table on the other side of the room. He had stacked some supplies he found on there, "rope, twine, map, backpacks, canisters, weapons, weapons and more weapons."

He sifted through all the stuff on the table as he spoke to me.  "Is there an ax at least?" I quizzed.

Bellamy bent down to pick an ax up from the ground to show me that he managed to find one, "thought you'd want me to cut some wood down. I also found a barrel that could hold days worth of water, I just don't know how we'll be able to fill it and bring it back."

"That's okay, I can go fill up the other bottles today. I need to go out and set snares, good thing you found stuff for it," I moved my body to get off the bed and put my loaded belt on along with a jacket.

"I'll keep looking around the bunker today, see what we can use," Bellamy offered. "And I'll cut some wood."

"A lot of wood," I told him.

"We just need enough to keep a fire going," Bellamy responded.

"No," I corrected. "We need enough to build. I'm not staying in here longer than I need to."

"Okay," Bellamy agreed with a sigh. It was going to be a lot of work, but it was also going to be worth it. This bunker held such a dark and heavy past, we needed to get away from it. I walked over to start packing up a backpack.

"Be back before dark," Bellamy said to me as he watched me put the bag on.

"I'll only be a few hours," I confirmed then went to give him a 'see you later' kiss on the cheek. I made my way out of the bunker and started toward the lake again. I wasn't dumb, I knew that Bellamy wanted to hang back and search the bunker for the anomaly stone. There was just no point in stopping him from doing so, he'd do it anyways.

The whole way there I took stops to set up some twine traps. I saw an occasional squirrel or bird that I could have hunted myself, but I decided to leave that task for the traps to do. I couldn't get myself to throw a knife at them, so I let them be for now. Additionally, I would collect anything edible from the plants around me. I felt relieved to be able to recognize the nature here, unlike Sanctum.

When I finally made it to the lake, I pulled out the three bottles Bellamy had scavenged. Once I finished filling the last one up, I could faintly hear hooves crunching in the gravel by the lake's water. I whipped my head over to see what was in my presence.

"Oh hell yeah," I whispered to myself as I stared at two horses gulping the fresh water. I don't know how it was possible for horses to still exist, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that they did and we could really use their help. I traded the canisters out for the three separate rope strands I brought along. I got up and picked some tall grass and yellow dandelions to hopefully lure the horses in.

I kept my demeanor calm as I approached the two beasts, but they didn't seem to care that I was there. Neither of them got spooked when I got close to them, even though they stopped drinking to survey me. I held out the plants I grabbed to the horse closest to me. The horse didn't hesitate to eat it from my hand. While she munched, I carefully tied the rope around her neck. Then I moved over to the other horse to do the same exact thing.

Once they were both secured by the rope, I began to lead them back to the bunker. I checked all the traps I had set on my way back, two of the seven snares caught rabbits. I reset the ones I needed to and continued walking. I was surprised how accepting and calm the horses were.

I spotted Bellamy outside when I arrived, he was chopping wood like he said he would do. I whistled to him to get his attention and noticed the massive pile of wood he made. I was gone for most of the day, so he had the time to make a lot of progress. His eyes went wide and a surprised smile displayed on his face when he saw what I returned with.

"I shouldn't be surprised you found horses," Bellamy scoffed as he jogged up to me. He grabbed the rope to one of the horses and brought the being over to a tree closer to the bunker entrance.

I held up the two rabbits I caught to show him, "I found dinner too."

We finished up tying off the horses when Bellamy said, "scored some other stuff in the bunker you'll be happy about. Clothes, fabrics and crop seeds. I think they were left over from when the hydrofarm stopped producing."

"I would have never expected coming back here would be so easy," I stated as Bellamy took the rabbits from me.

"Don't speak too soon," Bellamy teased. When we walked over to the small fire he had started, I handed him one of my knives and sat down in the dirt.

"I'm guessing you didn't find the stone," I spoke to him as he started to skin the rabbits.

"Nope," he sighed while keeping his focus.

"Our friends are smart and they'll come looking for us. We'll see them all again," I tried to radiate some optimism.

"I know," Bellamy replied, but he didn't sound too convinced.

"You finally shaved," I changed the topic to his smooth face. He looked so much younger now, he hasn't had a clean cut since before the Ring.

Bellamy let out a little chuckle, "I thought you didn't notice."

I rolled my eyes in response, "I always notice."

We sat in silence for a few moments before I decided to ask him a question I've been thinking about all day, "do you think we can go see her grave?"

Bellamy looked up at my question, "in a few days, yes, we will. I want to. We have some stuff to settle here before we go."

His quick response let me know that he already knew I was going to ask this. I nodded to him, he was right. We had a lot to do here before we took off. Most of what we had to do was thanks to me since I did not want to stay in that bunker, but now with the horses it will be a lot easier to get done.