The next morning, Maribel comes into the tent with two fish. "Look what I caught! They're halibut...I think."
"Yuck! It still has its head on!" I shriek in utter disgust.
"Well, duh, Jaen! Anytime you hunt something, it's still going to have a head on it. That's why we'll cut it off!"
Both fish start to wriggle around in the air and I scream. "Ew, gross! They're still alive, Maribel!"
"Well, once I sever their heads they won't be." She walks out of the tent and comes back few moments later with a wooden board and a butcher knife.
"No, you're not ab-" But before I could even finish my sentence, she lays the squirming fish down on the board and slams the butcher knife down on their necks, sending their heads and blood splatter flying across the tent. Their little smelly bodies start to jerk around violently. I sit there paralyzed with trauma from the violent slaughtering, that just befell my eyes. I feel light-headed, the world spinning around me.
"Jaen?" Maribel's voice broke through the fog of my disorientation. I look up at her through fluttering half-shut eyes, feeling confused and a bit uneasy in the moment.
"You passed out," she said in a tone colored with distress. "I suppose the fishing culture isn't your forte, huh?"
I nod sheepishly, with my cheeks searing so severely with redness from the humiliation that I could almost hear them sizzling. I shake with weakness as I try to pick myself up.
By the grace of Maribel's saving hand, I was back on my feet again. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to go on this girls' trip...at least I thought I did. Reality hit me harder than my body must've hit the ground when I landed on it! If I'm going to survive this blasted wilderness, I'm going to have to grow a pair.
"Deep breaths, Moshiin," she says to me, demonstrating the proper way to inhale and exhale. After walking me through what you would consider to be a moment of conscious meditation, she gets up and grabs two plates.
"Dinner's ready!" she sings, placing a plate before me. I look down and I see a cooked fish, eyes whitened completely and bulging out from what may be attributed to the process of boiling. I think I'm going to be sick...
YOU ARE READING
Lover
Romance"...the effects of love are similar to the effects of oxidation. They can either benefit me or harm me." Jaen Moshiin is a young woman on the quest for true love. Once a believer that love would find her, she decides to take matters into her own han...
