Fathom [On Hold]

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven: Shadow

 "Rise and shine, sunshine," is what I wake up to. My hands groggily fly up to my face, warding off the opposite pair that is shaking my shoulders. I blink away the lingering bleariness of sleep, and Jaycen's face comes into focus. I yawn loudly. 

"Did you behave yourself?" I ask, my voice slightly rough from sleep. Last night I was apprehensive about leaving the two alone with each other given their history, but it appears that no permanent damage was done. At least I hope so. 

"I always behave myself," Jaycen says innocently. I roll my eyes at him and pull myself up into a sitting position. I stretch my arms over my head and yawn once again, arching my back so that it cricks a few times. 

"I don't suppose there's any food, is there?" He purses his lips together and grimly shakes his head. And there lies yet another problem: no source of food. Starvation isn't a good way to go. It's a slow and agonizing process, one I would not wish upon anybody. 

"Where's Saoirse?" 

"Peeing in the bushes," he says. I grimace. Jaycen is a lot of things - eloquent is not one of them.  

"I heard that!" a familiar voice calls, and a few seconds later Saoirse emerges from the brush. 

"It wasn't a secret," Jaycen mumbles, and rises from his crouch. I too stand up, and fold my arms across my chest. I shiver in the cool morning air and run a hand through my hair, damp from the dew clinging to the grass. It's early. Too early. The sun is just barely up, shining weakly through the dense leaves of the trees. Although I suppose the sooner we get moving the better. For all we know we could be moving towards a pack, not away from one, but staying in one place won't exactly help us either. 

In other words, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. But we're taking a gamble. 

"What now?" Saoirse asks quietly. I shrug, not lifting my eyes to hers. 

"We should get moving. Planning isn't going to help us," Jaycen says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "We need to find water." 

"And how exactly do we do that?" Saoirse says. 

"I have no idea. How did you get water back at camp?"

"Someone dug a well. It was inside the boundaries though..." Jaycen swears loudly. I scrounge up the little saliva I have in my mouth and gulp, hoping it will help relieve my dry throat a bit. It doesn't. 

"You can hunt," I point out, and Jaycen nods. 

"Yeah, I can. Unfortunately I can't make water appear out of thin air," he says.

"Anyhow, we need to get going," Saoirse says. I nod in agreement and pull my pack up onto my back. 

"Which way?" I ask. Jaycen shakes his head slightly, and turns to the right. Saoirse and I follow him wordlessly. 

As we walk I set about scrubbing off what's left of the paint on my face. Black dust coats my fingers as it crumbles off. Figures. Just as I start to get used to somewhere else I am driven out of there. 

What happened back at camp was nothing short of genocide. I cringe when my thoughts stray to Lani. I can't think of her without the picture of her mangled and bloody chunks of flesh disappearing into the mouth of the nex flashing in my mind's eye. Her and nameless other members of the tribe brutally murdered. Everything they've ever done, said, felt, thought ... gone in a matter of seconds. For those who were lucky enough to go quickly. 

Life is fickle. Everything can change in no time at all. It's fairly common knowledge, but there are those who know and those who know. 

I don't see Jaycen stop suddenly and once again almost crash into him, but he doesn't seem to notice. His eyes are somewhere else. They scan the forest behind me, darting back and forth in search of something.