Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 3 - Ferguson's Unrest (R13)

WINTER REVOLUTION - 3

It became an investment of attitude the day the Darlings came.

The day, in all of its ashen skied glory, was one of no particular difference. Six days they'd spent on the same campground, and for six days they'd toiled for sustenance and foraged for food. Reuben himself wasn't of much use for outings - he was "far too old" and "too easily felled" by exhaustion and ache to be able to participate. He'd spent his time taking stock of their items, setting aside equal rations, and all in all, being the sitter of the situation.

It was routine. He was used to it, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Since the first day, he'd been forced into a certain sort of solitude. Lowell, apparently, had violated a rule through his means of stopping Tarek the first day everybody met. He was sent back to the toxum alone.

That wasn't bad. He was grateful they'd taken him away. It wasn't his own decision to bring the kid along, but now he could rest easy knowing Lowell was, for the most part, out of harm's way. He looked too much like his mother. Besides, the little house was covered by a dowry - he wouldn't have to worry about earning his roof. Food, maybe. Not the roof. All was well.

But he didn't like the quiet.

Nestled back in a corner of the campground was where he sat, various piles of leftover supplies (mostly odd smelling vegetables and bruised fruits) scattered at his feet. A clipboard had been supplied to him by Zaccary, and a little stick of some black material used to scratch down numbers. These were cast aside, however, for he'd taken the liberty to have a break. When he rose, a groan came out of him, and when he stretched, his bones popped.

"Oh, that's gross," he said dully, shaking his arms out. No one was around to hear him talk to himself. "I should really look into a job where I'm not sitting and looking down for three hours straight. Shit hurts."

He meant to take a walk around the encampment when a holler from a distance indirectly warned him to stay where he was. And, for the fifth time that day, he sighed, for it was undoubtedly a result of the argument that'd begun before the sun came. The regular scavengers had been sent out while the poskas went at each other's throats but now it seemed they'd all made a return.

That meant Reuben had to sit his fragile little ass right back on that overturned bucket for the next three hours.

He found an excuse to leave.

Quickly, he gathered up the day's rations in its designated bucket. He hugged it as he walked to the camp's center. As he approached, he could've sworn he heard Miriam calling Zaccary a few rather cringe-worthy things - but, despite the elderly gasp that would've been expected out of him (as many things were), he moved past it and placed the bucket down on a flat boulder.

The scavengers, the foragers, the looters - whatever you wanted to call them - eyed him peculiarly, as if they couldn't quite understand why he was there to begin with. They knew he was in charge of divvying up what they had, but that was as far as the familiarity went.

It wasn't too different from the toxum, really, but that didn't keep Reuben from recoiling his eyes from theirs. Instead, he let his dry hands scrub a smudge off the ring on his finger as he said, quietly, "Someone get a poska. It's time to eat."

A few people managed to hear, but most ignored him, all but one young looking boy with a rather mild look set upon his face. Reuben strained to remember his name - Hop, Scotch, Leap? Froggy? Whatever his name was, it didn't really matter, because by the time he landed on the correct name, he'd already skipped into the tent and brought not one, but two poskas out.