The Day Before the Dark Returned

Chapter 3

I was paralyzed with fear. when I hit the ground I stumbled around until I found my footing. I looked up at the rest of my team slowly floating down. My head started to spin with fear so I gave up on trying to walk and sunk to the ground and pulled my knees to my chest.
Whelp I'm here. My grave.
I thought.
I watched my team hit the ground and stumble, until they gave up like me and sat down.
"This is weird," said Harley "I took all the classes on skydiving and they didn't say anything about being dizzy when you land."
"Me too," said faith "not a word."
When I turned to look at faith I noticed something behind her.
Something black.
I squinted my eyes to see it better but it was no use I couldn't figure out what it was.
"What are you stareing at star?" Scarlett looked at me.
I pointed in the direction of the thing.
I stood up useing the tree beside me as a guide and slowly walked towards it stumbling only a little.
As I got closer I saw it was one out of five backpacks.
I looked around the backpack and saw on each one there was a name tag. I began to read them from left to right. Each one had one of our names on it. I walked back to the one in the middle and looked at the name tag agin. They didn't use my nickname like they normally do back at the academy. They used my real name. I folded the tag up and stuck it in my pocket. I shook my head.
I guess sarge had something to do with this.
I spun on my heels and faced the others.
"It's bookbags for us," I said.
"Well what do they have in them," said Charlie.
"Gosh Charles making me do all the work," I said smiling.
Harley and faith snicker.
"It's Charlie," he said standing up to help me his hazel eyes sparkling.
"What are you laughing at Harley Davison," I said with a smirk.
Harley slowly stood up.
Harley's kind of handsome, in a bad boy way, he has dark brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. His ears are pierced with black studs, and his jawline is sharp enough to cut a piece of wood.
I guess he caught me staring and cocked an eyebrow. While faith and scarlet died laughing about my previous joke.
I focused my attention on the book bags agin and opened mine slowly.
I pulled out a mess kit,rope,several lock back knives, 2 changes of clothes, and my makeup bag from the training center. I opened up the second pocket and saw several types of cloth, thread and more rope. In the smallest pocket there was soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste and more hygiene products.
I looked at everyone else and saw they had gotten the same thing for the most part except faith was the only other one to get makeup. Scarlet was naturally pretty with her red hair and pale skin and didn't need makeup. Faith had pretty blonde hair and tan skin she was pretty but she struggled with acne so they sent her base to cover it up. Then there was me I had brown hair that never did what you wanted it to do, my pale skin that looked decent enough with my hair but always had this weird look to it. The only pretty thing on my face was my eyes, they were a jewel hazel. I picked up my book bag and went back to the clearing where we landed. I looked up at the sun. It was about right in front of me.
"Hey guys do you want to camp here for tonight," I yelled at them.
"I don't see why not," Harley said.
"We probably should it's almost sunset," Charlie said.
I sat down and rolled out my sleeping bag on a pile of leaves to make the ground softer. I took out my mess kit and rummaged through my pockets and found a gum wrapper.
"What are you doing," Charlie said walking over to me.
"Starting a fire," I said bluntly.
"With a gum wrapper," he asked almost annoyed.
"Yes," I said defensively.
I looked up at Charlie, he was everything you want from a guy. His shoulders were strong and bold but soft at the same time. His face was stern and quiet. His eyes sparkled like a diamond. His hair was adorable messed up or fixed.
"Watch this," I said almost embarrassed about what I had just thought about him.
I peeled the metallic part away from the paper part. I looked for my automatic scrub brush that came with my makeup. I took the battery out and took the metallic piece and folded it into a strip then attached each end to each side of the battery. I moved it to where the middle touched the paper part of the gum wrapper. It instantly caught fire. I grabbed pine needles and threw it on the fire.
"Can you get me some wood," I looked up at Charlie.
"I'm yeah, so where did you learn that from." He asked picking up sticks from around the area.
"I don't know," I said looking down. When I was little my parents died in a house fire. The foster family I was sent with was very harsh. So one day I grabbed my things and ran away, I learned a lot about living life in the wilderness with what I had. Charlie smiled at me, shook his head and sat down next to me slinging his arm over his knees.
"So were are we going tomorrow," he asked.
"What do you mean?" I said looking up at him.
"Well, we can't stay here," he said furrowing his eyebrows.
I looked around at everyone else setting up there sleeping areas and shrugged.
He watched me for a little bit then reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.
"I found this in my bag," he said passing it to me.
I opened up the folded piece of paper. It looked like a map with two Xs on it, one was red and the other was green.
Charlie smiled at me then pointed to the green x.
"That's where we are at."
I nodded slowly to let him know I understood.
"I guess we're going to the other x," I said starting to turn around. When I turned my head to face him. I guess I thought he was sitting farther away because when I turned my head my face was less than an inch away from his. I backed up and so did he.
"I-I didn't mean to be so close," he stammered.
"It's fine I didn't know you were that close," I said reassuringly "Well I'm gonna go to bed."
"Ok good night," he smiled sheepishly and got up and walked away.