Hypnotise Ultimatum

Living life

I woke up next to the remnants of the fire. The sun was shining through the trees and a few birds chirped in the distance. I was still at the hiding place in the woods.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching behind me and quickly scrambled to my feet. I whipped around and stared into the face of Nico. I stood ready to fight.
"Hey! Hey!" he said quickly. "It's okay! I'm okay. You got me normal again, remember?"
Oh yeah. I forgot about that.
I lowered my hands and stood there, dumbfounded. It worked. It actually worked. I sank down onto the ground.
Nico walked over and sat down next to me.
"Thanks, by the way," he said. "It's nice to be normal again."
"Yeah," I said, smiling.
I explained everything that happened to me. How I was left behind and found by Mr Adams and the infiltration we then attempted.
Then I thought of something.
"Why didn't I put weird stuff in you head again? Why could I fight it?"
"Well, my theory is that the instructions you got weren't permanent," He said, slowly. "I think that they are starting to wear off. You were just able to get me out."
"That means that I'll start being able to use hypnosis again," I said, feeling hopeful.
Suddenly, I felt so relieved. Everything felt alright for a moment. Unfortunately, it was a short moment.
My stomach growled loudly.
"Oh yeah, I got us some food," Nico said, turning to pick something up. "After you kind of... got me out, you passed out instantly. I was able to catch you before you hit the ground. I got the ropes off me after a while with no one to kick my legs from under me when I tried. You were completely out, so I let you sleep and also took a short nap. I woke up a few hours ago and felt hungry, so I went to get something to eat."
He lifted up two sandwiches and a big bag of chips.
"There's a kind of travel shop a while away from here, so I decided to go there. Unfortunately, I didn't have any money, so..."
"So you stole it," I finished. I was kind of upset about it, but I was so hungry that I didn't really care. "Oh well."
I grabbed one of the sandwiches and bit into it. It was so good to have something nice to eat again. The place we just escaped from only gave us 'the necessities to keep us healthy'. I didn't know necessities had to taste so bad.
Nico seemed to feel the same way. We both sat there, munching in silence. After we finished the sandwiches, Nico opened the chips and we continued eating.
After we finished, we sat there for a while. We were both ignoring the big question that was on our minds and neither of us were willing to face it right there.
"Maybe we can put up a shelter," I said. "We never know how long we might need it."
"Okay," Nico said. We were both avoiding eye contact, for fear of what the other might say. "I'll get some logs or something."
He stood up and walked off. I started gathering some things we could use. I picked up the rope that was still on the ground and looked for some tools we could use from what was left over. There wasn't much, but I was able to salvage some of it.
Nico returned a while later with some long thin logs and we spent our time building shelters. Two shelters. It took a few hours for us to finish, but in the end it looked quite stable.
Nico took me to the travel shop so that we could get something to eat again. It was actually a big shop with rows of food. We quickly grabbed a few steak pies and some marshmallows for good measure. Got to get a treat somehow.
We slipped out of the store and the alarms went off, sending a shrill sound through the store. We quickly ran off with our supplies before anyone could see us.

Nico and and I sat in front of the fire, our only source of light in the dark. We held long sticks with marshmallows on and toasted them in the fire. It almost seemed so normal.
"That's enough for me," Nico said. "I think I have marshmallow coming out of my ears by now."
"Yeah," I said. "I think I'm also reaching my limits."
We lay back, looking up. We couldn't see the stars, since the trees were so dense.
"We won't be able to steal from the same place forever," I said suddenly.
"I guess not," Nico replied.
"We probably can't stay here forever either."
"Yeah."
I sat up. "So, what are we gonna do now?" I finally asked the question we were both thinking of. I couldn't ignore it anymore.
"I have no idea," Nico said, sitting upright.
"We have to do... something," I said hesitantly.
"Like what?" Nico said, staring at me. "Do you want to just go march in there again and get captured?"
"No!" I exclaimed. "I just... I just have to get them out."
"How do you plan on doing that?" Nico asked. "They'll catch you out again!"
"At least I'm trying to do something!" I shouted. "At least I went in there and tried to save someone, but all I got was-"
I stopped myself for a second, but then said softly, "Was you."
We were both standing by that point. Nico was rooted on the spot.
"I see," he almost whispered. "I was probably your last choice for someone to save. Not your friend, not your teacher, not even someone who likes you. Just a guy who annoys you at school."
He silently walked off and climbed into his shelter.
I just had to say that, didn't I? Well, it wasn't true. Was it?
The fire was fading and the night was wearing on.
I clambered into my shelter. There was barely enough space to sit in a small bundle, but at least it protected me from the wind and the rain. I lay down, curling into a small bundle. Suddenly, it felt quite cold and the ground was full of small rocks and twigs. They poked me every time I moved around.
What was I going to do? I sighed to myself. I was completely out of ideas, but wasn't I a long time ago? My last idea wasn't the most successful.
I stayed awake for a long time, wondering about the future.