A New Virus

Ch: 4 (old)

Eight days have passed and I didn't turn into a zombie and Ninetta was proven right that the virus didn't get into my bloodstream. People were still talking about my eyes glowing a bright grey, although most had pushed it off as a trick of the light since it hasn't happened since.

I drew back my bow and aimed at the target in front of me before releasing the arrow. It hit the target about an inch south of the center. I've been practicing with a bow since I was 10 years old, 6 years of practicing and I've never not even once hit the center with an arrow. However, this was the closest I have ever come to hitting the center.

"You'll get it one day!" I heard Sarah encourage me. I watched as she drew back her recused bow and within seconds, hit the center of her target. The arrow had perfectly split another arrow that was in the center of the board. I heard clapping behind me as Sarah turned around and took a bow to the audience that had formed near us. I rolled my eyes as Sarah went to get another arrow and aimed her bow before releasing the arrow. This time the arrow hit the target slightly above the last arrow that she had shot.

I took another arrow and pulled it back before releasing it, it hit the target exactly an inch above the center. I let out a puff of breath as I took out another arrow. This time when I aimed, I didn't aim at the center, I aimed an inch below it the arrow was an inch below the first arrow I had used. I took out another arrow and aimed an inch above the center, at the second arrow I had shot. This time the arrow hit the target a few centimeters below the center of the target.

"Why does the center hate me?!" I yelled. I placed down my bow and took off towards the garden area. Maybe that would take my mind off of the target that was tormenting me. As I got closer towards the garden, I noticed that there were some plants that really needed to be picked otherwise they would no longer be any good. I grabbed a basket and started to pick some of the plants.

A few minutes later a man with grey hair and blue eyes approached me, "thanks for picking those, we weren't quite sure if they were ready to be picked yet."

"It's no problem," I told him. "It can be hard to tell sometimes when these are ripe or not considering that they are always green. The lighter shades aren't ripe, the darker shades are." I then pulled out an edible leaf and put it right beside a leaf that was a lighter shade of green. "It's hard to tell when you don't compare them."

"I see, thanks for telling me that." The man told me. "Maybe next time we will be able to notice that better."

"Hopefully," I told him. "By the way, in another week or so, they would have turned brown and crumbled up."

"Thanks for that info." The man told me before walking over to some other people who were helping to trim the garden.

I then went back to what I was doing until I filled up my basket. I took the basket over to the cooking area for the cooks to attend to them. I started to feel a pins and needles sensation slowing spreading through my body. I didn't really do anything regarding exercise today and my body was picking up on that. I started to walk towards the track that went around the inside of the palisade wall. I ran around the track a few times before I got tired of running. I came off the track and went to the dining hall as dinner would be ready soon.

I grabbed a plate and filled it with some vegetables before I sat down at a table in the corner with Sarah, my mother, my father, and Sarah's mother, Cindy.

"How was your day?" My mother asked me.

"I think the targets don't like me," I told her.

"How so?" She asked me.

I was about to tell her but Sarah beat me to it, "she shoots four arrows one landed exactly an inch below the center, the other one landed exactly an inch above the center, the third arrow landed exactly an inch below the first arrow. The fourth arrow landed below her second arrow."

"Are you Anya?" Cindy asked her daughter.

"No..." I barely heard Sarah say.

My mother laughed a little before saying, "It's quite alright Cindy."

"But still," Cindy says. "Sarah wasn't being spoken to so she shouldn't have said anything." Cindy sounded upset that Sarah had spoken out of line, but it wasn't like we were in military school. I have little idea what that is but mother once told me that it was were adults would send bad children to straighten up in the old world.

My mother looked at me before asking, "did you do anything else today?"

"I ran a few laps around the track and picked some of the plants in the garden. The plants would have been no good in a week's time." I told her.

"I honestly still don't know how you can spot those considering that you don't have Heartfire." My mother told me.

"I just can," I told her before digging into my food. The conversation mostly stopped at that point as everyone was eating their food, but a few words were spoken occasionally.

After dinner, I ran one lap around the track before I went to bed. I definitely don't want another flare up in the middle of the night. I don't really know why but my body starts to hurt whenever I don't get enough exercise, maybe it has something to do with my parents having Heartfire but I really don't know.