The Land After Tomorrow (Completed)

Chapter 8: Betrayal

Ian watched as his kids slept. Jasmine laid next to Blair while Blair held her close. Caleb had his eyes closed as he sat up against the wall with his knee bent and his arm over top. Bane and Emily also laid in the room. They had gotten back a few hours ago and Caleb had asked for them to stay in their room instead of the camps that laid around the house. They were tired and exhausted and deserved more than the tents for the journey. Their breaths fell with a steady rhythm except for one.

Drew was outside watching and recording how to make bread and use the campfires. Ryder watched from the kitchen window into the blackness of the night. Small light from the fire lite the night and the world entire. The camp was quiet with breaths except for those who cooked the bread and prepared for the morning meal which was in fact bread and honey.

By the time the sun had risen creating light to the world, all the flour had been used to cook bread. The camp had begun to rise, and people gradually awoke from their tents. They lined up in lines awaiting fresh bread and honey. Blair and Jasmine had awakened and were laughing on the porch watching a group of kids learn to play Twister. Their bodies twisted and turned in ways that were hard to imagine.

"Why don't you go try?" Blair asked to Jasmine.

She laughed and looked at the kids falling and twisting on the mat, "I would look stupid."

"No less than them." Blair laughed as a kid fell on his face and chuckles of laughter filled the air. "Want to play a board game?"

"Sure, I guess. I don't know how to play any."

"I'll teach you." Blair got up heading into the house. She went into the living room where there was a closet filled with games. She opened the door skimming down names in front of her eyes. Her finger touches the boxes as she skimmed down. Sorry, chutes and ladders, candy land, aggravation.... Blair touched her finger against the box. She pulled the box out from the others lifting the Sorry game to grab it.

"What are you doing?"

Blair whirled around facing Caleb. "Getting Aggravation for Jasmine."

"Cool, I'll play."

"Play what?" Emily stood in the hallway with Bane behind her.

"Aggravation." Blair responded. Blair walked past them heading onto the porch with the group behind her. "Want to play Aggravation?" she asked to Jasmine.

"I told you I don't know how to play...."

"We'll teach you," Caleb said. Blair had begun to set up the board to the left of the door where the chairs were sitting. Six different colors laid on the board and marbles in a bag with a dice.

Blair sat on the floor, "What color do you want?"

Jasmine got up from her chair and knelt next to the board. She looked at it with fascination. The differs colors, the holes in the board for the marbles, and the red dot in the middle enraptured her. "I'll take purple."

Blair spun the board around so that the purple section was facing Jasmine. Jasmine scanned the board covered in purple looking at the four-spot hole outside the line of holes. Inside, the purple looked like a ladder with another four-spot hole in the middle of the purple. The others crowded around the board taking up their colors. Blair took green, Caleb took yellow, Emily took orange and Bane took blue leaving the pink out.

"How do you play?" Emily asked.

"Start by putting four marbles into the "base". It's the one outside the actual board." Everyone grabbed their color-coded marbles and stuck them into the holes. "Then, we roll a dice and if you get a six or one you can take a marble out and put it on start. If you get a six, you can go again. You can't jump over your marbles, and to get in this inner ring you must land on the exact number to go in it. It's basically a short cut. If you can't get the exact number you just continue going through the rest of the board."