Deep Down

A Humble Feast

I felt a tug on the bottom of Vale's shirt, which I offered to give back to him and he refused, and I looked down to see Dakota.

"Hailey, I'm hungry. Really hungry. Devina gave me the rest of the berries when we woke up this morning but I'm still hungry." He whined that poor boy I didn't know what to do. 

"I know, we all are." I wasn't sure about how else to respond. 

We've all been walking for a couple of hours now, and we hadn't heard anything from the soldiers, such as the pounding of heavy boots perfectly synchronized. So many questions entered my mind, what was our next move? When are we going to be able to eat? I grabbed Dakota's little hand and held it in mine, I rubbed my thumb on his finger in a calming way.

All of a sudden, Devina stopped, "Alright guys, let's stop here and take a break for a while." She said.

"Devina, could we get food soon? My tummy is hurting..." Dakota whined.

"That's why we're stopping, to try and find something to eat." She sat down, "Let's discuss what we're going to do to find something to eat."

We all followed suit and sat down, forming a circle. Dakota sat in my lap clearly ready to wolf down any food that we can get our hands on. I ruffled his hair in a loving way. 

"Can't we just get a bird or a rabbit or something?" Aiden asked, who sat next to me. 

"Aiden, I wish it was just that easy. How are we going to hunt?" She let a deep sigh.

The male picked up a stray pebble from the ground and moved it around in his hands. Dakota saw him do this and decided to find a pebble of his own to fiddle with. Once he did, he found it quite amusing.  As we sat there in silence, something came to mind.

"How about you three go around the area and try to find some game while Dakota and I try to find something around here?" I spoke up and suggested, breaking the silence.

"But what if something happens? You two are the youngest of the group that we have here." Vale said concerningly.

"Just stay close enough by that we could hear if something happens to any of us. You won't be far, so don't worry. Besides, Dakota and I could very much protect ourselves." Dakota cut it with a small 'hmph', "Plus the way they walk shakes the whole ground I'm sure that we'd be able to all hear it and you guys can just come back here." I pointed out.

"Let's do it, we need food and water or we won't be able to survive much longer. We don't have much of a choice here." Devina agreed.

Vale, Aiden, and Devina went along to find us, if we're lucky enough, a bird or two. I stood up and Dakota stood up as well, taking hold of my right hand, and his left carried the basket that previously held berries. We walked along the little area we made for ourselves. As we were walking we found a bit of bush that held different berries of sorts. All of a sudden Dakota started popping berries into his mouth that I had no idea if they were poisonous or not. 

At first, this had alarmed me, but he assured me that it was okay since is ability is very closely related to nature. He and Devina both seemed tighter to nature than the rest of us, I had to trust him. He kept on putting berries in his mouth and it took me a while to not panic while he was doing this. 

With every berry that he ate, poisonous or not, his eyes shined bright, knowing that he had one little thing at a time in his stomach. He let me know which berries were okay for everyone so we could pick the bushes that held those berries. Soon enough our basket was filled with different colored berries.

We went back to our little spot and I took off the shirt that Vale lent me and layed it down, serving it as a little something to put the basket on so that way bugs couldn't get to it so easily. He set the basket down and sat beside it, every now and then he would snatch a berry and I would pretend not to notice him. So innocent and sweet, how could those people be so cruel?

"Hailey, do you think that we'll be okay?" The small boy asked, drawing shapes in the dirt with a small twig.

"Of course we will be," I said, trying not to sound too uncertain.

"And we'll always be together, right?"

"Always."

He held out his pinky finger, waiting for me to wrap mine around his. He was waiting for a pinky promise that we'd always be together; I smiled and sealed the promise. Times were hard for everyone at the moment but for a minute the two of us were able to forget that. This is kid had something so entrancing about him.

Another few minutes passed and we heard a rustle and the sound of light footfalls. Seconds later we saw the trio come back, two squirrels and a rabbit is what they had caught. I saw Dakota turn his head, not wanting to see the dead animals.

"How'd you manage to get that?" I questioned them.

"Well, you see it's a process of being fast and quiet; at the same time." Aiden chuckled while raised a rabbit that we must have caught by the ears. "Not to mention that my brother here can basically shoot ice bullets," he roughly patted Vales back, "Then we have Devina who can capture things with her nature powers ohhhh." He wiggled his fingers and Devina rolled her chocolate orbs.

"Well we obviously cannot light a fire, it'll give our position away." Said, Devina. 

"We have to find a way to skin them, too," Vale added.

All of a sudden Devina took an innocent little flower and grabbed it, making it grow thorns as big and sharp as knives. Before I knew what was happening she dropped to her knees and was using that thorn to skin them. I joined Dakota in his little event in turning away from the scene that was happening.

Vale told us that it was okay for us to look and we turned cautiously. Now the next challenge. Cooking raw meat. Devina threw the skinned animal to Aiden, who heated up his hands to a temperature that cooked them and they did this one by one. They seemed to notice the shirt and put the cooked meat on that.

Soon we were all sitting down around the shirt. While Devina was cutting the meat from the animals, everyone was staring at it. Making sure to get every single bit of meat off of each bone. She gave a whole squirrel to Dakota, even though we could all tell that he wanted it badly, he refused to take a whole animal for himself. 

Devina gave him a glare that told him to just eat it. That glare gave me shivers down my spine and it wasn't even directed toward me. Soon enough the small boy was eating a cooked squirrel and a handful of berries. The rest of us divided the food evenly but made sure to take only a little bit of berries so we had some with us until our next meal.

It wasn't much and it wasn't the best, but we all had a feast.