Chosen.

Chosen. Chapter 31

Chapter THIRTY-ONE

Hannah

Wednesday, 01/27, 5:08 AM.

The Trials: Round 3, Day 17

The deep sadness I feel rips at my chest and I roll over again trying to ignore the pain. I can tell, peeking out from underneath my blanket, the sun is barely creeping up outside in the morning sky. It's insanely, ridiculously too early for me to be awake yet.

But after another minute, and not being able to ignore the rush of emotions starting to build back up in my chest-- ugh, I can't lay here any longer, and I kick the covers off of me. It's that dull, empty feeling that I can't ever really explain, much less control. It's giving me stomach pains, though! And my heart really freakin' hurts.....like literally hurts in my chest and makes it difficult to breathe normally. "Oh, Heath, my twin. If I could take it away, I would...."

I get up as quietly as I can and slink out of the tent. Everyone else is still sleeping like rocks, which is exactly what I should be doing after the last few days we've had out here. Instead, I walk out and look around at our new temporary campsite, seeing if I can locate the source that has me up before sunrise and is making me feel like my heart is breaking.....but no such luck!

The sky is a soft grey color, and the morning dew has everything glistening with Mother Earth's fresh tears. (Or at least that's what it makes me think of with how I'm feeling right now.) The fire in the center of camp is low, but coals are still burning red. I decide to put a few more logs onto the fire to make sure it doesn't go out before the rest of the group gets up and around later on.

I take a quick look around and sadly recognize we don't have much in the way of comforts in our new spot; nothing but just a couple of tents, a handful of the equipment we once had and a few 'valuables'. But, at least we're surrounded by trees and the ground is flat. And, frankly, I am just grateful to the other families for their decision to give our family one of the remaining tents since they all understood the new struggle with Mom's health situation.

I sure do miss our old setup, though. Here we have to walk farther for fresh water, and there isn't nearly as much to scavenge on this side of the isle, which has been a bummer on both counts. But on the upside, we haven't seen any signs of those crazies or had any more pyro-antics since that horrible night when our camp was practically burned to the ground.

I finally see a trail of footprints heading deeper into the tangle of bushes and trees, and I follow their path, knowing they'll take me in the right direction. But as I'm walking, I think about what Joshua's reaction will be to my early-morning jaunt. He's definitely going to give me another lecture on going off by myself, not to mention my habit of getting lost a lot.

I can already hear him now, "Bella, are you trying to get yourself sent home?? Killed??" Or, "Por que, Bella, you're going to give me a heart attack!" The thought makes me smile a little; I like to keep him on his toes. And, honestly, if I made things too easy for him, we'd both get bored.

Then my mind drifts off on its own to when we kissed the other night in our old camp. That almost gave me a heart attack I was so surprised!!! Yeah, my first kiss was pretty special, I have to say...... I just hope that it wasn't caught on camera. Oh.....My....God!! How mortifying would that be?? Aunt Steph, all my friends....ugghhh, the WHOLE FRIGGIN' WORLD seeing me all googly-eyed in the firelight looking like a total lovesick teenager?? How will I ever deal with the humiliation of it if I am not sent to another planet???

I then think to myself, 'Hannah, you are a googly-eyed teenager with your first crush!' Well, except when we're fighting, that is....which seems like all the time. I mean, what does he expect? He really can't be my boyfriend when we don't even know if in two weeks we'll be living on the same planet! That's definitely not how he feels on the subject, though.