Apocalypse (a BFB fanfic)

The right way to catch fish

Taco at first hesitates to hug me back, but eventually wraps her arms around me. " It's good to see you TD." I hear her say. " You too." I answer her.

I haven't seen her in a years. We were old friends, pals, teammates. I missed her a lot. She let's go and I see Woody run up to me. Woody pushes me lightly forward. " DON'T EVER THCARE ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!!" He then hugs me tightly and he cry's.

" I'm sorry Woody." I say, closing my eyes. " I thought I lotht you." He says letting go of me. I wipe his tears once again, blushing and laughing.  I look over and look at Taco, smiling and waving. 

I awkwardly laugh, not really knowing what to say to her.  " It's good that I found you guys floating up that river, otherwise, you would have been dead,  I should know." 

Me and Woody look at her, Woody fascinated.  "Wait, YOU WENT DOWN THITH WATERFALL!!!"

" Yup, lost my eye because of it."  Woody looked at her with impressed, wowed eyes.  He looked like a kid looking up to their favorite actor. 

" I was about to go down to grab some fishes at the bottom of the waterfall."  Taco says.  " You wanna come?"  I look down at my slim stomach, I was hungry,  I haven't eaten in 3 days plus when I did eat, it was usually non-perishable food, pretty much anything canned. 

" Sure,"  I say,  " Why not." Taco looks at me with a half smile.  " Alright then, follow me."

She leads us into the woods.  " Just gotta grab some equipment." Taco then takes us to this little camp site, fire pit and all.  It almost looked like mine except made better. 

Taco grabs three, sharpened sticks and makes the hand gesture to follow her again.  We then go back into the woods.  I wonder how Taco was able to get out here and survive the Pains roundup 3 years ago. 

I ask, " So Taco, how did you escape?"  She looked at me confused, even stopping for a second before continuing to walk up down to the waterfall.      " What do you mean?"  She says, confused. 

" The Pain's?  Four's massive desend?"

" OHHHH!! That was the huge explosion?"

" Huh?" I look at her really confused.  Does she just not remember?  Was the Pain's established after she left? 

Taco sighs and says looking to the side, " You remember Book." 

" Of course." I say " She died in the..." I for some reason refrained from mentioning Book and the explosion that killed her.  It's not like I miss her, she was always a jerk effected by the alliance and the person that pushed our team into its own chaos filled fight.  I still can't really forgive the way she hurt taco, Ice cube, any of us really.  This all coming from someone who wasn't necessarily effected by this.  I would usually go off with my other friends if their fights were getting out of hand.  I can't imagine how Taco is dealing with this.  Always accused for doing something she never did by one she called a friend, that's gotta hurt. 

"Books dead?" Taco's eye begins to fill with a single, sorrow tear.  " Cool, cool.  Besides I'm suppose to be mad with her.  You know the whole fight,  Book thought I 'abandoned' the team after I got stuck in the jawbreaker.  She would always scold me for it.  Then, all of a sudden, she just started to be nice to me.  I would usually dismiss her like how she would dismiss me."  Taco wipes her tear and looks up, trying her hardest to smile, ignoring the fact it was almost impossible.  " Eventually I was so fed up with the whole cycle, that I just, left.  A couple days after I heard the explosion." 

I didn't know what to say.  " That's horrible Taco, but you understand now that she was just..."

" Trying to seek forgiveness,  I know that now.  Guess I was too caught up in what she did do to me to see that under all the negative, she wanted to change."  She pauses for a second and then says.  " We better go before all the fish are gone."  I could tell she was trying to refrain from talking about Book.  She was upset, but it felt sorta like she was directing it all to herself, like it was really her who abandoned the team when all she did was end up at the wrong place, at the wrong time. 

The rest of the walk down to the waterfall was in silence.  We were all pondering about something.  I was thinking about the missing piece of evidence.  We all know Four left leaving this place in ruins, but why? All of our demands had something to do with it, but one of the contestants going missing on top of the demands? That was probably enough for anyone to leave and destroy the brats who did it all to you.  It's the first time I thought of something like this.  We all knew why Four left, but who was his straw? I guess Taco leaving is just that, the last demand that sent Four into a  frenzy.

We make it to the bottom the waterfall. I first notice the height it was sorely lacking. I think I expected the waterfall to be taller than it actually was making it more of a threat. On the water, me and Woody probably thought it was like 40ft when in reality, it was less than half of that length.

Me and Woody probably would have survived, but we still would probably have some minor broken bones, making the journey to where we're going harder than it already is with Leafy following us. As for Taco's missing eye, I could see an incident like that happening to her here. 

Taco kneels down near and looks down at the water. She nods, " Perfect!" She then puts down the sharpened wood steaks and says, "I come down here a lot and catch most of my meals here. It's the safest food you can get around here. It's also easier to get. The flavor isn't as good, but you'll get used to it."

" Look closely into the water." Me and Woody do as instructed. It's kinda hard to see, but I could see light silhouettes of fish swimming through the water. Taco then hands us each one of the sticks.

" All you have to do is poke the stick into the water and quickly pull it out." Taco goes up to the water, puts the stick in and then quickly pulls it out along with two wiggling fish on it. The task seemed simple enough.

I go up to the water and do as Taco did. I jab the stick into the water and pull it out. A carp was there, impaled by the stick and wiggling as it's life drained away.