She moved away from the group as her archaeology professor told them to look at the grounds on their own. Nicole, a girl she'd known from classes last semester, came along with her. The sun was bright, and the grass was flattened enough that she didn't feel bad about digging into it.
They bent down as soon as they were far enough away from other groups. The activity was supposed to be to dig into different types of land to see the differences and layers. It seemed pretty pointless, but it was the first day, so she decided not to complain.
She plunged her spade into the grass, unearthing a large hunk. It certainly looked like dirt. Other than that, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to note about it.
"It looks kind of dry," She suggested to Nicole, who was holding her notebook awkwardly in front of her. "Crumbly?"
"Alright," She said slowly, writing the observations down.
Vive dug a little deeper until she saw a change.
"What's it look like?"
She peered at it. "Moist."
"Wonderful," Nicole said, unenthusiastically. "Want to move on?"
"Um. What exactly are we supposed to do?" A timid boy asked as they turned away. He looked nervous and confused. "I'm a freshman."
"Just dig into the soil and write what it looks like, and then repeat until you think you have all the changes. He just wants us to know the differences. It's all pretty simple, obligatory stuff." Vive smiled at him.
"Do you want to latch on to us just to get the notes done?" Nicole asked. "You can copy what I have for this one."
"Thanks, that'd be great!" He leaned over to look at her paper as he wrote out the short analysis.
"Alright, let's move toward the water so we have something really different," Vive said, and, after seeing them nod agreement, made her way over.
"Here, I'll do it this time," Nicole said, taking the spade from Vive. She stuck it into the earth, lifting up a sloppy shovelful of dirt that was almost mud.
"Wet," She noted evenly, and Vive and the freshmen boy wrote it down.
As she continued digging in the mush, the boy moved slightly away. Vive looked up at him to notice him moving towards a beehive.
He looked over at her, and turned pink as they accidentally made eye contact.
"Uh, have you guys heard about the bees?" He asked.
"About the whole genetic engineering thing?" Vive asked. "Yeah, I actually just read an article on it yesterday."
"I've been keeping up on it all summer," He told her with a little bit of pride. "They got found out right away, but the mainstream media wouldn't report it."
"Yeah?" She asked, a little skeptical. She enjoyed the concept of conspiracies, and talking to conspiracy theorists, since they always seemed much more passionate about the events than anyone else.
A bee buzzed next to his thigh, and he stared at it, frozen for a second.
"The layer below it.... is wetter," Nicole told them.
Vive looked down at her paper for a second to record the answer, but her head shot up when she heard the boy's hiss of pain.
He was bent over, a look of surprise on his face, hand on his upper thigh,
"Are you okay?" She asked, taking in his expression.
"It... It stung me!"
Nicole looked up with an expression of confused. "What stung you?"
