On the eleventh day of the test, I woke up feeling weak and nauseous. C’mon, I coaxed myself, this is the very last day! After this, you’ll get to sit on the couch stuffing yourself for a whole week! I didn’t bother trying to find something to eat for breakfast, but hurried on my way. As I walked the sun peered over the hills, warming the frosty air. The farther I walked, the more relief I felt. This horror was finally going to be over. And I would finally get my hands freed!
I was so eager to be done with it all, that my pace quickened to a run and I didn’t notice the black shape following me. As I ran along, dodging trees and jumping over stones, my foot caught in a root and a fell right on my face. I got back up with a groan, and sat staring at the red liquid dripping all over the ground. I put my hands up to my face and realized that that was the source of the blood. As far as I could tell, there was a big gash on my forehead.
Crap. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I heard the bracken crunch behind me and a large shadow cast over me. My heart skipped a beat as I turned around and faced the giant culicidae-mus which towered over me. Drool dripped from its rotten flesh-covered fangs and its breath nearly killed me right then and there. I was so startled and aghast that I couldn’t much but sit there and stare on in horror.
The monster lashed opened its mouth and came in for a snap, and my life flashed before my eyes as I curled into a tiny ball, shutting my eyes. I waited for the fangs to close into my flesh, but nothing happened. And nothing happened. Finally, I looked up at the monster in confusion. It just sat there, still as a rock, its jaws still opened wide and its bug eyes staring at nothing. What? Is it dead? That’s when I noticed the spear sticking through it’s heart.
“Nim! Nim, are you okay?” cried a familiar voice. I looked up. My heart leapt in my chest. “Guys!” I screamed, and leaping up gave June a big hug. Well, the best one I could give considering my hands were tied. “I missed you guys so much!” She shoved me off of her. There they were, my entire squad! Wait… someone was missing. “Where’s Ashley?” They didn’t answer me, but just stood there studying me angrily.
“You know,” Shawne said. Then I realized what he meant. She was gone. Dead. And it was still all my fault. I just stood there, stunned, it was hard to believe. I had to confirm it.612Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9vJdEfnMrM
“She… she’s dead?!” I said, my voice breaking. No one answered. Suddenly my head felt kind of light, and my vision grew foggy. I felt like I was going to throw up and I could barely breathe. I collapsed to the ground. The last thing I saw was my team members bending over me.
When I woke up, I was sitting in a tent, my head bandaged. The ropes were no longer tied to my wrists. Something smelled really good. I sat up. June was sitting by my bedside turning something over and over in her hands. It was the relic. She looked up at me, her face completely blank. Please… don’t look at me like that. Are you pleased with me, or disapproving? I thought.612Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeW3SrGKtr6
“Can I have something to eat?” I said weakly.
“So this is why you left, so you could get a relic, huh?” She said, her face distorted in a sudden anger, “You just thought you’d abandon us, abandon Ashley so you could go on some heroic mission?” Her voice had risen to a yell. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to scream at her and tell her all the means things I’d ever thought of her. But instead, I surprised myself by saying, “I’m sorry she died, June. I didn’t leave on purpose.”
The tears started streaming. Why do I always start crying? I scolded myself. This was so embarrassing. “I… I was attacked. I didn’t want the monster to kill you, so I lured it away.” I glanced up at June’s face, which had softened just a smidgen. “I… came back. But… but you guys were gone! You just left me!” All the feelings I’d stuffed down inside myself of fear and despair finally broke loose. “You guys just left me! I didn’t… I didn’t know what to do!”
June’s face wasn’t one of anger anymore. Instead, she looked surprised. Surprised and… and she was crying! What the ****? I‘d never seen June cry before! Shawne, Josh and Devin heard the yelling and came in to see what was going on. They looked just as surprised as I was. Once June finally got control over herself, she apologized embarrassedly, and explained that she was just really worried about me, and was really upset when Ashley died.
Then they made me tell the whole story from the very beginning. When I was done, I was quite out of breath, and I’d remember the looks on their faces for the rest of my life. They were all surprised by what I had gone through, and what “the untalented extra bag of stuff” had done. You would have expected me to make some amazing speech about things you learn and how important teamwork is, or something like that when I was done. But instead, I just said, “Now please, please can I have something to eat?”
We only had to travel a mile or so to get to the end of the woods. We were the fourth squad to make through the gate leaving the forest, so we had 15 points. Then of course, we had lost Ashley, so that went down to 12. But when we presented the relic of Windstorm, it was bumped up to 22 points. After all the points were collected, it was finally time to announce the winners. By then, I didn’t really care what place we got, I was just glad to be done.
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We won third place.
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