The Games

[La_Reina]

Neri jerked awake. She hadn't meant to fall asleep in the water. It was just so relaxing and she hadn't had to worry about being killed or waking up every few moments. Sadly, she didn't have to worry about her lil brother and sister not being fed. Or her mother doing something dangerous or stupid. For once she had a blank mind and had actually gotten some sleep. Too bad she had to be put on a prison island to do it.

Neri got out of the water and let herself air dry. Her back was towards where Matt would be and she was staring at the opening of the cave. Watching the lights fade away. She could see firelight in the distance, but not much else. The cave got a nice breeze and she found that if she stood near the pool and in the right spot she could get a breeze that would wrap itself around her naked form and lift her hair off her shoulders. It was like blow drying her hair naturally and from root to end. She gave a small giggle feeling the wind untangle her hair. It was incredible. Simply magical.

Once dried she put on her clothes that she had the good sense to wash before she had taken her watery nap. She walked over towards Matt and saw a bed laid out. Thank goodness. Without thinking she laid down and was asleep again. She had her hand on a knife and wasn't as deep asleep as before, but it would be enough so that she could function in the morn.

 

[Prince_Truhan]

She took long enough that Matt fell asleep, he wasn't going to wait for her or welcome her out of the water, if he went after her following her bath he wouldn't stop at a kiss like earlier.

His sleep was dream free as usual, his dreams had stopped soon after getting to the island, it was hard to have nightmares with such extreme day to day lives, he woke briefly when Neri slid into the bed, he didn't move but he did perceive her scent and felt even more drawn to her.

Matt closed his eyes, he needed the rest, specially with his shoulder hurt, eventually slower than usual sleep took over him again.

 

[La_Reina]

Neri woke up slowly. For a moment she forgot where she was. She almost called out for her little brother and sister and then it all came rushing back. She choked back a sob and slid her hand through her hair trying to straighten it. She had to use the restroom so she took care of personal hygiene and used the small pond to help keep her ruly hair in check.

Neri looked through their belongings and realized they were out of food. She blinked slowly and looked at the mouth of the cave. They would have to go back out into that. Neri didn't realize she had backed up shaking her head until her back came into contact with a hard surface. She didn't think she could do it.

 

[Prince_Truhan]

Matt woke quickly, he had spent enough time in the island to know he couldn't afford to be lazy in bed, what surprised him was that he didn't wake up when Neri left the bed, almost as if he trusted her. His hand reached for his shoulder, it was better but still in pain.

He was shocked when he saw Neri pressing back against the wall looking at the outside, he sprung forward afraid something was going on right outside the cave but calmed down as he realized he hadn't heard a thing.

He walked up to Neri now aware that she was in panic, it wasn't unusual, what also wasn't unusual was shooting people that were in that state, still she was his ally, he wasn't going to break that so easily, not this time.

Matt reached and took her hand in his and pulled softly back into the cave "Come with me Neri, there is no need to go out yet, you are safe in here"

Once they were a twist away from the entrance he pulled down on her so she would sit. He reached and caressed her cheek "Listen Neri you told me that you had family out there, they need you to come through for this, if you just space out you are going to die here and nobody is going to care for them or take care of them."

 

[La_Reina]

Neri could almost hear the screams. Her imagination filled in the gaps of what they were doing to the people who shouts and screams rang in the air. She couldn't go out. She just couldn't. She shook her head over and over and didn't recognize Matt when he came to her. He pulled her and she followed as her eyes and mind were fixed on something else. Some unseen evil that was going to get them if she looked away.

She didn't realize she was no longer staring at the entrance until her hum hit the hard ground and she was sitting. She looked around confused and stared at Matt. His words seeming to come from a tunnel as she tried to listen to him. He was right. Her little brother and sister needed her. Their mom was gone; devoid of life. No she had to get back to them.

"Thank you. I'm ... fine." She brushed her hands and kinda retreated from him. "That won't happen again. Thank you. I'm okay, honest. It's just ...we're out of food and we need food and to get food we need to..." Neri trailed off. They had to go out and hunt. For food.

 

[Prince_Truhan]

"Those shocks" Matt offered "they aren't rare, it might happen again, just make sure it doesn't happen when we aren't safe, I know this place is alot to process, and yes we need food we should get our stuff."

As they put their things away Matt was thinking of what to do next, the most logical thing seemed to be going back to his usual area, maybe even try to recover the cave where he injured his shoulder.

"The easiest way to find food is to get rid of people, we don't want to be scavenging for a day so that someone can kill us later and eat our food."

The most illogical thing to do however was what pushing its way through his mind. Certain people in the island were worth far more points than the measly ones they got for ordinary kills, they were the more violent successful or crazy ones, so people usually didn't go after them.

Matt knew that a few of them were part of the group they heard torturing someone the day before or at least around the area, it was maybe crazier than them to attempt to rid the world of them, but Matt and Neri were in the middle of their territory and they would still be endangering themselves again trying to get out.

It wasn't the smart thing to do, he was good in the open but he hadn't attempted to hunt for groups before, not alone or in a pair, and how much of a help could Neri be? She was good with the knives, but would she use them or go into shock again? Even then could his shooting and her few projectiles be enough against a big group?

Then again, Matt kept reasoning, it wouldn't be so crazy to just scout the area, if something is there for the taking they should take advantage, nobody ever dared to explore that place on purpose, so their defenses should be somehow lacking.

"Neri, how quickly do you want to win your way out of the games? I'm starting to think maybe we shouldn't leave this cave yet" Matt said as he leaned against the wall. "We could treat it as base and explore the area around it, I know it's dangerous, but all the island is, and it could work."

 

[La_Reina]

Neri nodded her head. Matt was right. She won't break down again. She had to push that away and get hard or die out here. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." She smoothed down her hair and sighed trying to regain control of herself. She watched as Matt thought and thought and ... dammit she needed to do something. Neri crawled over to her stuff and began slowly sharpening the knives. She needed them sharp so they would sink in and she could get instant kills instead of having to waste a knife or two to injure someone.

Neri put her focus into the knives finding it was calming her down. Then she heard his voice and glanced over. His question rocked her and made her whole body burn hot. She felt she was at a crossroads and this was a very important decision in her life. She had to make sure she understood everything. She could say immediately, but that probably meant going out on a killing spree or something. She wasn't sure, but could she handle that. Or she could say in a few years and that would mean being here longer. Being away from her brother and sister long. Unacceptable.

Neri looked Matt straight in the eyes. "Yesterday. If you have a plan I'm ready." She stood up and slid her knives against eachother os they made a metal on metal sound. They were sharp and so was she.

 

[Prince_Truhan]

He smiled as she seemed resolute enough, even if his plan was bordering on the insane.

"Alright, this is what we are doing, we'll treat this cave as base, if we need to run we come here, we'll explore around it in a pattern, we need to find out their habits and slowly take them out. It's important that they don't know we are around. Their deaths won't cause much of a shock at first, they aren't exactly peaceful with one another."

He lead the way out of the cave with the gun in his hand. Once they were outside they moved slowly through the trees doing their best to be silent and stay out of sight.

"Food is our priority, so I'm guessing our best bet is the river to the east."

 

[La_Reina]

Neri could feel her heart pounding in her chest threatening to kill her. She nodded her head hoping that on the outside she looked composed and calm. She found some cloth and strapped the knives around her thigh and biceps and placed the last one in her hand. "Sounds like a plan." She was impressed her voice didn't quiver.

As they moved through the trees Neri tried to act like Matt. She wanted to step like him - silently; move through the trees and bushes so not to rustle anything. She nodded her head and placed the knife between her teeth as she used her hands to gently push the foliage around her. She wanted that if someone had seen them or her that when they went to follow her had no clue where she had gone.

"Can we fish or ... are we hunting people who will have food?"

 

[Prince_Truhan]

"We hunt people, we don't have the tools to fish anyway."

Slowly by and by they got closer to the river, they could already hear the water. Matt hoped that they would run into people in charge of getting food or something similar.

As they reach the water they stayed hidden among the plants, not going to the edge of the river. He pointed to Neri the direction that he figured was bet to go and they kept moving.

The task was very tiring, neither of them had eaten, and they had to be very focused to keep from making noise as they moved. Eventually, about 5 hours after they left the cave they heard a small group of people by the river, they were arguing loudly, and were near some set fishing lures.

Matt grabbed Neri by the shoulder to show her the way he wanted them to move, he wanted to get as close as possible before striking, they had to be quick and effective, and they wouldn't get a second chance. Luckily they were distracted.

 

[La_Reina]

Neri nodded. Hunting people. Okay. She could do this. She had too. With a deep breath she cleared her mind and focused on everything around her. She had to be on her A game and on high alert for anything. As they walked and walked she became more and more aware that she was hungry. Very hungry. She was barely stifling the sounds her stomach was making and it didn't help that she was becoming increasingly thirsty as well.

Finally Matt grabbed her and showed her some people. For a moment she thought they weren't going to see anyone. She counted and saw there was 5 of them. She wasn't sure how Matt and herself were going to subdue 5 people. He had a gun, but surely that would bring more people. She had knives and though she could get maybe 2 down before all hell broke loose.

"Let's get closer, listen and see if we can split them up. Or maybe we can use a bait and switch. Someone goes out there as bait and kills the people that follow. If some stay behind that the bait has the hard task of killing the ones that pursue while the other has to kill the ones that stay behind. What do you think?"

 

[Prince_Truhan]

He moved closer to her so that he could whisper in her ear "Let's try to listen" his eyes were fixed on the people paying attention to their moves. "The bait would work for sure on a normal group, but if they have some sort of alarm system going to catch intruders, we could easily get into more than what we can take"

As he was talking, one of the people caught a fish and put it into a bucket.

"Besides, they need some time to catch our food"

As they waited, the fishermen slowly kept catching more and more food, this made Matt's stomach rumble when he allowed himself to think of it. A thing that gave Matt hope was that they were distracted, they seemed to have some sort of competitive thing going, so they kept arguing and shouting every single time a fish was caught.

One of them was particularly angry, and when a toad showed by the river threw a big rock at it smashing the creature to bits... that kind of things made it easier to kill these people, not that Matt needed any encouragement now, but that was the sort of thing he did when he first got to the island, try to convince himself that those that died by his hand were very bad people.

Eventually the angry man, who was doing poorly in fishing, said something along the lines that it was a bad fishing spot and that he would do better upstream, he was met with insults and teases, but he still left.

This was the sort of thing they were hoping for so as silently as they could, they followed him.

 

[La_Reina]

The more Neri watched them fish the hungrier she got. The hungrier she became the more insane her thoughts. She was right along the lines of running over their screaming like a banshee, killing them all, and biting the heads off the fish devouring them all. Her plan had plots like for her to run over there in a direct route she would have to walk on water or she could go around the water, but screaming like a banshee was surely going to give away her position. Plus what if they had projectile weapons like guns or arrows. Than the biting of the fish head though sounded really, really, REALLY, good right now would probably make her sick eating it raw. Still she was seriously thinking of putting it into action.

It was two heartbeats before Neri realized Matt was following the guy. She was relieved to be doing anything and she followed Matt. They were almost parallel to the guy as he walked and she could hear the laughter and joking of his group behind them. The man must have known of a special spot because he actually went into the jungle before they found water again. Neri strained her ears, but couldn't hear anyone coming after the man or anything aside from the average jungle noises.

She looked at Matt silently asking what did he want to do. It was one guy. They were pretty much alone. Just as it seemed Matt was giving her a single her stomach growled loudly. She froze and glanced to the guy who's head snapped up. He was looking around, but wasn't on the defense just yet.

 

[Prince_Truhan]

They had a clear opportunity to take him. Matt looked down at his guns and wanted to curse, it has been a long time since he had found a gun with a silencer. He had considering to approach him from behind and take him but with him aware of something that wouldn't be possible.

He took one of Neri's knives "You have to do this, we need to keep him from screaming..." he whispered hoping Neri was looking for a good throw. "Throw two knives, I'll finish him if it's necessary"

He took a deep breath, ready to jump after the guy if it was necessary.