Chosen: Chapter 1, Part 2
May. 19th, 2019 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annalsmithWe didn’t make it far before some basic issues presented themselves. First, once our legs started moving, so did our guts and there wasn’t a single commode or sheet of toilet paper in sight. Much less privacy on the wide open plain. I had to go and, if I was reading the pinched expressions on almost everyone else’s face right, so did they. My body had a routine, and the ‘I’m awake now!’ routine was predictable, and not something I wanted observed or uncleaned. I had thoughts on how to attend to my needs, but I’d already sacrificed my sweat shirt. I wasn’t sharing the legs of my sweat pants for anyone’s needs but my own.
It wasn’t long before Shadricka called a halt and addressed the problem of the bursting bladders. I wasn’t standing with my legs crossed – yet – but modesty was quickly becoming a luxury I could forego. Still with no trees or bushes in sight, let alone a single square of toilet paper, I was already planning my own solution to the situation before Shadricka spoke.
“So…there’s not much choice here. Just backs to each other and take care of business.” She ran a hand over her hair and awkwardly shrugged her shoulders.
We all eyed each other but no one spoke. I felt heat sweep over my cheeks but cleared my throat. “Perhaps we should dig a latrine? We don’t know what wildlife there is here. We don’t want a predator tracking us without some way of fending it off. We can’t hide our scent completely, but we can at least bury our waste and make it harder to find.”
“Sure. Let’s dig a hole with one of the dozen shovels we’ve got with us.” The sarcastic snark cut through the air clearly.
I gritted my teeth but refused to be cowed. Hell no. There were only twelve of us here and I wasn’t starting this new life, whatever it turned out to be, as less than anyone else, open for ridicule and mockery. “Hands work just fine for digging.”
I knelt on the ground and grabbed a handful of grass. If the ground was hard, this would be difficult. I didn’t think it would be; there had been a little give to the grass as we’d walked. The grass I pulled came up easily, soil falling away from the shallow roots. I ignored everyone else and focused on my self-appointed task, widening the small patch of bared earth until I had a roughly circular area exposed. Then I started to dig with my fingers, the moist soil packing under my fingernails and caking into the fine lines of my fingers and palms.
“This is ridiculous. We’ll all be standing in puddles by the time you’re done.”
I wanted to ignore the muttering. I really did. Something told me that this was important, a necessary precaution. But the doubt was planted and I couldn’t help second-guessing myself. Was I being so insistent just to be stubborn, to feel right? What the hell did I know, anyway? I’d never even been camping; my experience with survival skills was pretty limited to fantasy novels and romances.
I sat back on my heels. “Fine,” I sighed. I scrubbed the dirt off my hands as best I could and joined everyone else taking care of nature’s demands, sacrificing a small scrap of cloth I tore off the bottom of one leg of my sweats to clean myself. I didn’t volunteer to share. I would be needing my clothes for a lot of things in the near future, and not just for covering.
Finally relieved, we continued our trek across the grassy plain. The sun rose higher and soon thirst became a problem. There was nothing we could do about that, however, except hope we came across a water source soon. Sam walked silently at my side and the only thing I heard was the sigh of wind through the grass and the rustle of our passing feet. The occasional curse from someone was they stumbled or stepped on something. The thick grass offered more protection than I had thought it would to our bare and sock clad feet. Even unaccustomed to such constant activity, the walk wasn’t bothering me much. Another oddity in a day of weirdness to ponder at some point in my now copious free time.
The sun rose higher and the day warmed. My stomach grumbled and I ignored it. Eventually we would have to figure out food, but so far I hadn’t seen anything but grasses. Eventually we had to come to some other type of terrain but there was no telling when that would be, or if it would be in time. Surely, surely, we didn’t end up God knows where just to die of dehydration or starvation? There had to be a reason we were here, right?
Staying in one spot wouldn’t accomplish anything. Our only choice was move. Please let us have moved in the right direction.
“Why did you think we needed to dig a latrine?” Sam asked, breaking the silence that surrounded all of us. He kept his voice low and his gaze scanned the horizon, moving in a constant arc.
I shrugged and folded my arms. “It’s what they do in all the books. Fiction, sure, but grain of truth, maybe? Animals track by scent, and spore – shit – has a lot of scent. It might attract attention where us just walking by may fade faster.”
“Huh.” We walked another few minutes before he spoke again. “What kind of books did you read?”
I looked at him and arched an eyebrow. “Fantasy, sci-fi, and romance.” He smirked. “I am a girl, you know, and don’t knock it. My dad read romances, too. He used to send me to the library to get them for him.”
“I did notice you’re a girl.” His smirk widened into a grin. “Sci-fi?”
“Honor Harrington is kick-ass and you can’t get more sci-fi than that. Diagrams, dude. Diagrams of their missiles. And enough politics to twist your brain into pretzel.” Of course, on rereads I’d skip the space battles because I preferred the actual character interactions.
Sam chuckled and shook his head. “I was never much of a reader. I’m a sports nut. Baseball, basketball, football-I play them all.” He stopped his horizon watching to look at me. “I haven’t seen any signs of animals.”
“We’ve covered what? A couple of miles? This isn’t a zoo.” I shrugged. “They’re out there. Predators come out at night. Prey rules the day.” I paused. “I think.”
“Be nice if we had a hunter in the group, but I get the feeling most of us are city folk.”
Yeah, someone who had a clue how to survive would be awesome. I was pretty sure we were out of luck, because no one had spoken up yet. So we walked under the lavender sky, through the little too blue grass, hungry and thirsty, and hoped we were going in a direction that would lead us somewhere that let us live.
And I hoped none of us harbored any misguided hope that we’d ever see Earth again. Other than falling asleep and waking up in our beds, that hope was pointless. If we didn’t know how we got it, we certainly wouldn’t know how to get back home.
And just why were we all acting so damn calm about it? Where was the panic? The denial? All of us were way too chill for this situation. I searched my emotions, looking for something, and all I really felt was just this sense of acceptance. Like I knew everything would be okay, that effectively losing my entire way of life was no big deal. But it was a big deal. A huge deal. My friends, my family, my hobbies – all gone. I was uniquely unsuited for wandering through a grassy plain without even a pair of shoes. And yet, that’s exactly what I was doing and my only thought was I hoped we’d find water soon.
Granted, I’m usually pretty laid back. I’m not a passionate person. I don’t go for emotional extremes. I’ve been accused of not caring about things more than once. The accusation is unfounded, but why bother arguing about hot button issues when you’re not going to change someone’s mind? But this situation? This warranted some kind of passionate feeling, didn’t it? Something more than just relatively calm acceptance? I couldn’t even must a sense of disbelief. Instead my mind is already working on how to figure out shelter, who had the stomach to hunt, and how to determine what would be edible and what wouldn’t be.
I so couldn’t be a hunter. I hope someone else could be, but just the thought of killing something turned my stomach. I’d be happy to cook it – do you need particular types of sticks to rub together to start a fire? – but please don’t expect me to kill it. I’ll become vegetarian first regardless of how much I love pot roast and a medium steak.
I couldn’t even work up panic over my lack of panic. It wasn’t a case of feeling numb or removed from the situation. It wasn’t shock. Everything just felt to right to be wrong.
The only thing I could work up any worry about was how thirsty I was and how long it would be before we found water.
It wasn’t long before Shadricka called a halt and addressed the problem of the bursting bladders. I wasn’t standing with my legs crossed – yet – but modesty was quickly becoming a luxury I could forego. Still with no trees or bushes in sight, let alone a single square of toilet paper, I was already planning my own solution to the situation before Shadricka spoke.
“So…there’s not much choice here. Just backs to each other and take care of business.” She ran a hand over her hair and awkwardly shrugged her shoulders.
We all eyed each other but no one spoke. I felt heat sweep over my cheeks but cleared my throat. “Perhaps we should dig a latrine? We don’t know what wildlife there is here. We don’t want a predator tracking us without some way of fending it off. We can’t hide our scent completely, but we can at least bury our waste and make it harder to find.”
“Sure. Let’s dig a hole with one of the dozen shovels we’ve got with us.” The sarcastic snark cut through the air clearly.
I gritted my teeth but refused to be cowed. Hell no. There were only twelve of us here and I wasn’t starting this new life, whatever it turned out to be, as less than anyone else, open for ridicule and mockery. “Hands work just fine for digging.”
I knelt on the ground and grabbed a handful of grass. If the ground was hard, this would be difficult. I didn’t think it would be; there had been a little give to the grass as we’d walked. The grass I pulled came up easily, soil falling away from the shallow roots. I ignored everyone else and focused on my self-appointed task, widening the small patch of bared earth until I had a roughly circular area exposed. Then I started to dig with my fingers, the moist soil packing under my fingernails and caking into the fine lines of my fingers and palms.
“This is ridiculous. We’ll all be standing in puddles by the time you’re done.”
I wanted to ignore the muttering. I really did. Something told me that this was important, a necessary precaution. But the doubt was planted and I couldn’t help second-guessing myself. Was I being so insistent just to be stubborn, to feel right? What the hell did I know, anyway? I’d never even been camping; my experience with survival skills was pretty limited to fantasy novels and romances.
I sat back on my heels. “Fine,” I sighed. I scrubbed the dirt off my hands as best I could and joined everyone else taking care of nature’s demands, sacrificing a small scrap of cloth I tore off the bottom of one leg of my sweats to clean myself. I didn’t volunteer to share. I would be needing my clothes for a lot of things in the near future, and not just for covering.
Finally relieved, we continued our trek across the grassy plain. The sun rose higher and soon thirst became a problem. There was nothing we could do about that, however, except hope we came across a water source soon. Sam walked silently at my side and the only thing I heard was the sigh of wind through the grass and the rustle of our passing feet. The occasional curse from someone was they stumbled or stepped on something. The thick grass offered more protection than I had thought it would to our bare and sock clad feet. Even unaccustomed to such constant activity, the walk wasn’t bothering me much. Another oddity in a day of weirdness to ponder at some point in my now copious free time.
The sun rose higher and the day warmed. My stomach grumbled and I ignored it. Eventually we would have to figure out food, but so far I hadn’t seen anything but grasses. Eventually we had to come to some other type of terrain but there was no telling when that would be, or if it would be in time. Surely, surely, we didn’t end up God knows where just to die of dehydration or starvation? There had to be a reason we were here, right?
Staying in one spot wouldn’t accomplish anything. Our only choice was move. Please let us have moved in the right direction.
“Why did you think we needed to dig a latrine?” Sam asked, breaking the silence that surrounded all of us. He kept his voice low and his gaze scanned the horizon, moving in a constant arc.
I shrugged and folded my arms. “It’s what they do in all the books. Fiction, sure, but grain of truth, maybe? Animals track by scent, and spore – shit – has a lot of scent. It might attract attention where us just walking by may fade faster.”
“Huh.” We walked another few minutes before he spoke again. “What kind of books did you read?”
I looked at him and arched an eyebrow. “Fantasy, sci-fi, and romance.” He smirked. “I am a girl, you know, and don’t knock it. My dad read romances, too. He used to send me to the library to get them for him.”
“I did notice you’re a girl.” His smirk widened into a grin. “Sci-fi?”
“Honor Harrington is kick-ass and you can’t get more sci-fi than that. Diagrams, dude. Diagrams of their missiles. And enough politics to twist your brain into pretzel.” Of course, on rereads I’d skip the space battles because I preferred the actual character interactions.
Sam chuckled and shook his head. “I was never much of a reader. I’m a sports nut. Baseball, basketball, football-I play them all.” He stopped his horizon watching to look at me. “I haven’t seen any signs of animals.”
“We’ve covered what? A couple of miles? This isn’t a zoo.” I shrugged. “They’re out there. Predators come out at night. Prey rules the day.” I paused. “I think.”
“Be nice if we had a hunter in the group, but I get the feeling most of us are city folk.”
Yeah, someone who had a clue how to survive would be awesome. I was pretty sure we were out of luck, because no one had spoken up yet. So we walked under the lavender sky, through the little too blue grass, hungry and thirsty, and hoped we were going in a direction that would lead us somewhere that let us live.
And I hoped none of us harbored any misguided hope that we’d ever see Earth again. Other than falling asleep and waking up in our beds, that hope was pointless. If we didn’t know how we got it, we certainly wouldn’t know how to get back home.
And just why were we all acting so damn calm about it? Where was the panic? The denial? All of us were way too chill for this situation. I searched my emotions, looking for something, and all I really felt was just this sense of acceptance. Like I knew everything would be okay, that effectively losing my entire way of life was no big deal. But it was a big deal. A huge deal. My friends, my family, my hobbies – all gone. I was uniquely unsuited for wandering through a grassy plain without even a pair of shoes. And yet, that’s exactly what I was doing and my only thought was I hoped we’d find water soon.
Granted, I’m usually pretty laid back. I’m not a passionate person. I don’t go for emotional extremes. I’ve been accused of not caring about things more than once. The accusation is unfounded, but why bother arguing about hot button issues when you’re not going to change someone’s mind? But this situation? This warranted some kind of passionate feeling, didn’t it? Something more than just relatively calm acceptance? I couldn’t even must a sense of disbelief. Instead my mind is already working on how to figure out shelter, who had the stomach to hunt, and how to determine what would be edible and what wouldn’t be.
I so couldn’t be a hunter. I hope someone else could be, but just the thought of killing something turned my stomach. I’d be happy to cook it – do you need particular types of sticks to rub together to start a fire? – but please don’t expect me to kill it. I’ll become vegetarian first regardless of how much I love pot roast and a medium steak.
I couldn’t even work up panic over my lack of panic. It wasn’t a case of feeling numb or removed from the situation. It wasn’t shock. Everything just felt to right to be wrong.
The only thing I could work up any worry about was how thirsty I was and how long it would be before we found water.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-23 02:44 am (UTC)And hey - snark has it's place! That's not the whole sum of his personality!