When I Died

Chapter 16

At first I am overjoyed. Then reality sets in. Coin was dead. Our only way out. Our only way to food. The cackling of snow comes from the still on TV. Then he coughs up blood. But I'm not listening.

There was no way out. We were going to starve.

Bonnie bursts first. She sobs into Max's jacket sleeve. Twill stands and starts pacing. Max just sits there and strokes Bonnie's hair. I get up and go look the window. The forcefield buzzes overhead. Smoke billows up from the many bomb spots and is thickest at where I think is the hovercraft crash. I stare out at the horizon and look at the mountains. I crack. I slide down the wall and cry. We will die. We will starve to death. "We will die!" I shout.

"Calm down, Primrose! I'm thinking." Says Twill, still pacing. "We will need to spare the food we have. If we're careful, we can last about a month or a little longer. We have plenty of water. We can last for about a month while we,"

"While we what?" I say, cutting her off.

"I don't know. Figure a way out of here." She says.

I want to give her a comment back but at the same time I don't. I bite my tongue.

"Come on, we need to do something to take your mind off things. Hey, how 'bout you and me go look at the forcefield. Bonnie, Max, you stay here." She says.

Max gives us a look as if saying, 'she's not going anywhere anytime soon'. Me and Twill go downstairs and outside. The place is littered with bits of apples, flowers and leaves. Twill and I walk down to the wood fence and climb over. The smell of smoke thickens the further we go into the woods. It gets so strong, I can hardly breathe. Then we get to the forcefield. Just on the other side is the ring. I look up the forcefield curves up into the center. I climb a tree. Twill tries to stop me but I keep climbing. I get to the top and jump. With a buzz, I am bounced back. I fall to the ground and luckily land on a bush that breaks my fall. We are trapped. The sentence echoes around my aching head.

"Prim! Are you alright?" Twill says running over.

"Yes I'm fine." I reply, sitting up.

"Don't try that again. I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt. I couldn't live with myself."

She helps me up and we walk back to the house.

The smoke thins out and once again I can breathe. No animals flitter on the ground as they did outside the field. Birds don't chirp in the trees. Their songs are replaced by the slight buzz of the forcefield. Never again would I hear the chirps of birds in the trees. Never again would I watch the bugs drift across the pond. Never again.

We come into the kitchen to find Bonnie sitting at the table, fiddling with her mind puzzle thing. She looks up when we come in. She looks much happier.

"Me and Max thought of something." She says.

"Max and I." Twill corrects her.

"Whatever. So, we thought of a plan." She continues. "If we can't go over the forcefield, we go under it."

"You mean we dig under it?" I ask, hope rising inside me.

"Exactly."

Twill looks doubtful.

"Don't you think that's what I thought? I checked ages ago. The field sink into the dirt. It goes all the way down about two meters then its concrete. A whole layer of concrete."

Bonnie's face falls.

"Don't worry though. I have a plan."

"What? What is it?" Bonnie says eagerly.

"Tomorrow. Enough excitement for the day. Come on, lets have a small dinner, then we can watch a movie."

~~

We have a peice of chicken each and a quarter of an apple. It's Bonnie's turn to choose so we end up watching an adventure one.

I go to bed halfway through with an empty stomach. It takes me a while to get to sleep and when I do, I dream of explosions, broken flowers and arrows.