Synergetic

I

The two boys stood in front of us and just stared with their poorly red painted faces. One of them had long curly brown hair, which was tied back in a mess at the back of his head whilst the other one's hair was not nearly as beautiful; it was just blonde and shoulder length hair, but there was no denying that they both were insanely attractive. Their t-shirts were ripped and their trousers were held up by some kind of handmade belt with weapons attached. They clearly knew their way around and would put my team's skills to shame and most defiantly kill us.

"Are you the new comers?" The one with the darker hair spoke and I wasn't planning on getting so distracted by his voice but it cut through my shield of ignorance.

Not one of us spoke. We were huddled together. The eight of us.

"We're not going to do anything, there are more of you..." He spoke again.

"As if that would slow us down." The other whispered under his breath, getting him a well-deserved elbow in the ribs.

"Why should we tell you anything?" Peter said sternly, breaking the groups silence. My families silence.

"Because like we said, we're not going to do anything." The one with brown hair spoke as he scanned us all. "The thing is, we want to negotiate, you know, make a deal or something..."

"About what?" I said with all the confidence I could put into those two words.

My sister pushed me backwards- towards the back of our huddle and I got stuck in between my cousin and uncle and couldn't see over my other cousin's shoulder. I couldn't even hear that well with all the mumbling and bickering between everyone but I focused my hearing on the two boys.

"We need a team and it seems you are in need of some members because your little family is two people down..."

"No way, we're not having possible psycho's!" My sisters said. "Defiantly not, what a stupid idea!"

"Woah hey! I- we thought it was a pretty good idea. I mean, we could help you stay alive longer, our tactics have kept us alive for almost three months now and we don't plan on giving up any time soon."

"But why do you need us if you're doing so well on your own?" My uncle spoke up.

"Because at the end of the day, there are only two of us and we can't keep splitting up to gather food and more weapons, the odds are getting tighter with more teams and more skilled people. We need to stick with a group and survive."

"Dad, I don't trust them." My sister whispered to my dad loud enough for them to hear.

My family continued talking amongst themselves and fidgeting around enough that I could actually see the two guys for a brief second. They seemed clever. But whether or not they have chosen to use that against us or not is hard to tell.

A loud scream emerged through the trees across the river, followed by a little boy. He ran towards the water and jumped as far as he could to get in. The water just about touched his hips before six grown men chased after him.

The two guys grabbed our family and pushed us to the ground behind a tree stump, where we all hunched down and stared at the little boy fighting for his life.

My cousins covered their eyes and even some of the adults looked away but I couldn't. I wanted to see what I was going to have to prepare for because I knew that this was going to get harder and this 'game' would show no mercy for anyone.

The little boy swung his arms at the larger men in attempt to escape but everyone knew that he had no chance against them. It was like watching a butterfly in a tornado.

He screamed and cried for help and I all I wanted to do was help him but no doubt would there be other groups watching and waiting for one stupid person to try to save the day. And I kind of wanted that to be me.

I wanted to take part in this horrendous game and fight because there was no way that I was going to sit back and watch everyone get ripped to shreds. I was willing to fight for my life instead of handing it to a larger and much stronger person.

My eyes looked around for some sort of weapon, a bow or something. Anything that would distract them enough to give that poor child a chance to run. I picked up some rocks and shoved them in my pocket violently and quickly. Then I shuffled backwards more until I was right at the back of the group. I glanced at the tree and then back to the child. If I could climb that tree fast and high enough, I could throw the rocks to shove them off.

Just then, my eye caught the guy with shorter hair. He shook his head at me and gave me an even more aggressive face than his normal. He had read my mind and knew my plan. He moved next to me and grabbed my arm as tight as he could. I held in my yelps and tried to pull away without making a scene.

The boy screamed one last time making everyone but the guy holding me jump. His eyes were watching me closely and even though I refused to look back at him, I could just feel him there.

Once the child was left floating in the water, face down, the six men all cheered and strolled back into the trees- laughing.

My family let out their cries and sobs and got back to their feet.

"We need to go back to base."

"Wait," I spoke. "What are you called?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm Brandon and that's Sheridan." Brandon spoke.

I shifted my eyes onto my arm which still had Sheridan's hand grasped around it.

"I'm Peter," My dad spoke. "This is Eliza, Benjamin, Rob, Kaitlin, Meg, James and that's Aubree."

"Well, let's get you all to the Port." Brandon smiled.