Stone Cold

'Survival Skills'

Her head rocked from side to side.
The rattling of the of the shuttle leaded her head.
Everything clancked
It was crazy how the clanks reminded her about the times she would go up and down the elevator to feel the suspense.
They landed.
They all clicked open the thick black seat belts.
They ran for the door, one by one.
"Hey! Help me get this open!" Blaze pushed and shoved the metal shuttle door, failing with every grunt.

Clementine shoved off her seat belt and rolled her hazel eyes.
She lifted her legs over the middle seat and pushed her way through to blaze.
"If you looked, there is a button that you push to open the door"
Annora bounced Off of her seat with her ripped khaki top and blonde hair following her.
Blaze placed his two tanned fingers together reaching for the glowing button.
"Blaze! Stop" Annora shoved her hand between Blaze's fingers and the button.
"Why?" Blaze raised one of his thick eyebrows. "Because we don't know what the hell is out there, gas? Deadly creatures?" Annora tilted her head and glared at them.
"There is only one way to find out" Clementine punched the button revealing the ground.

They stepped off of the shuttle, Clementine after Blaze after Opal after Vixie after all of them.
Vixie ran her pointy fingers along the edge of a fern, praying it wouldn't sting her "What is this?" Asked Vixie.
Opal jogged over to her and ripped off a piece of the fern, he ran it under his red nose and looked up at Vixie "This is a fern, I learnt about it in Biology" Vixie smiled and her eyes widened.

"So this is ground" Vixie looked around.
"This is ground" Annora kneeled down and placed her soft palm to the soil.
It was silent, so silent that you could hear hearts beating and leaves waving.
Only for a second.
"Who wants to go first?" Blaze held his hands out directing into the woods. Annora stood up, this time in aggression "No, nobody should leave here! As if we know what's out there" Blaze gave that signature smirk and looked down at his feet and back up again "Well princess, why don't you lead?" He held out his hand "Start by making us a fire" Blaze smirked nudging his hand.
Annora looked at all the others, they didn't stand up or anything. They just stood there like tree stumps.
She scrunched her lips and her hands became a fist "Fine, I will" Annora stomped towards Blaze and walked past his snickering smirk.
His hand followed her and he placed it on her back as she walked.

She felt his stif palm touch her back. In a whiff of time, Annora turned around pulling out one of the mirror chards she had saved in her warn leather belt "Touch me again and I'll end you" Her eyebrows became lower and seemed bigger. Before he could reply, she flicked around and walked down the path still holding that chard.

"Alrighty then"
Blaze turned around and walked back to the others.

Annora expected to see blue birds flying from tree to tree ... but she heard the rush of a river, a rush of guppies in a waterfall.
She ran faster than ever, through pine trees and unusual shrubs.
Annora stumbled onto a cold grey rock. Looking down onto her dark brown boots. She looked up like she was in slow motion.

It was water, glorious water.
Not in a steel bottle but in a rocky
pool. The water glided from a tall mountain crashing against the cool river, oh how she wanted to dive in a wash off the dirt and pain.

Then something caught her green eyes, through the rushing waterfall she saw a dark figure.

Was it a monster? Blaze? Another human?
She squinted her eyes hoping to get a better look at the figure.

She decided that wasn't enough, she wanted to know what it was.
Along the side of the river she saw more rocks, this time the size of one of cells from the shuttle.
One by one she hopped along, watching the fishes dance to the stream of the crystal clear water.

She reached the end and she looked for side to side.
In the nick of time something grabbed her left shoulder and the dark figure had faded but not slowly more like it ran, ran away in fear.

"How long does it take to get wood?"
Blaze raised an eyebrow looking at her damp boots.

"Don't touch me again" Annora shoved her way through to the path.
She picked up five pieces of pine wood, her hand gripped the edge of the wood and a slight piece pricked her finger making her hiss and run back to the others.

Every single one of the prisoners sat around an imperfect circle of rocks that one of them had made.

She threw the sharp wood directly into the circle, not one bit of wood stuck out.
Everyone scratched there heads.
Waiting for something to happen.
"Well ... how are we supposed to light a fire?" Clementine rubbed her fingernails together and glared at Annora.
Annora froze and took a breath.
She scanned the area in the split second that she gave herself.
"Opal, can I borrow your glasses?"
Annora reached out her skinny hand towards Opal.
He nodded and handed her his Grey Max glasses.
She had only ever seen this in her
Survival Skills class
but she never knew if it would
completely work.

'Line the lenses of the glasses from the sun to the wood' The TellerGuides voice stuck in her head from class.
She repeated it too herself.

The suns beam went through his designer lenses to the dark wood.
Smoke lifted itself to the top of the pine trees, clenching on to any wind.

"Very well!" Blaze jogged out of the path.
"Everyone grab a tent and sleeping bag, set up camp" Blaze pointed to a small door on the side of the shuttle.

Everyone reached in a grabbed what they needed.
Clementine picked up a red sleeping bag and one of the silver tents.
"Here you go!" Clementine smirked and handed the supplies to Annora.

Annora knew her games.
Clementine wasn't here to play nice,
she was here to survive.
Even if it meant killing her friends or even bringing them closer.

Annora rolled her eyes and stomped to the farthest corner to set up.
She liked her spot, it was close to the mysterious river, it was surrounded by small yellow flowers.

She didn't know the name.
She didn't take Flora And Fauna class like Opal did.

She grunted and groaned trying to lift up the heavy tent stand, she was strong just not strong enough.

A boy with wavy brown hair looked over and giggled to himself.
"Want a bit of help?"

Griffin, wasn't in Annora's classes. In fact, was he even in any class?
He was the boy who would rather
sleep on a branch then a tent.
The one who loved animals more than he loved himself.
In fact, he was selfless

"Please" Annora giggled.

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