Rules of Survival | afi

night seven

in the chaotic rubble,
she still remembered
who she was.

-r.m drake

•••

For several long minutes, there is just silence.

Dragging, heavy, deafening silence. The kind of silence that you know is the calm before the storm, the kind of silence that puts ice in your veins and sends goosebumps along your arms.

Ashton and I just sit, hidden in the shrubs of the trees, the sour smell of radiation just on the edges of our noses. It's almost pitch black now, but neither of us dare turn on a flashlight or lantern. The moon is bright in the sky, shining over the empty battlefield soon to be stained with blood.

The minutes tick by agonizingly slow, the hairs on my back rippling with the realization that the radiation will close on us soon, forcing us out into the open, into the fight. I close my fingers around my gun, squeezing tight, the tension relieving a bit of the pain in my head for a short moment.

Thirty more minutes.

Ashton gulps down the rest of his canteen, throwing it to the side. He's eyeing the battlefield with deep concentration.

"There." He whispers, pointing to a huge rock about a hundred yards away. "That's where we need to run."

I furrow my eyebrows, and immediately regret it as my head flares in pain. "Why?"

"We know nobody's behind us, or at least we hope." Ashton whispers, his voice trembling slightly. "It's protection against bullets, and we can see all sides. Its our best option right now."

"You in the front and me in the back?" I ask, swallowing down the massive knot of anxiety and fear in my throat. In less than four hours, we will either be dead or alive and rich. The first option is the most likely, and it does nothing to calm the storm in my head.

"Yeah." He replies. "We watch each other's backs."

I reach over and take his hand, giving it a squeeze. It's damp with sweat, but the warm pressure soothes my nerves.

Twenty minutes.

I can't focus on any one thing for more than a couple seconds between the pain in my head and adrenaline thrumming in my veins. I feel like I'm dangling on the edge of a cliff, parachute on my back, with only a 50% chance that it will open.

We sit in silence as around us, the woods seem to come alive.

Rustling every few seconds, leaves falling from trees. All around the field. As the minutes tick by the tension rockets to a max, and I'm grinding my teeth in anticipation by the time we are down to five minutes.

I check my wristband. The safe zone is creeping up. Then, without warning, the realization hits.

The second the safe zone changes, the alarms on our bands will go off. Giving away our position. Drawing attention.

"Shit." I swear, biting the inside of my lip. "Ashton, we need to move, now."

He looks at me incredulously. "What?"

I tap my wristband, and watch the realization dawn in his eyes.

I return my attention to the field, noticing some tall grass a good ten feet from where we are. If we can just get there...

Ashton follows my gaze, and then we're moving. We crawl on hands and knees, stomachs on the ground, guns held in front of us. My head is searing with every move, my heart slamming against my ribcage.