Begin (COMPLETED)

Chapter 20- Pause

Sweat and paint fill the last wisps of the morning. Stomachs grumble and soon their brushstrokes slow, the paint running dry and their motivation gone. The butterfly is entirely covered in a coat of red paint and only the tips of the words "I miss you" are visible. Sidney, the tallest, finishes the job, the image's caption now gone as well.

"So, what now?" Poppy asks, sitting on the dirt without hesitation.

"I... need... food..." Alex moans, flopping onto the floor.

"I can go get some," Sidney says, stepping away from the wall, looking at his masterpiece with distaste.

"You don't have to feed us all the time, you know." Noah comments, remembering how he had just fed them the day before. "Like, I'm pretty sure you can't afford it."

"I know what I can afford."

"I could eat a horse," Alex groans, tossing and turning. "I don't care where the food comes from, just get me some before I eat one of you."

"No, Alex. Cannibalism is bad." Alwin chides jokingly.

"Hey, you do what you have to do to survive."

"Oh, please. You're not going to die from hunger."

"I'm not? Well, it sure feels like it." Alex mutters and then looks up, Sidney already gone. "Where'd he go?"

"Are you stupid?" Poppy says, lightly punching him in the arm. "He went to get us food, ding a ling."

"What do you want to do while we're waiting?" Riley asks, looking around at the other paint buckets, filled with a rainbow of colors.

"Well, if you want to get back to work, they want us to have a white stripe on top and a gray one right below it." Alwin says, grabbing a brush.

"Why? That doesn't seem very fashionable." Alex comments.

"It doesn't have to be, but it'll at least keep your mind off of your hunger. Now grab a brush and start painting the gray stripe."

"Are you saying I'm too short to paint the white one? I'll have you know that I am a man of average height."

"Whatever you say," Alwin laughs, dipping his brush into some white paint.

"What? I am!" Alex protests, looking around at the others' grins.

"Dude," Poppy begins, putting a hand on his shoulder in a failed attempt to be serious, "I don't know how else to tell you this, but... you're pretty dang short." She bursts out laughing, taking her hand off of his shoulder.

"At least I'm not..." Alex pauses, thinking of an insult. "Covered in gray paint!"

"What?"

Alex doesn't respond but instead sticks his hand into one of the buckets of gray paint and throws some at her. It falls like rain, mixing with the red paint already on their shirts and shoes.

"Oh, you're gonna regret that." She says, violently flinging some paint back at him.

"Hey!" Jordan cries out, paint flying into her hair and onto her clothes. At first, she wants to tell them to stop it, that they should just get back to work. Instead, she grabs a paint flinging weapon of her own and joins in on the fun.

"My eyes!" Alwin cries out as some paint splashes onto his eyelids. "Be careful with that stuff!"

They all pause, the paint seeming to float in midair for a moment before they all turn their paint covered brushes towards Alwin.