The last thing I remember was sitting underneath the tree while overthinking. I wake up laying on top of a bed. I look around to find myself in one of the small houses. Someone must've carried me here after I fell asleep. I force myself to fully wake up and go meet up with the others. Uncovering myself from the thin sheets, I stretch as I pick myself up out of bed. I get dressed into an outfit that had been laid out for me, along with my red sweater. I picked the note up that had been laying on top of it.
Hey Y/n!
Paula found you outside and put you in bed. The girls & I picked out an outfit for you. Hope you like it! Meet us in the windmill once you're up and ready.
-Gillian :3
Before I leave, I place one of the revolvers along with extra ammo on my bag. I throw the bag over my shoulder and quickly walk over to the windmill. Inside, I hear soft murmurs of a conversation between a few people. I knock at the door in the same pattern I had heard the others do. Adam opens the door for me. So far, it seems like only Oliver, Zack, and Paula were there. The three were just chatting casually as if we weren't just nearly killed yesterday. I walk over to them, causing them to welcome me warmly.
"Hey, Y/n!"
"Hey, what are you up to?" I ask.
"Not much at the moment. Just waiting for everyone to gather here," Oliver responds.
"Oh, right, the hunt only happens every 3-5 days, right?"
"Yeah, we usually use the rest of the time to train though," He responds.
Gillian and Nigel walk in. Shortly after, Sandy, Pepe, Sonya, and Violet follow.
"Looks like everyone's here. Let's go out into the forest for training," Oliver announces. We all follow him out to the same spot. I avoid eye contact with Oliver as much as I possibly could, still thinking of last night's encounter with him.
"Okay, first up we're gonna do target practice! Y/n, you should go first so we can see where you're at with this," He announces, stepping out of the way of the target.
I take the revolver out of my bag and fill the chambers with bullets. I aim at the target and fire. The bullet is only about a centimeter from the bullseye of the target.
"Damn, nice shot," Zack says.
"Thanks," I respond.
"Well, I guess we don't need to practice shooting too much. Next up is physical abilities, such as running away from the monsters. I'd say it would be best to split up into teams and see who's fastest--"
"I have an idea! Why don't we play tag like we used to? It'll be more fun and it involves strategy. Plus, we can still split up into teams if you want," Gillian interrupts him. Most of the others murmur in agreement. Oliver takes a moment to consider her idea.
"Alright, we'll do that. Who wants to be the taggers?"
"I'd probably say we should have Y/n and Zack like that one time we played at the farm. It'll show how everyone improved," Sonya responds.
"I'm alright with that."
"Same here."
"Alright then. According to our notes, mostly Sonya's, the monsters give us approximately 1 minute to run or hide. To simulate the hunt correctly, we should stick to that," Oliver explains. Zack and I nod in agreement.
As the others race off into the forest, I watch their tracks closely and which direction they each tended to move towards. All of them split into different directions, most likely to lessen the chances off all being trapped at once by the demons. One by one, they all disappear from the field of my vision. Unlike the Grace Field children, I have no way to find them quickly, nor do I know just exactly how far the forest surrounding the hunting ground goes.
In what seems like just a few seconds after them vanishing into the thick coverage of the forest, my pocket watch clicks, signalling Zack and I to begin. We both race off in opposite directions. From what I had seen as they were running off, he's going the same direction of Pepe, Sandy, Oliver, and Violet.
Meanwhile, I swiftly glide through the forest, watching the ground for their tracks. I notice on pair has disappeared at a sudden point. I climb up into the trees and continue following the footprints of my four targets. I spot Gillian up in the trees, jumping through them just as I am. She seems to be unaware of my presence, her motions confident and careless as if she has no fears of being found.
I silence my movements as I gradually climb over to her hiding spot. I graze her back just as Nigel calls out a warning from below us.
"Nigeeeel, you were late on the warning they already got me!" She groans in defeat. Before he can react, I jump down and tap him on the arm.
"Sorry, Gillian, I didn't even notice them..." He chuckles nervously, the light tint of blush on his face visible.
Ignoring the other two, I continue to race after my last two targets. I notice that after a certain point the imprints of the footsteps begin to look as though they've slowed down. They look fresher than the others too, they must be nearby.
After a bit of running after their tracks, I spot them not too far ahead of me. They each quickly notice before I can get to them. They bolt off in opposite directions. I chase after Sonya first, figuring she would be a bit easier to catch.
Looks are decieving. She was not.
I continue to race after her until Paula and Oliver dart through the trees, Zack following close behind. He tags Sonya before she could move out of the way, then proceeds pursuing our final targets. We exchange glances and nod.
I run to their left side as Zack run to their right. We dart through the forest until reaching the town. They quickly disappear into the alleys of the small houses. It's only a matter of listening to them and waiting it out now.
I hear a distant rumbling of one of them climbing up onto a roof. The wooden shingles of the roof creak beneath their cork colored boots. I run off in the direction that I hear them, trying to stay hidden as I go. I use some of the wooden crates stacked next to the house as leverage. Climbing up onto the same roof, I corner them shortly before Zack arrives. We tag them before they can jump down and escape again.
"Looks like you guys win," Oliver says in defeat.
"Let's go meet back up with the others," Paula suggests. We nod in agreement and start heading back to them. Halfway through, Oliver speaks up.
"How long did that game even take?"
I pull out my pocket watch and examine it.
"About 10 minutes," I respond.
"I thought it was at least 20," He says. "Guess we've definitely improved since then, considering it took us around an hour the last time we all played tag together."
We reach the others, all sitting around the place we met up at first. Gillian and Nigel are slumped over in defeat. Violet and Sonya just seem to be exhausted from the game. Sandy still nearly as cheerful and energetic as ever, while Pepe listens to him ramble on about random topics.
"So next up we're still doing the regular training routine," Oliver announces. Most of them groan in response. "Although, since we've already played tag, I'm going to make it only be about half of what we usually do. Alright?"
We all nod in agreement and he begins to explain the routine briefly to me. Once he's finished explaining, the real training begins.
~~~
After I finish the routine, I meet back with the others at the same spot. The only ones who aren't back yet are Oliver and Zack, who decided to do their usual amount instead of half. I press my back up against a tree for support, but end up sliding down it as my legs give out in exhaustion.
Sonya walks over to me and checks to see I'm alright. I nod, too tired to actually speak at the moment. She takes a seat next to me and chats with me casually.
After a few moments, Pepe, Paula, and Gillian walk back off to the town. They're usually on cooking duty, so I assume that's what they went off to do. Violet, Sandy, Sonya, and Nigel follow, leaving me alone for a moment.
Shortly after their departure, Oliver and Zack finally arrive. Zack has taken off his thick blue jacket, revealing a gray tank top underneath. Oliver has undone a few of the buttons of his shirt. Sweat beads all across their skin that has been littered with small scratches and bruises. The two boys both breathe quite heavily, as if they had overworked themselves during training.
"What happened to you two?"
"Training." They respond in unison.
"Why did you overwork yourselves like this?"
"We'll be fine, don't worry so much," Zack says. I glare at him as he just stares back casually as though he didn't mind getting hurt whatsoever.
"You two will not be fine if you keep this kind of stuff up. If you both don't start taking better care of yourself, I swear I'm gonna--"
"Calm down. We've been doing this kind of stuff for years now. Everything's gonna turn out fine and we aren't gonna die from training," He cuts me off.
I walk up to him, seemingly calm. I raise my hand hand and slap him across the face, then proceed to pull him down to eye level with me. He just stares back in shock.
"Listen here, bitch. I've had to put up with everyone I love either dying or being on the verge of it my entire life. If I have to force you to take better care of yourself, then I will do it by any means necessary. You will not be continuing to purposefully put yourself in danger for anyone like this any longer, understand, Zack?"
He doesn't respond verbally, only nods in understanding.
"Good."
I let go of him and walk back off to town, the other two following behind me. We walk to the main part of town where everyone gathers for food and after the hunt. Gillian grabs my hand and drags me off to sit with her. She had already prepared a plate of food for me. She hands it to me before plopping down on a crate and motioning me to sit on the one next to her.
Just as they think I'm out of hearing range, Sandy starts chatting with their group.
"Soooo, what took you three so long to get here?" He asks Oliver and Zack teasingly. Red seems to blossom at Oliver's face.
"It's not like that.." Oliver says, embarrassed from Sandy's implication.
"Yeah, they slapped me and threatened me," Zack says bluntly. They rest of their group whip their heads around to look at him to see whether he was joking or not.
"Wait, what?! Y/n wouldn't do that...right?" Nigel denies the claim in my defense.
"It's not what it sounds like. They told him that if he didn't take better care of himself, they would force him to by any means necessary," Oliver explains. "They did slap him though after he said it wasn't a big deal that he got hurt."
"It was terrifying if I'm being honest. I didn't know they could get that angry. Or even get angry at us at all," Zack adds.
~~~
Gillian leads me back to the house I was staying in last night. I was rushing to get out the door, so I suppose I didn't pay much attention to where exactly it was located. She flings open the door to reveal Paula sitting on the bed across from mine.
"Oh yeah, we forgot to tell you, you and Paula are roommates," Gillian says. Paula and I wave at each other before I plop down onto my bed. Gillian trots off to her house, closing the door on her way out, leaving the two of us alone.
Paula and I sit in silence, although the silence was comfortable to us. It reminds me of when we used to read books together in the library late at night at Grand Valley. I reach down to my bag, grabbing my favorite book that I had stolen from the farm long ago.
I start rereading the book from the beginning. I quickly become absorbed into the book, getting sucked into my own little world and forgetting reality around me. Only when I feel her hair brush against my neck do I realize Paula was reading the book as well from over my shoulder.
I pat the bed to my right to signal her to sit next to me. She holds one side of the book as I hold the other. We read the book in the same position we did in the past. She lets go of the page when we're ready to move on. It flutters over to my side and I catch it beneath my fingers.
~~~
After a few chapters, I notice Paula had shifted more and more of her weight onto my shoulder and had been reading much slower as we went on. I wait patiently for a few minutes in silence, waiting for her to finish the chapter's last page. As time went on, I looked over to see if she may have been having trouble or got bored of the book.
"Paula, are you---" I say softly before cutting myself off. Her chest rises and lowers slowly as she drifts further off to sleep.
I gently remove the book from her hand, placing the scrap piece of paper I use as a bookmark inside before closing it. I set the book back inside my back, careful to make any noise or move to much as to awake her.
I tiredly let myself collapse on the thin white sheets that cover the bed. As I fall onto my back, her head rests on my chest. Her breathing slow and quiet as she stays asleep. I carefully reach my arm up and run my hand through her hair. She smiles softly at my touch, her body still unmoving as she lays there comfortably. I slowly drift off to sleep the same as she did minutes ago.
{ A/N - I'm really sorry for not updating for so long, I tried to make this chapter longer to make up for it. I've been trying to work on all of my stories, so I've just been jumping from story to story to catch them all up.
Also, here's all of the character routes so far for the ending. Please let me know if you'd like me to add more (*´ω｀*)
Emma
Norman
Ray
Gilda
Don
Anna
Oliver
Zack
Paula
Pepe
Sonya
Sandy
Nigel
Gillian
Violet
That's all I have to say for right now. Have a good day, take care of yourselves, and I'll see you all in the next chapter (*´ω｀*) }