And Then There Were Three (Task 4)
Rye felt Morgan's weight shift as she lifted herself from his chest. Despite getting nearly a full nights sleep, he felt so drained that he could have easily lain in the warm sunlight all day. His back felt numb from laying on the unyielding ground for so long, the dust sticking to his arms and legs. He heard a sound, a hushed voice that sounded distance, somewhere to his right.
Rolling over, he tried to ignore the voice but then a scream pierced the silence. Immediately his eyes snapped open and his head whipped around as he looked for any signs of danger. The sudden exposure of light to his eyes meant he had to blink quickly in order to focus his vision and get rid of the sun spots. Another voice joined, screaming what sounded like his name. Recognising it was Morgan, he stood up, squinting at the figure before him.
From where he was standing, he saw her side on; her dark hair tumbled to her shoulders. But Rye was looking at her face which was so drained of colour it was if she had headbutted a bag of flour. His eyebrows knitted together as he tried to figure out why she was shrieking, why the were in danger. He followed her gaze to the water. "Morgan, wha- Oh my God."
As he looked at the surface of the water, the surface disturbed and broken, he saw a mess of white and red under dozens of shiny body's that writhed and snapped. It took him a moment to connect it to the first voice he had heard, a girl's. Tia. His head whipped round again, counting only the three of them. "No." His voice was soft, barely a whisper.
Now Morgan was approaching the edge of the water, taser in hand. He panicked, afraid she too would be pulled apart piece by piece by the carnivorous creatures but instead she held her weapon to the water and pulled the trigger. The water calmed and became still. They were wither dead or stunned. Now, with his focus off of the water he saw what Tia had been doing. At the other end of the lake was Flora.
Stunned, Rye looked at Pate, but he was frozen to the spot in shock. Then, kicking off his shoes, he dove into the water. It was surprisingly warm, almost like a giant bath. His arms and legs pumped wildly as he swam to Tia's mangled body. Of course it was too late, nonetheless he felt at her bloody neck for a pulse.
"Flora!" He cried out in vain. Rye didn't know what he had expected her to do, wade in to kill him maybe, but she had already fled. It wasn't like he wanted to fight her, to exact revenge or anything, all he felt was sadness for the dead girl in his arms even though they had barely known each other. His mind when to Pate, and he knew he couldn't let him see her like this. Carefully, he held her body under the water, letting the air bubble out from her lips and nose until he was just left in a pool of her blood, streaked by her dark, black hair.
As he made his way back to the others, rinsing as much of the red away as he could, Rye couldn't help but feel a small twinge of hope that Flora hadn't tried to peruse him. He left the water, and gave Pate a small nod, not saying anything. What could he say? People died here and none of them could change what had happened, so why try.?
Silently he picked up the kit and put it on his back. Not having a weapon, he thought about retrieving Tia's mace from the river but thought better of it. Somehow it seemed better it stay with her. The three of them began walking in search of safety, haunted by the girl's sudden death, and he couldn't help but wonder which of them would be next.