fault - eli moskowitz

thirty-five

we all stood in two lines, which was basically two different teams. "welcome to coyote creek." kreese said. "you've been split into two teams." he told everyone. "red and black." he said as him and sensei held up red headbands, i wore a red headband. "the goal is to capture as many headbands as possible from the other side." kreese told us. "today the people across from you are not your friends. they're not your brothers. they are the enemy." he said and i felt tory look at me. "the last team standing- wins." kreese told everyone. "how do we get the headbands?" miguel asked. "by any means possible." kreese responded. "no rules." he said. "use your judgement, this is a training exersize." sensei spoke up. "correct, but remember, this is your life." kreese said holding up a headband. "you lose it- you die." he dramatically said. i stood there feeling kind of sick. 

chubs came running over, "hey guys, sorry i'm late." he said. "traffic on the 118 was a bitch." he told us all. "put coyote creek into the nav, nothing came up." i nodded at him, "what have you done to yourself?" sensei asked chubs. "oh the- yeah, you know what, i just decided to flip the script, hawk-style." chubs told sensei as he took his sunglasses off. i looked over to hawk before i looked back at chubs. "heretofore, you can refer to me as stingray." stingray said as he grabbed his little braided part of his beard. "yeah, all right, chubs. he's on your team." sensei told kreese. "terrific." kreese replied. 

i had just fought off someone but ended up losing, something was off with me. i don't know what i just felt very weird and was starting to get really anxious. it was like i had a gut feeling something was going to happen- i didn't know what. 

i slowly walked back to were kreese, sensei, and the others were. some people were still fighting though. as i walked over tory looked at me, "aw looks like you got out." she said passive aggresively. "yeah." i responded with a fake smile before i walked off, the smile immediatly dropping. i didn't know what was wrong with me. 

miguel came walking back with hawk's headband, i knew hawk was one of the last ones on our team but i knew stingray was still out there somewhere. hawk sat on the ground out of breathe behind miguel, "finish him." kreese said and miguel nodded, before kicking hawk in the face. ouch, it looked like that hurt. "team black!" miguel yelled and i slowly nodded before i looked down at hawk who was getting up off the ground.

out of nowhere stingray came up off the ground covered in leaves, he was camoflauged in before. he grabbed the headbands from miguel, our team won. we all highfived and laughed in joy.