Calm and Calamity

Chapter 50

Day: 653 (Food Drop-Off)

Days Left: 4827

Lives Saved: 3

"Do you think we'll get any food?" asked Clarence to the rest of the prisoners.

Kai shrugged. "Hopefully. They might donate because of the fight."

"I would not get your hopes up yet," said Salim.

Whilst a small team had been sent to retrieve the food packets at the drop-off point, if any at all had been dropped, the rest of the village citizens waited together in anxious silence.

Eventually, the others returned, with Corinna leading the pack. They stopped in front of the others, their faces solemn and dour.

"Well?" Clarence said with faint hope. "Was there any food?"

Corinna shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "There was nothing."

"Nothing..."

The prisoners fell back into silence, their heads bowed.

"This is bullshit!" spat Kai. "I thought we'd get something at least!"

"As I told you before," began Salim. "It was not going to work. You cannot expect them to believe such a staged and forced fight like that; many have tried before you. There has to be a proper motive and actual injury."

"So, what?" said Dex. "Should we start decapitating limbs now?"

"No, we are most certainly not doing that," said Klei.

Kai let out a frustrated groaning sigh. "I'm so sorry, guys. I thought my plan would work. But it was just a waste of time."

Riley shrugged. "It was still fun."

Princess Alfreda's eyes narrowed on Rin. "So, my portraits were ruined for no purpose at all?"

Rin shrunk from the fire demon's glare, but her smirking grin remained on her lips.

Klei turned to Dex and Kai. "So long as we have enough food for Wendy, we should be okay."

Dex and Kai nodded in agreement, but their faces soured as they clutched their rumbling stomachs.

Though the Abyss Fruit was filling enough for one meal, there was not enough to feed all of the prisoners for the whole day. In addition, the fruit did not regrow and replenish itself fast enough to keep up with the demand.

Looking around, Clarence saw how thin everyone was becoming, not yet starving and malnourished twigs, but the weight loss difference was now evident, especially when you looked at Jackson, who had once been a giant bulk of muscle and brawn, now his arms were no longer like tree-trunks but the size of the average man. If they weren't in the Eternal Abyss, they all surely would be skeletons with skin stretched across their bones. But, of course, it would be several more months before any of them would reach that stage, but would this alliance continue after that? Once they were reduced to mere bones and skin?

Clarence could see this realisation dawn on everyone else's faces, the prisoners uncertain, glancing at each other with wary eyes.

Perhaps he wouldn't need to destroy the Abyss Fruit; the alliance would fall by itself.

"I shouldn't have done this," Corinna hushed to Harmony, the two of them standing away from the group, out of earshot from the others. "I shouldn't have hassled everyone into the peace treaty. We were all better off before." Corinna bowed her head low, her fingers shaking and fidgeting with her hair as she mumbled, "no one would be starving."