𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀 | 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬

𝟎𝟑. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥

— 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐱 —

━━━━━━ ☽【❖】☾ ━━━━━━

We only stood at the entrance of the cave's mouth for about a minute. It's all we could tolerate really. Even though we were covered from the sun's direct contact, the heat was unbearable. And the light was so bright that all of us were forced to squint as we stared out into the sand-coated wasteland. Where the world has once been white, and dangerously beautiful; it was now beige, but no less brutal.

As if to prove the gamemakers point, a few skeletons littered the ground beneath the cliff side. The large skulls were unmistakably those belonging to whichever mutts had survived the winter, only to die and decay when summer came. It was like they themselves had looked us in the eyes and claimed that there would be no survivors as not even their own creations were cared for enough to provide shelter.

I glanced over my shoulder at the others. Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of their faces. Harlan kept close to my side, uncomfortably wiping his glistening face with his hand every few seconds. Rex had a hand pressed to his forehead, but he was still forced to squint as he sought answers in the wasteland before us. Romulus's jaw had tensed, and his eyes narrowed but only enough to see without squinting as much as the rest of us.

"Why haven't they destroyed the cave?" Romulus asked, breaking the solemn silence.

"I don't know," Rex replied, shaking his head as he ushered Harlan and I to follow him back inside, "But I don't intend to stand out here and fry just to find out."

"Why do the gamemakers decide to do anything?" Harlan asked. "Does it really matter? We have the cave still, we might as well keep using it."

Romulus didn't move. My brow slowly furrowed, preventing me from taking another step. Harlan stopped when I did, even though he was overheated and wanted more than anything to retreat back into the cool depths of the cave. And only after he realized that we had stopped following him, Rex stopped and turned back around.

"Romulus?" I questioned.

"The gamemakers do everything for a reason," Romulus contradicted the previous claims. "So if they left this cave standing but demolished the rest of the arena's terrain, I can't help but wonder what's worse: what's out there... or whatever they might put in here with us."

"Honey." The chilling whispered was uttered from Rex's lips with a look of horror before he took off down the cavern corridor at a sprint.

Harlan took off after Rex—showing just as much concern—and I followed a step later. Romulus was the longest to stay behind. I caught a glimpse of him turning to stare out into the open expanse of sand just once more before I darted around the corner where the temperature easily dropped at least ten degrees.

After spending three weeks in just one location—recovering from our wounds and training—it wasn't hard to believe that we had the corridor routes memorized. After another right and two lefts down the winding corridor, we finally arrived in the chamber that we deemed the medical wing.

Perhaps that had been our downfall. We'd gotten too comfortable and forgotten the dangers of the world around us. We'd forgotten that we weren't the only survivors in the mock situation of this ancient world. We'd forgotten the horrors of the past nine weeks, going about our lives as if we were some nomadic family moving from cave to cave when the situation deemed it necessary. Perhaps the gamemakers saw that as impertinence. Perhaps they saw it as defiance against the grueling system of murder and death.