The Elect § Bellamy Blake

 Chapter Two 

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The mist cleared.
They set out to look for Harley and even though Armada wanted to hold on to her hope, the more dead rabbits she saw the more she knew they were looking for a body. Though no one said much of anything since last night, they all thought it. They knew what they were looking for.

That's exactly what they found.
She was hardly recognizable. Her skin was puffed, red, blistered, slimy and festering.
Her eyes were open and stark white. The green they once held had disappeared behind the glaze. Her mouth was parted like she was saying something as she died.

Auden threw up as tears fell down his face. He couldn't stand the sight of her. Armada kept her glances to a minimum as she nearly bit a hole in her lip trying to avoid tears. Shiloh and Reese wrapped her in a blanket and brought her back to the pod where they buried her around the back and made a cross with two sticks and some wire.
Armada found flowers and though they were small, they easily stood out against the dark fresh dirt that they lay against.

Shiloh said they were called 'bright eyes' and they all thought it was perfect for her.

There was a pang in Armada's chest she hadn't allowed herself to fully feel until now. As she stood staring at the mulled dirt surrounded by bright green grass, she thought of Harley's laughter. Her green eyes. The way she liked to joke about stupid things like someone mispronouncing a word.
Things like that made her laugh for hours.
What was she going to tell Harley's grandparents?

A childhood friend gone overnight due to acidic air.
The first of them to die.
"May we meet again."

It was a week later when Auden decided he'd endured enough of everyone beating around the bush and not speaking much.
"Our engineer is gone and we have no clue how to fix these fuck all comms." He threw wire clippers onto the table top as he sighed.

They had been relatively quiet, especially around him. Not knowing how to talk about the fact that Harley was their only chance of getting communications back. They'd realized this when they went to start fixing it again a few days ago but they had no clue what hooked up to what.
Connecting two wires that didn't go together could result in no power whatsoever.
Harley hadn't made a layout so it just looked like those boxes of extra wires all engineers have in their rooms.

They were trained to do it all but Harley did it best.
They missed their families and the need to speak to them, to Harley's grandparents, it was like a buzzing in their ears they couldn't silence. It only added to Auden's leg shaking.

"I'm sure we could figure it out. We just need to test the wires." Shiloh said.
"And fry the whole pod?" Auden let out a sarcastic laugh. "You're too smart to say something that stupid, Shy."

Reese and Armada shared a glance. Auden had some anger issues. One wrong step on a fragile bone and he'd crack like a thin piece of glass.
Especially now that his entire spine was out for them all to see.

But, Armada wasn't one to shy away from a little spat with Auden. They kind of got each other in that sense.
"You're too stupid to be allowed anywhere near those wires, doctor Do-little." She shook her head as she sat up from underneath the circuit board.

Auden held up a crude finger. "Sit and spin, Army."
Armada held up both of her bird fingers. "Choke."

"We'll figure it out."
That's what Reese always said when they were in an unforeseen circumstance.
One of the trials in being chosen as an elect was group work. After years of observation and assigning roles, they put together their groups.
They were subject to change at anytime but from the first time this group was put together, they've stayed together.
Closely knit since the age of 15.

They went through situational trials and challenges to test their strengths and weaknesses together and that was what Reese always said.
'We'll figure it out.'
And they always did.

A couple of weeks later, they sat around a fire sharing stories as they ate their rabbits together and finally started to feel like the weight of Harley's death was lessening.

They'd decided it was safe to be by the pod at night but they still weren't sure about going into the woods. The small field they crash landed in made it easy to spot any potential threats coming from any angle.
If it dared step out of the tree line.

"I have one." Shiloh started. "Julian Jenson said the grass glows blue at night because the radioactivity in chlorophyll responds to moonlight." They all chuckled at the stupid theory.

"That dumbass Vera told me my toes would turn black and fall off and my hair would fall out on cold nights." Armada rolled her eyes. "She didn't just fall from the stupid tree, she was dragged through dumbass Forest."

"Oliver, that guy with the scar on his eyebrow from-" Reese was cut off.
"Tara's rogue blade!" Auden laughed. "Idiot didn't understand the word 'move.'"
"Yeah well he said animals were naked." They all laughed. "Said that the radiation burnt their hair off and ever since then, they've been breeding bald."

Armada let out a loud laugh. "Breeding bald!" She held her stomach. "I think that rogue blade pierced his brain."

"He was mad because he was bested by a girl." Auden chuckled before his smile dimmed. "Harley used to say that."

A silence hung in the air.
"I've been having this dream that Harley gets up all blistered and shit and walks into the field. Right over there." He points to the direction she was assigned to and they all glance in that direction as if she might actually do it. "She just stands there."
They were met with another silence.

Armada didn't want to say it aloud but she worried about Auden's mental state being out here and not knowing what's out there. After seeing Harley like that, she didn't know how much pressure could make him crack but now she guessed it wasn't much.

"Do you ever think about what that sound was? Before the mist came." Auden asked. "It got creepy there for a while thinking that we were the only people here but hearing that sound..I'm not so sure I think that anymore."

"You think a person made that noise?" Reese asked.
Auden shrugged. "Wasn't an animal. Ask Armada." He nodded his head in Armada's direction and they all looked at her.

She sighed. "If I admitted that I didn't recognize the call as something animal would you think I'm as crazy as him?" She asked Reese only but made it loud enough for the other two to hear on purpose.
He shook his head. "No. Because then I'd admit that I was thinking the same."

"I just assumed it was an animal. Never thought too much on it." Shiloh shrugged his shoulders.

"I say we investigate." Auden says.
The moment of silence in the air now was different than the few they'd shared last week.
Then, the silence was cold.
Now, the silence is hot.

"I don't think we have a choice." Reese states. "We were sent here to start a life for the ones coming in behind us. If we don't know what's out there then have we really done anything? When they ask us, 'what did you find?' And all we say is 'bunnies and radioactive mist' then we were a waste of a perfectly good pod. What would've been the point of raising us to be-"

Armada scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Put a pause on the speech, Reese. We get it - we were born to explore. We're in."
The group exchanged looks and chuckled at Armada's antics.

"First light, then?"

"First light."

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