YouTube Hunger Games

11: I Promise

Chilled's POV

I was silent, listening. There were no noises around me save for the birds overhead, and I didn't think that I would be able to catch one of them with nothing but a sword. Either way, I couldn't hear any rabbits, or other small game in the area, and I hadn't seen any. Stepping lightly, I moved forward in silence as to keep the animals in the unknown that I was on my way to kill them.

It had been at least a couple of hours, and Ze and I had both kept in contact. A couple claps here, a couple there, and from the sounds of something wailing, he had caught something in his snare already. I was determined to prove that I was helpful too, and I wanted to catch something to make sure I was. The animals were quick, and nearly as quiet as I was, and so I honed in all of my concentration on the woods and the noises around me. Hopefully I would hear footsteps as well should another player try to sneak up on me, and with my straining to hear even the tiniest noises, I was sure that I would be fine.

The woods were warm, and the trees locked the heat underneath them. My vest was off, leaving me in my black shirt and pants as I slowly moved forward. The bag was weighing on my shoulders, but I didn't mind. I'd rather have taken it then make Ze do it, and I knew that I would be fine with it anyway. I could still move, it just hindered my ability to crouch for long periods of time. Even so, I knew that it would be okay. It was a good workout anyhow, and I could carry any food back inside it.

I thought I heard something snap to my right, and I whipped around, my eyes narrowed as I watched. The trees and the leaves on the bushes swayed in the wind, but otherwise all remained calm. Something must have been moved, despite the wind being rather light today. I leaned against a tree to give myself some water. The days seemed to be getting hotter with each one passing, and I was getting a headache. I hoped that I didn't pass out from heat stroke, and the cold water felt marvelous slipping down my throat. I needed this today, I decided. It was going to be a long day without food and the sun overhead, but Ze was cheerfully optimistic, and I would be too.

I heard two claps from farther away, and I stiffened. He was getting quite far away from me, but I could still hear him, and him me, and so I returned the two. When I got no response, I knew he had heard me and I moved along, knowing that I had also scared everything in the area around me. Once more, I silently thanked Ze for setting up the snares as I did every time that he clapped and I was reminded of it, and then put my water back into the back so that I didn't have to carry it.

I began moving again, walking forward and listening. I wondered if Ze was having more luck than I was, and that made me think back to GaLm and Smarty. Why did I let GaLm go after him? That was such a stupid idea. If we all had gone, then the bear wouldn't have separated us. The pair wouldn't have died, and we wouldn't have lost everything. We wouldn't have almost drowned in a river, and we could still be here, working together as the Derp Crew was meant to. We could crack jokes at Smarty, and sit around a fire telling stories and making promises that we wouldn't keep, or talking about how Tom was missing out on all the fun.

It was still hard to remind myself every time that we woke up that this was a game, a simulation, nothing more than pixels and coding. Everything felt so real, and the injuries we obtained felt too realistic. They faded away as a normal injury would, scratches and bruises staying longer, and the soreness from sleeping and moving making my muscles ache when I moved around. The heat from the sun struck through my clothes, and it felt like I was melting on the inside. The bag, although made entirely of pixels as well, weighed on me, and I could feel everything inside of it. This was one hell of an interactive environment, and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I could only imagine other games being played in here, like a life-sized Monopoly game, that would fun. I considered a game of Town of Salem here, and realized that such a game would also require a lot of death, and instead dismissed it. Games that were more or less harmless, those would be okay. Anything that required death, shooting, fighting, that would be hell to have to go through.