The Brooke

Safe Haven

WE WALKED IN THE woods for hours with no direction. 

No destination.

Whether we were headed for another deadly level of this hellish race or finding an exit, no one knew that.

We were all in shock, scared out of our minds and grieving.

Grieving for our fellow contestants, our friends who we had lost today.

Only nineteen out of twenty-five had come out alive. Six students were gone.

Dead.

Six lives were lost into the mountains.

Six teenagers who would never see their life ahead.

Six brave souls who were killed by the hands of evil.

Four of them had never reached the table where golden lotuses lay.

They were either crushed or torn limb by limb and eaten. They became the warm live food to those humongous polar bears.

One of them was Gracie.

The pain of losing her hit deep into my chest cavity.

Every time I thought of her, it became almost unbearable for me to breathe.

My heart beat painfully shrinking in the ribcage as my lungs contracted almost forcefully.

Each breath in her memory came out as a battle.

But I let myself think of her more and more. I disallowed my mind to wander away from her memories.

I grieved silently, letting myself absorb the agony as a tribute to her.

I needed to feel that pain, needed to let it get the best- or rather the worst- out of me.

Because I deserved it.

I deserved to be hurt and to be in misery. I deserved every source of punishment for being the reason of her death now.

She was dead. Gracie, poor sweet woeful Gracie,  was no longer there with us. With me.

I hadn't known her for long, just two and a half days.

Yet her softness with her bravery, her willingness to break through the emptiness embedded deep into my brain.

Nagging at me constantly, blaming myself for her death.

She would have been alive if I would have been able to safe her. Like Jared, I could have helped her too.

If only I would have heard her. If only I wouldn't have lost myself into running so freely. If only I hadn't led all of them towards the first level.

If only, if only.

Though it wasn't her life I was to be accused for. There were five other lives too.

Five other people, kids, who would have lived if it hadn't been for my stupid bravery to lead them.

My stupid fucking bravery. It was the second time it got me into trouble. 

The first time being at the Gleaning.

But not only had it affected me, it had cost six teenagers their life.

And it was all my fault.

The guilt weighed too much on my shoulders, landing heavy on my body and tainting my soul with dark sins forever.

The other two contestants, who were lucky enough to get a Golden Lotus, were the unfortunate ones to get the wrong parachute bags.

Just like me.