Casted

Chapter 8

When my vision finally cleared after what seemed like ages of sightless panic, the shapes and colors of the world were unusually sharp and distinct, like the pieces had just been cut out and pasted together on a stark blue background. Scents of fresh earth and frozen sky flooded my nose and mouth. I was lying on my back, blinking up at the spidery limbs of bare trees that stretched above me. The sun was so bright. My eyes ached.

I sat up slowly, filling my lungs with the cold air, then let it out and watched as it clouded in front of my face. A bitter breeze swept over my cheeks. Strands of blonde hair fell in front of eyes and across my shoulder, like thousands of flaxen feathers fluttering in the wind. For a confused, disordered moment I was mesmerized by their fluid movements. They were so graceful, so beautiful...

Oh God.

I snapped my head up, eyes searching the snowy forest that extended away on every side of me. Nothing moved. The cold air froze everything it touched. I was alone.

Okay, Harper. Get it together, I told myself, scrambling to my feet. The dusting of snow slid beneath me and I almost fell back down. Come on, Harper, this is it. What do I need first?

"Three things you can't live without in the wilderness," I heard my dad's voice say. He always said the 'I' in wilderness long, so that it sounded like the word wild. "Good water, good food, and good shelter. If you have the choice between the three, take the shelter. You can make it three, maybe four days without food or water, but you'll freeze to death in one night without something solid over your head."

"Shelter," I whispered out loud. I pulled my gloves out of my coat pockets and slip my hands inside, relishing in the instant warmth, then did the same with the hat. "I guess..." I turned in a full circle, examining the vacant terrain. "I guess I just start walking." I was bound to find some shelter if I wandered far enough.

Suddenly, a dull thud sounded behind me. I whipped around, heart racing, but there was no movement, nothing out of place. "Who's there?" I asked.

No answer.

"Come out. I know you're there." I took a step towards the noise.

Thump.

A chunk of white snow cascaded down from a tree branch and hit the ground a few meters away. Snow. I was yelling at a chunk of snow. I threw my hands in the air and rolled my eyes. I'd almost turned back around when a flash of blue caught my eye. A corner of royal blue fabric peeked out at me from the inside of a hollowed out tree, not a foot from where the snow had fallen.

Hope flickered inside me, but I was wary at the same time. I trotted towards it. Whatever it was, it didn't move. When I was within reaching distance, the familiar shape brought a flood of relief crashing over me. The shape of a backpack. I fell onto my knees and pulled it out of the hollow trunk, tearing it open and digging around inside.

"Thank God," I breathed, pulling out a large gray sleeping bag, rolled up tight so that it would fit in the backpack. Next to it was a water canteen- although it was empty- and a small loaf of slightly stale bread. Only the essentials. I put everything back in the bag in a hurry, and subconsciously glanced over my shoulder out of paranoia. Any of the other competitors could be watching, waiting for the right moment to attack and take my new supplies.

I swung the pack over my shoulders and set out to my right, making a beeline through the trees. The undergrowth was thick, poking through the few inches of snow and grabbing my ankles. I almost tripped a few times as the brambles clawed at me. The air was frigid- despite the sun beating down on my back like a spotlight- with no clouds to hold any heat in the atmosphere. A breeze would occasionally weave through the trees and bite at my cheeks, the only exposed skin on me. Nothing lived or breathed in the forest. If there was any game to be hunted, it was burrowed away deep in its holes, hiding from the cold. How right it was for the Task to take place in the winter- there was nothing that scared the lower classes more than the coldest, longest season of the year. It was the swiftest killer, the most ruthless enemy. Sunlight sparkled on the icy sheet of snow.