Rough Hunger – Steal Again
Hello Wonderful Readers!
Today we’re exploring part two of the Rough Hunger adventure. If you’re unfamiliar with these stories, here’s what happens: These are multi-ending stories where you, Amazing Reader, are the main character. The first week you get introduced to who you are and what kind of situation you’re in and then you’re presented with a choice. You vote for which choice you’d like to explore in the comments (I love to hear why you decided one way or the other!) and then the following week, whichever option received the most votes is posted and you continue the adventure. There are four posts usually in each story, making a total of three times you get to chime in. Everyone is welcome to participate, so feel free to jump in!
If you missed last week, you can read it, or here’s a short recap:
You’re a scavenger in a world where food is hard to come by. One night you were drawn to a fire where four men were eating roasted rabbit. After they fell asleep, you tried to steal food from their bags only to find they don’t have any extra. Instead, you found a stone that glows blue. The man you stole from almost caught you but a friend, How, broke his nose by throwing a rock at him and you escaped. When How saw what you stole, he informed you its an element stone which might be able to produce fresh water. Readers voted to steal again in hopes of either getting a second stone – maybe the fire stone you saw in a different bag – or the instructions for how the stone works.
Let’s dive in =)
Rough Hunger – Steal AgainYou see the glitter of Breaded Beard’s dark eyes and the white swatch of his nose bandage as he scans the forest while his companions sleep. Your stomach rumbles but you’re not worried about the husky man hearing over the chatter of the early morning birds.
“How do we get past him?” How asks. When you woke him and told him you planned to steal from the men again, How had grinned in excitement. Now the grin’s gone, replaced by a worried pinching of his brows while he chews on a piece of pine bark.
You glance up. The sky displays an ever lightening gray through the tree canopy.
“Time to disappear,” you whisper in How’s ear and he follows you back to the bowl in the tree where you hid the night before.
“Should we follow them today?” How asks.
You don’t like the idea. It’s more likely the men will notice if you start tailing them through the forest. Your fingers close around the stone in your pocket. Can you figure it out without the instructions?
How’s fingers suddenly grasp your arm. His frown’s melted into a panicked, wide-eyed look that makes his hazel eyes look too big for his narrow face.
About to ask him what’s wrong, you hear the swish of a pant leg against the heavy foliage. A moment later, a lean man in buckskin leggings comes into view to the left of your tree. He’s crouched, inspecting the ground.
The swish comes again and the man’s hand shoots out, telling someone behind him to wait. You recognize him from the night before as he sat across the fire from Braided Beard when they were eating.
He’s a tracker. Realization sinks a knot into your belly, an angry companion next to your hunger.
“The swamps,” you breathe into How’s ear.
He gulps, but moves as soon as the Tracker’s back is turned. A moment later when the man turns again to signal those behind him, you follow How.
You know the Tracker will follow your trail through the forest. It’s a bitter admission, but you just don’t have the skill to hide your passage from him. But the swamps are another matter entirely.
You duck under a low hanging vine and direct How to the right by a touch on his shoulder. Not long after, you spot a familiar cypress with deep root channels.
“Hold up.” You stop at the tree to search in the thick leaves at the base. Your fingers come away with a damp layer of musty dirt, but you find what you’re looking for.
Unearthing two empty turtle shells about three feet across, you hand one to How.
How flips it over a couple times in confusion.
You gesture for him to follow and he does, until you step into the swamp and lower yourself up to your shoulders in the mucky water.
“Uck,” he grumbles. “Do we have to?”
“Can you hide your trail well enough to escape a tracker?”
How’s shoulders slump but he steps into the water, sinking down until he can hold the turtle shell over his head. You slowly float away, letting the sluggish swamp current fill the path behind you in the surface debris.
It’s dark and musty beneath the shell with the swamp’s moldy oder filling your nostrils and climbing down your throat.
How follows by holding the edge of your shell below the water. It occurs to you that two large turtles floating so close together might look odd, so once you get out into the swamp, you chance a quick peek and spot a small grove of cypress growing with their bulbous trunks and roots straight out of the water.
You angle toward it and direct How to settle between two of the deep roots. With him safe, you move around and pick another deep section to wedge yourself in. Grime squishes between your toes and makes the roots below the water slippery, but you dig your feet in and stay put.
It’s not long before you hear voices.
“Rough Rats!” one of the men grumbles.
“They actually went into the swamp?” another asks, shock clear in his words.
There’s a pause, then, “If you’re serious about reclaiming that stone, we’ll have to enter the water too.”
There’s some cursing but you catch the swish of the men entering the water.
After that they’re so quiet that you chance lifting your shell a fraction to gaze out. Just as you do, one of the men who’s so skinny he almost looks almost skeletal, yanks his foot up with a yelp.
“Hold up! Hold up!” Skinny shouts. Hopping, he heads toward the cypress grove directly between you and How. Once there, he lifts his bare foot up on the roots and then yelps again as his pack overbalances him backwards. He shrugs out of it and pitches it up onto the trees before trying to look again. A waft of air stirs past your face and an ache starts in your chest before trying to climb up the back of your throat. It’s the yeast of bread. You’d know it anywhere.
As you’re staring at the slumped pack, How’s hand emerges from the far side of the cypress roots. Slowly, he pulls it under his shell.
“Hey!” The tracker lunges for How’s position.
How stands up, swings his shell hard into the tracker’s side, and then dives, shell and all.
He disappears below the floating scum but the tracker’s eyes seem to be picking out every small ripple in the water while he wheezes for breath.
“Flip the turtle shells,” he instructs, heading in the direction How went.
It’s a tall order as turtles love sunbathing in the area and it’s littered with shells, but How can’t stay down indefinitely and the size of his shell will give him away.
“Wait for me,” Skinny hollers, trying to wrap a bandana around his bleeding foot. The others start flipping over anything that’s floating, ignoring the man.
You need to distract them, but how?
Gators immediately come to mind. In the swamps, they’re the biggest danger and the men were already hesitant to enter the muck. If you shout “Gator” and then dive, abandoning your shell, you might be able to swim away far enough away to escape while the men are distracted.
Skinny finishes tying his foot and turns to join the others, which places his back to you. Another idea dawns, one that might get the men to stop following. You could take Skinny captive and negotiate for the men to leave you and How alone in exchange for their man. Skinny’s small enough you think you can subdue him.
Do you…
Yell Gator?
Or
Take Skinny Captive?
Thanks for stopping by! Leave your vote in the comments below and we’ll return next week to continue this story.
Until then, blessings
Jennifer
(For more of my stories, check out either my multi-ending Adventure book, The Adventure, or my YA Fantasy novel, Quaking Soul, here on my Website or on Amazon.)
