Hunger Option B: Indirect Path

Readers are cautious in this adventure. They’ve voted to take the indirect path in the arena in hopes of avoiding the other competitors. Let’s see it the caution pays off.

Hunger Option B: Indirect Path

Caution wins out and you decide to take the indirect path back toward where you entered the arena.

The thick foliage slows you down to a crawl and before long you’re moving through the gray of twilight, which quickly turns into the dark of a moonless night. You realize you’ll have no chance of seeing blue needles on a night like this so you focus on finding that sweet smell that alerted you earlier.

Before you find it, there’s an ‘ugh’ followed by a high-pitched hum.

A moment later there’s a scream and thrashing in the foliage. The screaming continues and it sounds like an elephant’s crashing through the arena.

You freeze, waiting for the competitor to move away. Eventually the sound of his pain and confusion registers as only a dull nightly noise and you move forward again.

A sweet smell fills the air and then you step in something. Looking down, you find your foot firmly planted in the middle of a honeycomb that must have been knocked off the tree recently.

You realize what must have happened to the other competitor as you look up to see the remains of a beehive. All around you lay bits and pieces of honey thick comb.

When you lift your foot, half the comb comes with it. You barely hold in an ‘ugh’ of your own but then the ‘ugh’ turns into a groan when the sweet smell of disturbed honey overwhelms you.

Your stomach moans in response, reminding you your last meal was dinner the night before. And that had only been stale bread and water.

Something snaps just as you lean over to pick up a piece of honeycomb. Everything in you wants to drink the sweet insides but then another twig snaps under a booted sole.

You wince and crouch down right where you’re at, your fingers inches away from your next meal.

A moment later a young woman moves through the foliage to your right with a chunk of honeycomb in one hand and a round object in her other.

From the comb she sips honey as she slips a ring onto one of her fingers. She passes you without looking over.

Honey covers both her hands but she seems completely unperturbed by this as she grins a gap-toothed smile at the gold on her finger.

She holds her hand up to inspect her prize just when a sliver of moon peeks over the arena wall.

The ring lights up with a greenish glow. The woman chortles and then she disappears into the trees.

You’ve no idea how she knows where she’s going. Part of the competition is that you only get more hints when you find each object.

Is the ring the hint or is the hint back where she found the ring?

You’re not sure. Contemplating, you break off a chunk of comb and sip the sweet honey. It fills your mouth with an explosion of flavor.

You could simply follow the woman, hoping she interpreted the hint correctly or you could inspect where she found the ring in hopes of finding the hint for yourself.

You guessed the first location correctly on your own, so you’re sure you can figure out the second hint if you know what it is.

While you continue to eat honey, do you…

Bb. Follow the woman?

Or

Bc. Inspect the Ring’s Location?

Blessings and hope to see you Tuesday,

Jennifer