The Survival Experiment

After less than an hour of work, our arms were all loaded with tree branches. We were on our way back to the camp when Giorgie stopped dead, exclaiming, "Whoa, what are those?!"

Dropping her pile of wood, Giorgie slowly approached a large tree. There were fruits growing on the tree, the size of large oranges or small melons, ranging from teal to indigo in color. She picked one and sniffed it cautiously.

"I don't think you should eat that," Jesse warned her. "It could be poisonous."

"I'm just gonna try it," she said, and before anyone could stop her, she bit off a piece of the fruit. Oblivious to our horror-stricken faces, Giorgie chewed the fruit slowly and thoughtfully. She swallowed and said, "Tastes like bananas." Then she took a bigger bite and began to pick other fruits. She ate quickly, and threw the fruit's pit into the brush when she was finished.

Giorgie returned to us with five of the bluish fruits tucked into her bag. "For us—for later."

"Shouldn't we get some for the others?" Wade suggested.

"What they don't know won't hurt them," Giorgie winked.

"Yeah," I said, "but what Jada finds out will come back to hurt us."

Everyone looked at Jesse, and his eyes seemed to reflect shame. "I won't tell," he said. "I promise."

I couldn't trust Jada, but I was pretty sure I trusted her husband, bound by her command as he might be. His promise was good enough for me, and apparently, it was good enough for all of us, because we moved onward without another word.

We had just gotten situated around our bonfire when Jada and Darian came running out of the woods. They sounded out of breath and were acting frantic.

"Compass girl!" Jada shouted. Ramona turned sharply at the sound of her new nickname. "Help!"

They got closer to us, and that's when I got a look at Darian's left arm, or rather, what was left of his arm. The hand was completely missing, and the whole limb was crushed and mangled from the elbow down.

"I have my first aid kit!" Ramona rushed to Darian's side, lugging the box of medical supplies with her.

Jada panicked incoherently, and Jesse took her away to solace her.

As Ramona tended to the wound, Wade asked, "Where's Finn?"

He didn't get an answer.

"Where's Finn?" he repeated, gritting his teeth in fury. I'd never seen him get so animated about anything. Suddenly he very much resembled his missing twin, which gave me chills.

Without warning, Wade took off into the forest, crying his brother's name. I heard Finn's faint response: "Wade! Help me!"

Wade darted out of view.

"Morgan!"

Ramona was calling for me.

"Come hold this. Tightly."

As Ramona prepared some medical instruments, I pressed gauze against the remains of Darian's arm, worrying for the twins, my worries growing with every second they didn't return.

"Now move it."

I moved the gauze.

"I'm going to close up some of these arteries that are spilling a lot of blood. Just... watch him. Keep him awake. Pay attention to what he says."

I looked into Darian's brown eyes uneasily. His usual petrifying expression was gone, replaced with a terrible fear of what might lie ahead of him. This didn't make it any easier for me to converse with him; he was just as scary as before, only in an entirely different way.

"Am I gonna die?" he asked in his low voice.

I took Darian's remaining hand in my own, tried to tell him everything would be all right even though I didn't know nor believe that it would. My soothing words came out mindlessly, for my thoughts were elsewhere.

"Please, Ramona," Darian began pitifully. I noticed something in Ramona's eyes at his use of her name, something that suggested he had touched her heart. "Don't let me die."

"I'm trying, Darian," she said, mending his wound. "I'll do my best, but I'm not a doctor. After this is all over, we'll have to get you to a real doctor."

"Maybe doctors Sage and Murray have been watching us, and they're heading here now," Tiffany added.

Darian shook his head solemnly. "This is something they prepared for. Something they expected to happen, something they wanted to happen. Part of the game."

"This isn't a fucking game," Giorgie said. "This is real. Your left hand is really gone. It was really taken off by..." It had taken us this long to realize no one had bothered to ask what happened. "How did you lose your hand?"

"Something bit it off," he answered. "Some kind of... beast."

From the corner of my eye, I could see Wade and Finn coming in from the forest. Much to my relief, I saw that they, unlike poor Darian, were not missing any parts. In fact, they seemed to have something extra that they were dragging behind them...

"You killed it?" Darian asked. It was obvious that he was glad.

"Yes, sir," Finn answered. "Did you think I'd let her run off with your hand in her teeth? You still want that by the way? I can't promise it's in good condition, but I'm sure I can dig it out of her..."

"No," Darian laughed. "Mona here has already got me on the road to recovery without the chewed up hand. Thank you, though."

"No trouble." He and Wade dragged the huge dead creature a few feet from the rest of us. Wade stepped away, wiping his hands off disgustedly, while Finn stood proudly over his kill. I got a good look at it for the first time; it had a head and torso like a bear, but its limbs and tail were that of a prehistoric reptile. By the look of its volatile teeth, I suspected that Darian was lucky to have only lost a hand.

"I'm done," Ramona said. She smiled hopefully at Darian, who only stared back pleadingly. Ramona assured him, "You'll be just fine."

A few moments passed, then Finn, our bonfire dancing in his pupils asked, "So what are we waiting for? Let's roast this bitch!"