plantfood | (no subject)

It's been nearly a week since Mathias has seen anything and it's because of this -- this weird sense of relief that has surrounded him lately -- that he walks straight into the tumbled piles of vines without a second thought. He's too busy talking to Lucy to really notice and it isn't until his feet tangle, until he feels a vine sliding around his ankle that he stops and looks down at what they've both walked into.

"No," he says softly. There's a dull thrum of fear at the base of his skull, but that's been there almost all waking moments for the past several months. He tries to remember how they've disappeared before, how it's all proven to be nothing, but even when he closes his eyes and opens them again, the vines are still there. One has circled Lucy's leg, but when he looks at it, it stops moving.

Turning, Mathias intends on heading straight to the boardwalk and toward the Compound, but the beach doesn't look like his beach anymore and he can't see where the boardwalk comes through the trees. Instead there's a hill. A path winds through the vines that cover it, bright green leaves shaped like hands and brilliant, blood red flowers. He turns away from the hill, reaching for Lucy's hand without thinking and it isn't until he's facing the water again that the arrow whistles through the air and lands only inches from his left foot.

It isn't real. That's what he keeps trying to tell himself. None of this is real.

Another arrow arches through the air toward them and Mathias closes his eyes.

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The vines are laughing and saying that John s dead, and for just a second I believe them. It stops my heart, and I burst into hopeless, helpless tears. It isn't until I feel his pulse, strong and steady still for all that he's unconscious, that I can breathe again at all.

None of us know what to do, not really, and I can't even see how it matters. We're trapped and at the mercy of plants and armed men who seemed determined to kill us for no reason at all.

I want to say that John's going to be fine, but I can't even get out a lie. I just cling to his hand and weep.

"He's fine," Mathias says to them both. "He'll be fine. The bleeding has almost stopped and his pulse is strong, he's just unconscious." But he remembers Pablo too clearly, the way Jeff had blindly insisted he'd be fine, too, all they had to do was cut off his legs and stop the bleeding and then he'd be fine.

"Let's bring him back up the hill," he says. "We can find some shelter, keep him out of the sun and make sure we stay out of it, too." There aren't any trees at the top of the hill, but there's the tent, orange fabric flapping in the breeze.

"That's a good idea," Lucy says, though she doesn't sound fully convinced. It's not as if she disagrees. It's just that, right now, nothing seems like it will do them much good. At least it will be something, though, better than just standing around here waiting to see what happens next and leaving her feeling like she's crawling out of her skin for it. "Come on. I can help."

"If you're scared, do something," I mutter. How many times have I said those words to Maddie and to myself, and had them thrown back to me? Buck up, lassie, I order myself in my brother Jamie's voice. Ridiculous as it is, it helps.

I manage to stop sniveling, and wipe my face on my sleeve.

"Yes. All right. Get him out of the sun." It's easier if I focus on keeping John safe, rather than myself. I feel like I'll be all right as long as he is. I just really wish he'd wake up and tell me so himself.