The Eclipse Games: Survival Island

On the Mountain Side

It was finally sunrise, Parker was early to rise before then but Lisa was not, over the course of the night she went through several stages of sickness, ranging from a very cold to an extreme high fever, at one point she even seemed like she was gonna hurl, but as daylight approached she stabilized and went still, sleeping soundly. Parker held some guilt for the thorn incident since he was the one leading her, had he not been dragging her along he would have no doubt left her as soon as she was of no more use.

Lisa woke up to the sound of exotic birds chirping above her, the light from the sun high above the canopy made it feel like she was in a dream as she stared up at the creature for severalinutes adjusting to the feel of her body again, weirdly she felt better than she did the night before; and even more strange was the fact that she had no fatigue or weakness from the sickness that lasted all night, whatever it did to her seemed to improve her, this especially became relevant when she stood and accidentally grabbed hold of the tree behind her laden with thorns dripping poison, instead of piercing her skin, the thorns only left painful pokes, and at first she thought it was a mistake and stupidly pressed her index finger at the thorn, but to her surprise the force that would be needed to prick her wasn't enough and her finger ended up sliding off the thorn altogether. "What the hell?" She asked herself before her eyes went wide and she stood upright, causing a sweater she hadn't even noticed to fall off her shoulders.

She made to call out his name and loudly came out with the "pa-" Before slapping her hand over her mouth and ducking back to the ground as if someone had seen her. 'Did he leave me when I was sleeping?' She asked herself and for a moment believed that Parker really was gone, she became thankful that he didn't kill her at least, but a few minutes later there was a bit of shuffling nearby and the man in question came casually walking through the thorns with someone else's black hooded sweater and a large stacked backpack slung around his shoulder instead of his folded parachute that had served as a bed for her.

"You're here!" She jumped back to her feet, and Parker with an annoyed expression calmly placed his hand over her mouth and sighed.

"Please be quiet Lisa use your inside voice." He stared her down then looked around at all their blind spots. "A few other people got pricked by thorns between last night and this morning, they're not gonna die... maybe, but I still took their stuff, it seems they had the same idea as myself to find high ground to get a better view of the island we're on right now,the map is pretty detailed, but it doesn't hold any proper detail like dangers, it only marks points of resource... " Parker stopped what he was talking about and leaned down and looked at her chin. "Your scar is basically gone, what the hell?" He asked, and she smiled confused.

"Was it really that bad?" She asked and he looked at her incredulously.

"Obviously you have yet to look at your clothes, that was more than just a mere scar, it basically slit your chin in half, the bleeding stopped on it's own, so o assumed it wasn't but I checked last night Nd it was worse than we had expected, but now there's just a scab..." He stared at the wound thinking how strange it was. "Anyway, some of those people I found had a bunch of loot on them from the airdrop last night, so I did a little shopping, in the end it's gonna slow us down so I think it's a good idea to head out right now of we can." Parker reached into the bag and took out a bottle with water and a can of dried and preserved food. "You don't have a problem sharing the same bottle do you?" He asked, and she shook her head in the negative, in fact she didn't even care about that; she just wanted to eat, they already knew that staying clean was gonna be hard, the most important thing for now was food and shelter.

"Let's walk and eat then." Parker quietly popped the can and held it toward her, and she looked at the WIP logo with some small level of disdain before she reached in carefully and took out what looked like dried bacon,but upon popping it into her mouth she had to hum on the fact that it tasted like a full cooked fish meal, she could taste vegetable, steamed fish, and rice; even fish gravy, just a congregation of delicious flavours having a party in her mouth and it peaked her excitement as she walked.

She turned to Parker to say something about it, but found he had a nonchalant expression as he'd taken out one and was eating, and seeing his reaction calmed her as well. "Tastes good." She said quietly, and the stoic and unreadable man only hummed as a response.

"So about this high ground idea..." Lisa looked over to Parker as they were leaned against gravity scaling the side of one of the mountains.

"When we're at the top we open up our mini maps and get an understanding of the physical map instead of the drawn one, we also need to find a source of water since the bottled water is only going to last for maybe a week of we're stingy as hell with it, also the bag is t full of food as by the looks of it the idiots ate and drank a lot on their first night, there's really just a bunch of supplies in there with some canned dinners and water, so we have to be conservative and careful, got it."

"Yessir." Lisa rolled her eyes with a smile. "You turned out to be a really talkative guy after all huh?" She looked back at him and he held a straight deadpan without looking back at her.

"...Before my life took a bad turn leading to me eventually being here, I was in sales, I also studied law in college, so yes, I am a talkative guy." He said then remembered that there should be cameras and audio mics disguised all around him and went silent.

"I think you're okay, and you seem pretty sensible too Carter, what the hell happened?" Lisa asked, and Parker stopped where he was and looked at her. "What?" She asked seeing his expression.

"You don't know of me?" He asked almost shocked, so far once anyone heard his story they would immediately be able to recognise it. 'The Cities biggest loser who was scammed by his fiance that ran away with hundreds of millions.'

"Should I know though?" She asked. "I'm from the west, only been here a few months, but I fell into dept because the man I moved here with owed some people and ended up running away and leaving me to take his place, the problem is my signature is on a contract he tricked me into signing, it makes me liable for jail if I don't pay these people and worse they are a completely legal organisation,I could get up to thirty years..." Lisa explained and that connected with Parker's mind; their situationsight have been different, but they were also very similar. "I've been busting my ass off for three years working from place to place, but I really have no sense of work ethic, at least that's what they all said before I got fired, the deadline is in two months and if I don't pay it off by then I prettyuch have the next thirty years of my life to look forward to behind bars for money I did not even spend."

"Oh." Parker stared at her sympathetically, she couldn't have been older than he was, and by the looks of it she really did look like she'd been struggling prior to the game, for one her lips had been cracked when he first saw her, no matter how pretty she was it was obvious back then that she was desperate, unable to get a job because of bad reviews in the city was a death sentence, she couldn't even leave the damned place so she had been stuck in that hell hole suffering. "That's terrible." He commented a few seconds later as he remembered the state of her finger tips, they were slightly discoloured, same as her sclera, and from the night before he could tell she was mostly bones beneath her smile. "Do you want some more food?" He asked her, and she looked up at him shocked.

"It's only been a few hours right?" Lisa asked holding up her hands as they stopped to take rest. "I don't need to eat for another few hours at least, but if you're hungry you should-"

"Okay," Parker cut her off holding out his hand. "Sorry, I made you think I was asking there," he looked at her seriously as he dipped into the bag and took out another canned dinner along with a half bottle of water from earlier and a plastic spoon then handed them to her after closing the bag and checking their surrounding. "I'm not hungry, but you've been breathing hard and sweating since tha halfway mark an hour ago, were gonna reach the top in maybe another five hours of climbing, so you should rest a little and conserve your strength, eat up." Parker ordered her as he placed the bag at his feet and sat on a rock facing her again.

"I'm sorry." Lisa stared down at the food inside of the can as she opened it, and a year fell down her nose as she sniffled. "I'm really sorry... I'm holding you back-"

"Don't be ridiculous." Parker fanned her concern off. "You seemed fine before, but the effect of the adrenaline from recovery after getting poisoned has already worn off, now isn't the time to worry about anyone or anything other than us who are together, so calm down and take rest." Parker looked away from HR tears and across the canopy where he could see several lights in the distance, immediately able to tell they were campfires. "More people are gonna die tonight, probably," He sighed. "Idiots."

"Why do you always look like you hate people so much?" Lisa asked Parker and he looked back at her with the same disdain he had toward the campfires he'd seen and his exprwssion actually got darker as he closed his eyes then opened them back.

"That's because I do hate people, I don't trust a single soul, not even you, I swore I'd pass this without killing anyone, but abandoning someone is completely within my moral compass, people are unreliable, they kill steal and betray to further their pointless and foolish goals, all my life I have been locked, scorned, betrayed, and walked over by people that I trusted, somewhere in there my attitude toward humanity changed, as far as I'm concerned there are only two people in this entire world who care about me. "The first is my sister, who even though she was sick still took care of me when o nearly lost my mind, and the second is the receptionist so the general hospital, that woman actually cares, o don't know why but she gives a damn and I'm grateful to her for it, aside from them, everyone else can f**k off and die." Parker's voice grated as his hatred came to the surface, before he looked docile all of a sudden again. "We're being monitored right now,and there's a one hour delay for the online show just in case something terrible like r**e or murder happens which even WIP would be forced to hide or cover up." He seemed to want to stop talking but then more anger rushed up to him and he clenched his fists and stared down at his shoes.

"A day before the competition, my parents were murdered, just mere hours before that my sister nearly died from a brain tumor that's been growing, I've been getting death threats for some time now from the people I owed money, and I could only make below minimum earnings playing mobile games online using a false identification, I want my sister to be happy, I haven't seen her smile since my fiance ran off with my business and the family savings, my parents disowned me because of it and I couldn't even leave because of those damned loan sharks, I have to make it, since of I die she'll be on her own."