The Survival

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

There were many things that we had to lose to come to the point we are today. Two of them are dignity and hygiene and the two come hand in hand. I don’t remember the last time I took a bath, maybe a few days ago or was it weeks? I know it was by a small river, almost a lagoon that we spot during our long walks.

We stink, we have dirt on our clothes, even the spare change I brought is dirty and wet. If not showering is bad enough, imagine starting to pee and have no paper to clean anymore, it is all gone. Embarrassing and humiliating can’t even make justice to how we feel.

Yet we have to get used to it, we don’t even notice if someone smells, the basic necessities and principal hygienic concepts are lost here. Our lives are more important, and we have to get used to this, at least we try.

I should be used to the chilly wind, since we arrived here the cold has been a constant in our days and nights, and I must say that I’ve become sort of accustomed to it.

The first days were a nightmare, I would wake up in the middle of the night because of the low temperature. The cold would envelop me and pierce through my bones not letting me have a rest. With time and some effort, I got used to it.

However today, it’s not the usual cold night or morning whatever time it is since I haven’t opened my eyes yet. I’m freezing. I can’t feel anything in my body specially my face and feet. I’m practically lying on top of Nathan, so he is warming half of my body, but the warmth that he is providing me isn’t enough to keep me from trembling.

I flutter my eyes open and the vision before me amazes me.

A blanket of snow is covering the ground. There isn’t a single space where you can see the dirty floor, everything is covered in white, pearly snow. I look at my feet and the mystery to why I couldn’t feel them is now solved, although my feet are covered with Nathan’s blanket the snow is above it.

I view the sky and by the mixture of blue, yellow and pink it must be dawn, which makes me conclude that it snowed all night. There are small portions of snow on the branches and on the leaves of the pines.

The woods are speckled with white, the dark forest from yesterday looks a fairy and gnome land today.

I see movement on my left and see a squirrel. The little one is peeking his head from his home, and just like me, he is observing the surroundings. The fluffy animal leaves his den and slowly descends the tree all the way to the ground.

My stomach grumbles. This is the first time we get meat in front of us and maybe a chance to eat more than just energetic bars. Also, for how long will we have food if we don’t start to hunt?

His round nose sniffs the air and the snow as if inspecting it, which makes me smile. Graciously the squirrel lands on the ground, he stays motionless for a second there, before hell breaks loose. He jumps everywhere, as soon as his tiny paws touch the snow another jump happens, it’s like the snow is burning him even though it’s not.

I can’t help but laugh, the hilarious vision reminds me of the videos that I would watch in my bed with the sweetest animals in it doing the most random things.

I feel Nathan shifting by my side and I stop laughing immediately. He stretches his arms and a groan leaves him, he leads his hands to his face and rubs it before he opens his eyes.

He takes on the scene in front of him and the surprise in his face isn’t lost for me. He had the exact same reaction I had when I saw the snow. Eventually after examining the forest he ends up looking at me.

“Good morning.” I whisper to him with a smile on my face.

“Good morning cupcake,” He smiles down at me and grabs my cheeks while lowering his head to me. Yet, I stop him knowing that he would kiss me. “Too soon? I only thought that after what we did yesterday we cou—“

“It’s not because of that.” I say to him, and a blush graces my cheeks when I remember what we did yesterday evening, “Morning breath.” I tell him the reason why I stopped him.

He frowns obviously confused with what I said, “I always thought it’s disgusting when the girls wake up and the first thing, they do is kissing their boyfriends or vice versa. They have without a doubt morning breath, everyone has, so it’s... ew.” I explain.

“So, we’re dating now?”

“Excuse me?” I arch my eyebrows at him, now I’m the confused one.

A grin appears on his face, despite of him trying to hide it, “You just said that you don’t like the boys or girls kissing their boyfriend or girlfriends when they wake up. Since you don’t want to kiss me and we both just woke up I concluded that we are dating.”

“After everything I said, that is the only thing you heard?”

“Nope, I heard everything, but this is the most important part.”

He wiggles his brows to me, and I laugh heatedly because of his idiotic. Before I remember…

“Nathan?”

“Yes?”

“What we saw yesterday in that place... those arms and legs... the blood. It wasn’t my imagination was it? It wasn’t just a nightmare was it?” I look him dead in the eye all fun gone. He brings me closer to him and rubs my back while I let my head rest on his shoulder.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Do you think that we will end up like the people who those arms belong too?” I tried to make my voice look strong and determined but it came out weak.

“Where did that idea come from?” He tilts his head to see my reaction.

“From Beth’s questions,” I make lazy patterns on his shirt and think about what will happen next, “She has a point there Nathan. We’re lost, with nowhere to go and no idea where we are now, so... who can assure us that we won’t have the same end those people had?”

“I can.” He puts his thumb and forefinger under my chin and lifts it carefully so I can see his eyes, “I promise you that nothing and I mean nothing will happen to you.”

“How can you be so sure?” I question him.

“If it depends on me, nothing bad will come upon you.” He kisses my forehead, letting his lips there for a while longer before resting his chin on my head.

I hear him muttering something repeatedly, it’s incoherent at first until I hear it, “I’ll protect you.”

“Nathan, you can let go of me now.” We have stayed in this position for a good couple of minutes now and I feel like it’s time to let it go.

“I’m quite comfortable here.” He squeezes me between his arms, and I end up face palming myself on his chest.

“Con nhu puli setp.” I speak, or rather try too since my face is flattened on his chest.

“What?” He creates some space between us, and I take a deep breath.

“I said... Can you please stop?”

“Nope.” He pops the ‘p’.

“If you do I’ll do something that you like.”

He stops and looks at me excitedly, “And that is?”

“I’ll brush my teeth, with whatever I have left of my toothpaste, so we can... you know.” I smirk at him and see if he can keep up with my logic. It doesn’t take him long to understand my reasoning.

“What are you waiting for? Go and be quick, I’ll be waiting.”

***

I must say that I never brushed my teeth so quickly and violently. The need to finish it as soon as possible to be able to go back to Nathan is unbelievable.

I make circular movements with my toothbrush and do them so fast that I can feel a bit of blood, probably from my gums but at this stage of the game I really don’t care, I only want to be as presentable as possible and without morning breath so I can go find Nathan and hope that he hasn’t changed his opinion about our... next actions.

I left Nathan as soon as he told me to, even if he hadn’t, I would have because I wanted to dispatch this.

I spit the toothpaste on the now snowy ground and rinse my mouth with the rest of the water that I have in the bottle. We need to find food and water otherwise we are going to starve, I only have a few more energetic bars and I know that the others are just like me, to be honest, I’m surprised we have lasted for so long with our snacks.

I place my hands on the front pockets of Nathan’s sweatshirt with the main objective of warming them. When I was getting up to brush my teeth the cold air hit me like a brick wall and I froze mid-step, I look to the blanket that was covering me but it was on Nathan’s lap and I wasn’t going to be selfish and take it from him, and that was when I saw the sweatshirt above his backpack and without him noticing I wore it.

I look like a sack of potatoes in it, I’m basically swimming in it if that’s even possible, the hem of it reaches past my knee and the sleeves pass my hands, but it provides a lot of warmth, I don’t understand why Nathan doesn’t use it often, I mean he only wears black t-shirts.

How can’t he be cold?

I make my way back to the camp spot after doing my necessities, and with it I mean peeing. It’s so much easier for the boys to pee, they only need to take it of their pants for heaven’s sake.

It’s in times like this that I wish that I was a boy.

It doesn’t take me long to reach the camp however when I get there a certain curly haired boy isn’t in the place, I saw him in last.

I look around in an attempt of finding him. Maybe he is peeing? Wait... what is it with me today and thinking of c***s all of the sudden?

Shaking my head to try to clear my thoughts I search the camp for him, everything and everyone is in their exact same position they were before I left, so where is Nathan?

A vision of members and blood appear, and fear starts to build inside of me. What if something happened to him? What if whoever did this is here? What if this person caught Nathan?

Now, with panic flowing through my veins I search furiously for Nathan, my heart beating millions per second. I turn tree after tree, see every place that he could be in but still nothing.

And that’s when a hand covers my mouth and an arm circles my waist. On instinct I start to kick furiously I move around in this person tight hold and pray to God to not die now. But I will, if I don’t do something I will. Fear is piercing through me and knowing that an unknown person is holding me doesn’t help me to relax.

The person behind me tries to cease my movements but I put a fight and that when I have a brilliant idea.

I bite the hand on my mouth.

“f**k Kate.” A husky voice says from behind me. I look over my shoulder now able to since I don’t have a hand incapacitating me and see Nathan.

“You bastard, you scared me to death.” I punch him right on the arm, once, twice, thrice, till I’m stopped by him.

“How so?” I almost laugh at his question, but that’s when I notice the serious expression on his face.

“You don’t know?” He answers with a shake of his head and a confused look.

“Nathan, I thought that someone had kidn*pped you or something, I tried to find you, but you weren’t here and then I remembered what we saw.... all the blood, and then you lock me in your arms, and I panicked because I didn’t know that it was you, I thought that was someone else. Someone that had taken you and was here to take me after.” I say in a fast pace.

A look of regret and worry appears in his eyes, “I’m sorry.” He rests his forehead on mine and gently rubs my cheek with his thumb, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I wanted to show you something, but you needed to stay quiet. That was why I covered your mouth.”

“Don’t do that again.” I whisper. He nods before grabbing my hand.

“Now come with me, but don’t make any noise.”

He tugs me along and we start walking away from the others that are still sleeping. We pass by pine after pine, we leave our footprints behind impressed on the snow. Nathan entwines our hands and I can’t help but smile.

We come to a stop making me realize that we are pretty close to the camp, I turn to Nathan to ask him what we are doing here but he stops me by pressing his finger against my lips. He then gestures with his other hand to my right.

I look to my side and I see immediately what Nathan is referring to. Peeking from behind a huge log is a deer, a wonderful and gorgeous deer. The animal, despite of being almost all hidden, his head is the only thing we can see, and the rods are very visible, but the most impressive thing is the fact that the deer is looking directly at us.

“I came here to change clothes and I found him.” With the fright he gave me I didn’t noticed that he had changed. The black t-shirt was changed to a dark blue one the jeans seems to be similar to the others, perhaps the same, and a beanie is on his curls.

“He’s beautiful.” I say to Nathan, but I’m not sure if I’m referring to the deer or the stunning man in front of me.

His green eyes fix on mine and if I could I would say that the world stopped. He steps closer to me and wraps one arm around me and places the opposite hand on my neck. A strange feeling is in the pit of my stomach and there’s tension in the air.

“You’re the beautiful one here.” He tells me while playing with a piece of my hair. Without acknowledging it I step even closer to him, so our chests are touching. I can feel his heart beating at an incredible pace, just like mine.

I take time to appreciate his features, his prominent jaw, his emerald eyes, his high cheeks, his long lashes, his pink lips, his defined nose, he is the definition of perfection. He is the most beautiful human being that I ever had the pleasure to lay my eyes on, even the small pimples on his forehead making him more gorgeous because it shows that he is human and has his own flaws and that’s the interesting thing.

He is perfect with his imperfections.

“I brushed my teeth.” he breaks my line of thoughts by saying that.

“Me too.” I whisper with a grin.

With that being said he lowers his head and so softly touches my lips with his, as if tasting them, as if trying. His lips are soft, and they fit mine perfectly as cheesy it may sound it’s like it was made to be that way. Not wanting to wait more I press my lips harder against him by raising myself on my tippy toes.

He has an intoxicating taste that makes me want more, as if a drug. My drug.

I let my hands travel to his hair and tug the ends that are at the base of his neck, while we taste each other’s lips. The kiss is romantic, but you can still sense the desperate need for one another, the movements are sensual, and the taste is divine.

I’m on cloud nine. He bits my lip making me moan softly which allows his tongue to enter my mouth and I almost come undone. He groans and pulls me closer to him. Our tongues make a sexy dance, savoring and experiencing. The wait for the kiss was worth it and our movements show how much we wanted this to happen.

Eventually we break apart so we can take a deep breath, my lungs scream in pain when fresh air enters them, but I would, and I will support this pain every time if it means that I can kiss Nathan this passionately.

My eyes open to focus on Nathan’s, he gently kisses the corner of my mouth and smiles at me showing his pearly teeth, and I reciprocate.

At this moment, I’m in heaven.