Grim Reaper on Speed Dial

Three not bears?

I wake up to the feeling of falling. My eyes snap open and I start screaming and flailing.

"hoh s**t oh s**t oh s**t oh s**t!" I bellow breathlessly. Someone is gripping me by the waist and we are rushing downwards. "Don't let me go!" I scream desperately. I try to twist to get a glimpse of the psycho whatever that is taking us down and when I see I almost throw up. It's a whisp, a mostly see-through little soul fragment that looks like it's made of blue fire is trying to kill me. We're coming up on the ground quickly now. I start wriggling and squirming for all I'm worth.

"Let me go!" I screech abandoning my earlier words. I start grabbing onto anything and everything I can once we enter the forest canopy. Finally, a huge branch close to its trunk catches me in the gut and everything I ate today gets torn out of me on impact but the whisp lets me go. Tears sting my eyes and bile burns my throat as I curl around the branch and haul my legs over the side. Pained cries escape me and I curl into a ball at the base of the branch and hold my stomach. Miscellaneous scratches and gashes crisscross the rest of me unforgivingly. The little whisp comes back from where it's momentum had carried it down a ways and stops right in front of me looking all pissy. They don't have a definite face, but this one's expression is clear enough. It trills angrily and fidgits in place. "Stop" I beg in a voice nearly as scratchy as the rest of me. It shuts up for a second then rushes towards my face. In desperation I pitch myself off my little sanctuary and down to the next branch, bruising my legs and splintering my hands in the process. I dry heave and collapse in a heap on the smaller branch, then I hear a crack. I laugh until I fall and then I wail in pain and anger. The next branch I hit connects with my back right under my lungs knocking me out of breath and black lines the edges of my vision. No. I refuse to pass out again. I twist onto my stomach and rip off a nearby branch then swing drunkenly at the whisp which has just come down to my level again. It backs up a smidge and observes me silently, its judgy-ness palpable. I glare at it, my vision blurry with tears and my left eye being swollen halfway shut.

"Disney got it wrong, damsels are only truly distressed if they look like you princess" a female voice with snark comments from some other branch I think. My vision is swimming too much to make out much more than shapes at this point. "That or all those princes only paid attention to the pretty girls in trouble," She says then I feel strong hands gripping my shoulders and pulling me out of my ball, then arms go around my back and under my legs. This stranger could kill me, but damn she's much warmer than this tree was. I lean into her, and she jumps down. It's a split second drop but the impact is still jarring. I look down, I was maybe a foot from the ground on that last branch. despite my pain, a huff escapes me anyways, then I grip my side, I think I've broken a rib or two or at least cracked them.

"Oh yeah, no room for pissyness chick, you're screwed seven ways from Sunday," A male voice says amused. These people are laughing at me. I'm almost in too much pain to care, almost.

"Oh you only have experience because you've been in my place or too slow and or stupid to stop your friends from being here" I snap coldly, my voice hoarse and sluggish but clear enough I guess. The girl snorts and the guy actually starts laughing now. Their accents sound familiar, but they take more time with their words and put more emphasis on individual ones. My brain is too slow to connect the dots but something nags at me promising future annoyance later.

"Another escapee Liam, I told you. Accent clipped and rushed as per usual." The girl says. Liam groans.

"Why do I even bother to gamble with you anymore, it's like you bend luck to your ass" He retorts.

"Liam. Shut up, I think you're about to make the Cicada laugh, and I'm pretty damn sure she's got a couple jacked ribs" The girl says like she's holding back her own enjoyment of my pain. Sadists, I think. "Come on, we have to get her back to camp and give her her wings back" and then we're walking. Every step jostles me and I wish for unconsciousness but it eludes me now, though I do go into a dull state of mind, where I see the things around me with blurred eyes and that is the only stimuli reverberating around my brain. I feel wetness around my left ear, I think I might have screwed that up too. My right is ringing. My adrenaline is gone, leaving me an unresponsive husk as the girl and Liam walk me through the woods, then through some large gates into a small town.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but when I come to, I feel stiff and sore. My eyes open completely now and they take in the surrounding area. I'm in what looks like the infirmary back in Cicadia, did Liam and the girl take me back there? I look around with more worry but then I notice the differences, I'm up against a wood wall, curtains only making up three makeshift walls around me. The only wood in Cicadia was the stage in the main hall. Everything else was metal, plastic, concrete, or cardboard, etc. Relaxed only a slight bit I start to inventory my wounds. I'm only wearing my sports bra and some undershorts. There are large white bandages around my ribs, lower right arm, both hands, and my legs are covered in bruises spotted with a few small bandages. Only one wrap on my leg spans down my entire left calf. I wonder what I did to it. The pain washes up like an unwanted memory, fast and horrible. Large cut, that's whats on my leg. And holy crap everything I can't get to itches. I groan in pain and let my head fall back down on the small pillow under it, another difference from Cicadia. A malw nurse comes in with a clipboard.

"Ah you're awake, do you think you can fill out some papers so we know who you are?" He asks me kindly. I wonder how unaware he is of pain. Funny, I thought most above grounders would be pretty used to it. I guess we like the privilege of being soft. I envy the man. I show him my still bandaged hands, and he raises an eyebrow. Oh damn, I was wrong, I'm the soft one. I let out a small sound of discomfort and stare him down. He shrugs like its no big deal but he's probably filing away in his brain that I'm weak. Who cares? I don't need to prove myself to this dude or value his opinions of me at all, I don't know him. I think this thought in Osin's voice. Tears threaten my eyes then, but I push them back stubbornly, and set my jaw. I put my hair behind my ear, then feel my left one, there is no more blood. I snap next to it and flinch away from the sound. A small sigh of relief escapes me. So at least I'm not that much of a screw-up. Everything here smells like Osin's jacket and Da. I close my eyes, cursing the world when two loud and only slightly familiar people come in.

"Aye the cicada's awake!" The girl says. Liam comes in behind her, then introduces them.

"I'm Liam, the rude one is Gael," he says. Gael pokes him in the ribs then comes to shake my hand. They both have dark skin and darker eyes.

"siblings?" I ask.

"twins" they correct me at once. I stare at them letting them know that was weird but a smile works its way onto my face anyway. Gael's hair is in a short afro around her round head, Liam has his in twisted dreads a little over an inch or so. Their smiles are bright and they can't seem to disappear.

"ok, your healthy attitudes are officially grossing me out" I joke a little, feeling rusty at it. Liam snickers and Gael gives a smile, she's harder to crack apparently. It wouldn't matter how much pain they were in, both Osin and Faolan would rise to the challenge competitively. Somehow the joking sarcasm gene skipped me, I have the salty mean version, even though I mean light, people tend to take my jokes a little too seriously. Osin and Faolan were my practice targets, but they were family, they wouldn't fight me and knew what I meant. I shake myself, I'm already referring to both of them in the past tense. Faolan is still alive, he has to be. He couldn't have died in a day, he's strong. I take a deep breath and force my focus on the outside world. Gael was asking me something. "What?" I ask dumbly.

"I was asking what your tragic backstory was princess, and if you had any token important things?" I raise my eyebrows. What is it with this chick and movies?

"My jacket and the pencil in its pocket" I answer. The twins seem to accept that's the answer they're going to get.

"There was no pencil in your jacket pocket, and Dahlia is repairing your clothes, they were pretty torn." Liam says slowly. I take a deep breath in and let it out slowly, then give a small nod. I know I could go search for it but right now I feel so small and tired I don't want to do anything. My brain feels fogged up and slow, no solutions seems forthcoming. I curl my arms up to my chest and roll over facing the wall. Tears well up but I press them back. I just want to lay here and sleep, but at the same time I want to be productive instead of trapped inside my head. I curl my legs up and rest in a ball with a small huff.

"Liam, go get Mare" Gael whispers to Liam, then I think I hear both of them leave. There is silence for about five minutes before another person comes in. They tap my shoulder and then I uncurl just a little to look the person in the eye. It's a blonde girl with striking blue green eyes. I raise my eyebrows in confusion. She does not look Irish or Scottish. Suddenly I narrow my eyes, Brittish?

"Hi I'm Marina but most call me Mare" she says in an American accent. She sounds perky and energetic. I cringe and curl back into my ball. "Nope, you are getting up and moving. You are not going to waste away in a little ball of self pity" She says amused. I groan as she sprints away then comes back with a wheel chair. She lifts me up into it with surprising strength then wheels me out of the infirmary talking a million miles an hour.

"I'm not listening" I growl at her bluntly.

"Well duh, you're a zombie" She retorts. I sigh. "I'll take you on a walk everyday until you can run away from me yourself, and by that time you'll be so familiar with the town that you won't be too overwhelmed" I turn around in my chair and stare at her in horror, to which she laughs. I stare at the people we pass by pleadingly, but most of them either try to hide smiles, or smile openly. I'm surrounded by crazy people, what have they been smoking out here?