Chapter 25

{{ Sonya's POV 🔪}}
After Kiwi had stumbled away looking like a total idiot, Sonya had decided to move camp too. Although the spot was ideal, she couldn't stay in case Kiwi tried to come back and finish her off. She had managed to survive for about a day without actually settling down but she was getting tired of all the aimless wandering.
Just as she was thinking about sitting down and taking a break, she noticed something reflecting the sun in a clearing a couple hundred yards away. She started to walk toward what she assumed had to either be glass or some kind of blade. She made her way slowly closer to the clearing until the full view of the clearing was open.
The sight before her made her freeze. She wanted to vomit. Pass out. Run. Anything to get her eyes to tear away from the blood-soaked form of a girl who could practically be her. Same height, same stature, probably same age, and in the same situation.
A huge, pale, skeletal creature was staring at her, the blood of the girl mixed with a black liquid smeared all over its ghastly body. It stared at her for a few terrifying seconds then screamed. The sound was so startling that Sonya screamed and fell over backward. She scrambled backward as the monster took long, lumbering steps toward her and she finally managed to pull herself to her feet. She stumbled forwards then broke into a run, dropping the bag of supplies that Kiwi had left behind. She didn't think twice about dropping the extra weight, she would just be thankful if she made it out alive. But would she really ever make it out alive? After this creature would be another one and another after that.
Her short legs were moving as fast as they could but it wasn't enough. She had barely retraced ten steps before she felt death's hands wrap around her middle. The pale skin was stretched taught over the long, spindly fingers. Its hands were much too big for its body, she realized as the air was slowly squeezed out of her lungs. She tried to squirm but the creature retaliated with a scream in her face.
Then she remembered. How could she forget? Her arms were trapped by the skeletal fingers but she managed to spread her fingers and spray splinters of glass from her palm. Hundreds of blood-red pieces of glass embedded themselves into the sickly flesh of the monster's feet. Sonya fell to the ground onto her back as her head was split by a pained shriek. Its surprise and pain gave her enough time to recover and stand to her feet. She extended her arms and released another shower of pain, this time hitting the thing in its chest, and received another earth-shaking shriek.
It happened so fast it took a few seconds for her eye to register what had just happened. She had turned around to try another frantic dash but the monster was much, much faster than she had realized. She stared down at the thick, red liquid coating the fingers that protruded from her stomach. It had impaled her with its own speared fingertips.
She felt no pain except for a dull throbbing in the back of her head. It retracted its hand and Sonya crumpled into a pile of limp limbs, just another corps added to the quickly accumulating dead.

{{ K.C.'s POV 🌀}}
After Mackenzie had stormed off, the next order of business was to take care of the two bodies; Carrie and the monster. Ash was still kneeling over Carrie, whispering something inaudible and holding her hand. K.C. turned to Andrew since he was probably going to be the only one capable of moving the huge corps, but he too looked like he could pass out any minute. If only Carrie could use her telekinesis to move the chard heap of limps.
K.C. strode over to the creature and placed her hands on her hips, trying to figure out a way to move it. She didn't have to move it far, just far enough so that they could still live in the valley without being choked to death by the smell of decomposing flesh. Gross.
She extended her arms and aimed her hands at the center of the body. Pulling together the last few drops of her strength, she blasted the air from the palms of her hands into the large obstacle, watching it slowly begin to move away from her. After half an hour and lots of breaks, K.C. had managed to push the monster's body almost to the other side of the valley, as far away from their camp as possible for her exhausted body. She made her way back across the valley and collapsed next to Andrew, who was practically sprawled out on the grass.
K.C. jumped when she heard his rough voice beside her, "For someone so small, you managed to push that thing pretty far." He turned his head to look at her, his mouth forming a small smirk. With what looked like a lot of effort he pulled himself up onto one elbow. "You could have asked me to help, you know."
"Yeah, but you looked like you were going to faint. I didn't want to push your fragile body too far," K.C. answered, returning his smirk.
He let out a small laugh, "You're so welcome for saving your life with this fragile body of mine. But seriously, you should have asked. By the time I realized what you were doing, you were almost halfway across the field. I'm sure you're just as exhausted as the rest of us." He paused for a moment before adding, "You sure look like you're about to faint."
She gave a little laugh. When was the last time she had actually laughed?
"Well, I'll definitely ask for help next time I have to move a massive dead monster body. What was that thing though? I've never seen anything remotely resembling it both inside and outside of the arena," she looked at Andrew hoping he could give some sort of explanation.
Andrew's smirk fell into a small frown, "I don't know." He paused and turned his head to stare across the valley at the massive corpse. "I think it was just another sick creation. I don't know how someone could sleep at night knowing what they do in the day. What has to be going on in someone's head to come up with something like that?" he gestured to where he was looking.
"Well, whatever they are, I hope I never see another one," K.C. concluded, glancing at Andrew. He looked like he was deep in thought so they both continued to sit in silence.
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Ten minutes later, Carrie had woken up, and after Ash filled her in about Mackenzie, Andrew declared that they all needed to talk.
"So I guess I'll get right to the point," he began. "Although I hate to admit it, I think Mackenzie was right about staying here in the valley. It's too open, dangerous, and she's right about everyone knowing where we are. I think we should pack up some supplies and leave when Carrie has recovered."
No one said anything for a few moments until Carrie spoke up, her voice slightly raspy, "He's right. I think we all know that though," she looked at each member of their group in secession.
Andrew's quiet voice followed Carrie's, "I guess it's settled then. If no one has any objection, we'll pack some things and leave the valley."

{{ Xander's POV 🐺}}
She wasn't waking up.
Why wasn't she waking up?
He didn't know what he would do if she didn't wake up.
"Please Coryn, please hang on," he whispered as he brushed the hair out of her face.
When had she started to matter so much to him? It had started as an alliance, an insurance policy to make sure he wasn't killed on day one. But now was he not only was he not killing his ally, but he was praying that she would wake up.
Then an idea hit him. What if he could create an electric shock small enough but still strong enough to kick start her heart again? He could visibly see she wasn't breathing so whatever he was going to do needed to be done fast.
Leaning over her, he whispered one last plea and lightly pressed his fingertips to the spot on her chest where her heartbeat should have been. Willing himself to control the energy, he watched as bright yellow sparks erupted from his fingers and connected with Coryn's still chest. Nothing. Again he watched sparks transfer from his body to hers. Come on, he thought, panic starting to set in.
Then it finally worked. First, her body jolted, then she winced and started to cough. Xander breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Coryn regain control of her body. When the coughing had subsided she groaned and turned to him with a slightly confused expression, which morphed into a small smirk.
"I told you you couldn't get rid of me."
"Already back at it with the sarcasm, I see," he retorted as her grin became contagious.
"I would imagine near-death experiences could do that to you. Renew your sense of sarcasm, that is," Coryn grimaced as she tried to sit up. Xander quickly held her shoulder down onto the ground, "Hey, you can't do that. You were just stabbed, dead, and revived all in the span of a few hours, give yourself a minute to breathe. Literally."
"Fine, mom, " she grumbled. Then she smirked again and looked him in the eye, "You can get off me though unless your plan was to make out or something."
Xander's mouth fell open at her unexpected comment, then felt heat rushing up to his face when he realized he was basically straddling her. He quickly looked away, hyper-aware of the color flooding his face. He scrambled to get off of her and turned all his attention to his very interesting sword.
A few moments passed until he heard Coryn start to laugh, "Xander I don't think I've ever seen anyone as red as you are right now. Even your neck is as red as a beet."
He glanced back at her giggling form and smiled. At least she wasn’t dying.
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Ten minutes later Coryn had finally fallen asleep and Xander's face had returned to a natural color. From what he could see through the cave opening, it was around dusk and they still hadn't discussed what they were going to do next. Being careful not to wake her, he knelt next to her sleeping body to check the wound in her side. He gently lifted the bloody-caked edge of her shirt and stifled his surprise. The damaged skin had sealed itself over with a thin layer of ice. The wound was far from healed but the ice seemed to have stopped the bleeding.
"Xander?"
He nearly jumped at her quiet question. She still looked half asleep but rolled over to face him. "What were you doing?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up, I just wanted to look at your side, but look," he pointed to the ice. "I don't know what in the world that is but it looks like it stopped the bleeding, almost like an... ice bandage."
She twisted to look at the spot he pointed to, her face contorting to a look of awe and confusion. She looked up at him like he was supposed to know what was happening and he shrugged, mirroring her expression. After staring at the ice for a few seconds, she pushed herself into a sitting position.
"Well since I think we can both agree that I'm not going to be dying anytime soon, we should talk about some things. How about we start with whatever those," she paused, searching for the right word. "Those creatures are."
"No matter how much I want to believe that that was the only one, it's highly improbable that they only created one horrible monster to terrorize us with."
"Yeah, I agree and I'm sure they're not the only horrible monsters that we'll see while we're in here. Speaking of, how long do you suppose we'll be in here? Before they decide that we've been here too long and kill us all that is," she tried to finish with a smirk, acting like it was no big deal but Xander could tell the idea of her inevitable, gruesome death disquieted her.
Without really realizing what he was doing, he reached over and took Coryn's hand into his own, "I think we have a little while before we have to think about that but," he stopped, the idea hitting him smack in the face. "What if we made it out of here before they even considered wiping the slate?"
Coryn looked up at Xander with a very confused expression, "What do you mean, make it out of here? You know no one has ever made it out. Every attempt at escape ends up turning into an excessive warning for everyone else in here."
He knew exactly what she was talking about. Pictures of decapitated heads, impaled bodies, blackened flesh, flashed through his mind.
"But that was all before everyone got these insane abilities. Everyone in this arena, at least as far as we know, is ten times stronger than they were before. What if that teleporting girl could teleport right past the barrier onto the other side? What if--"
"That all sounds nice in theory, but we have to be prepared for the reality that we probably won't ever leave," there was a barely noticeable quiver in her voice as she spoke and it made Xander want to tell her that everything would be alright. He knew he couldn't though. She was right, there was only a very small probability that they could even make it out of the arena. Outside of the barrier lay a whole army of armed soldiers and the wrath of the Governor's mansion.
As his enthusiasm began to fade, he felt Coryn squeeze his hand and he looked into her ice-blue eyes.
"That's actually kind of nice to think about though. I never really considered getting out so I have no idea what I would even do if I-" she stopped and her smile grew a little. "If we managed to get out.
“I suppose I'd try to find my best friend who got brought here with me. If we're thinking big, why not try to take out the Governor while we're at it. Do you know what you would do? If you got out?"
He thought for a moment before answering, "I didn't really have anyone outside. I lived on the streets like everyone else, no parents, not really any friends," he laughed aloud at his next thought. "Maybe I'd help you with your coup, I don't really have anything to lose."
"Besides me."
It took him a moment to understand what she had said. He stared at her and was thankful for the darkness hiding his red face. What was she doing to him? He didn't think he'd ever blushed before he met her and when he thought about it, he realized didn't really mind.
His voice was barely above a whisper when he answered, "Yeah. Besides you."