Sparks of the Tempest

[Brackie]

((Cameo Conroy continues from Taste Your Beating Heart))

The worst fucking choice of clothing ever.

Cameo's sleeves felt like they weighed hundreds upon hundreds of pounds, they were drenched in so much sweat and body fluids. Her chest felt heavy, her boots felt like the cement shoes of an unlucky 30's stereotype, and her makeup was gunky and ran down her face like paint rather than powder or liquid. The sun and the heat all poured down on Cameo as she trudged away from the cabin like rain.

God knows how long she'd been running. This was why she stayed on her own and indoors, and why she shouldn't have deviated from the plan. Of course, she couldn't have counted on a strange girl stopping outside and having to keep herself hidden to put up the illusion of a nobody. Because really, she needed to be a nobody in this game, because if anybody knew who she was, she was dead before she went one step.

But as she trudged along dirt and sand, the news got better. Through the throbbing of sore eardrums she could hear a trickle in the distance, a gush of au natural. Water, or at the very least a rockslide. There was a mountain right over there as well, so that was still possible.

Cameo kept on going towards the noise, it was the only way to see.

Please don't be parasitic. Clean running water would be better.

And finally, there it was. A river, right smack dab in the middle of the desert was an honest-to-god river.

Cameo wanted to throw herself from the banks of the desert and drown herself right now. She was thirsty, she was boiling, she could have sworn some of the skin on the back of her neck was starting to sizzle, and she was just so fucking tired and stupid for running. At least she'd be away from here.

As she got closer, her bag fell from her shoulders and the club from her grasp and her face fell headfirst into the cooling depths of possibly unclean water, while her body roasted in the sand. But it was cold. She'd been here all this time it was making her forget what it was like to be cold, the heat wasn't going to change any time now, unless it got cold at night. She could have sworn she read that in a story somewhere. The nights of the desert were as cold as the harshest tundras. It sounded poetic. Something she'd write. Maybe she'd written it somewhere on a desk.

Her hair dipped into the rushing water with her face and hands, and Cameo brushed it over with her hands again. This was normal. To her, it was normal, it felt normal to cool her head down and think. Her chest and lower body still felt like shit, but at least it wasn't everything that felt like that now.

Minutes passed while she replenished herself. The rush became a normalcy in her head. She got rid of the makeup. She drank, and she drank, and she drank as much as she could, so much she felt as though her chest would burst even more from the fullness of it all. There was so much incentive to rest, but not nearly enough lost sense.

She stood up from the bank, straightening herself and letting her body and clothes dry in the sun. As she looked around, making sure she was alone, she saw it in the distance.

Of course, she didn't immediately realise what it was, only that there was in fact something not of the river off in the distance. Far down by the banks of distant shore, she could see a speck.

A few minutes later, it wasn't a speck, it was a dot.

Even later, it was a shape.

And even later, when the sweat started to return it was a body.

It wasn't just a body though, it was one of her classmates.

It lay on the sand, covered in blood and a head so concave. It didn't resemble a boy anymore, it resembled something from a snuff film or a horror movie where the monster was nothing as tragic or dangerous as a man with a club or a monster with a feeding. But the thing is...it was dead. It was well and truly dead, the flies flew around the wounds, the skin was off-colour, and the blood had long since turned murky and infected.

But the strange thing was, it didn't bother Cameo one bit.

Yes, there was a dead body right there, something that should clearly have bothered her. Despite the fact that her, well, interests, gave off the mask of one who didn't really care, it should have at least had some effect. But there was nothing. No ounce of regret, no emotion towards who he was just...

...apathy.

What did this mean?

Was she really cut out to play this game.

No. She wasn't going to answer that question now. It was too much, too early.

She'd only just found herself in a situation which defined the rest of her life. Don't choose it so early, in fact don't choose it at all.

Just get the hell out.

Cameo closed her eyes.

((Cameo Conroy continues in From Where You're Kneeling))