Chapter 210
Chapter 210
ARIA
Finished
The cold water shocked every nerve ending in my body awake simultaneously. One moment I was sleeping peacefully, exhausted muscles finally getting the rest they desperately needed. The next, I was choking on stream water, my lungs burning as liquid filled spaces meant for air.
I broke the surface gasping, my hands flailing for purchase on something-anything-solid. But there was nothing. Just water. Fast-moving water that was carrying me downstream with terrifying speed.
My training clothes were soaked through, the weight of them dragging at my limbs. My boots felt like anchors. And the current-gods, the current was so much stronger than I’d expected. I tried to swim toward the bank, tried to angle myself out of the main flow, but the water just kept pulling me along.
That’s when I heard it. A sound that made my blood run cold despite already being freezing.
Rushing water. Loud rushing water. The kind of sound that meant-
A waterfall.
There was a waterfall ahead and I was being swept directly toward it.
Panic flooded through me, overriding the cold, the disorientation, everything except the primal need to not go over that edge. I kicked harder, swam with everything I had, fighting against the current with strength I didn’t know I possessed.
My bow was gone. I’d felt it tear away from my shoulder when I first hit the water. My quiver of arrows- also gone, the strap breaking under the force of the current. I could feel other supplies being ripped away, pulled loose by the relentless water.
A branch. There-jutting out over the water maybe ten feet ahead. If I could just reach it-
I angled toward it desperately, my arms burning with effort. The waterfall’s roar was getting louder, closer, the spray starting to reach me. I had seconds. Maybe less.
My hand connected with the branch and I grabbed it with grip born of pure survival instinct. The current immediately tried to rip me away, to continue carrying me toward the edge, but I held on. My shoulders screamed with the strain. My fingers felt like they might break from the pressure.
But I held on.
Inch by painful inch, I pulled myself along the branch toward the bank. Hand over hand, fighting the current’s attempt to claim me, using every bit of upper Body strength the morning’s training had demanded I develop.
Finally-finally-my feet found purchase on rocks near the shore. I hauled myself out of the water and onto solid ground, collapsing immediately onto the muddy bank, gasping for air that wasn’t water, my whole body shaking from exertion and cold and residual terro
I’d almost died. Literally almost died within the first five minutes of the Hunt starting. If I hadn’t grabbed that branch, if the current had been slightly stronger, it’d been pulled over that waterfall-
I pushed the thought away. Couldn’t afford to dwell on what-ifs when I needed to assess my current
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Chapter 210
situation and figure out what the hell to do next.
4367%u
Finished
I checked my supplies with trembling hands. The waterproof pack I’d been issued was still strapped to my back-thank gods for good equipment design. But when I opened it to check the contents, my stomach dropped.
The water purification tablets were gone. Just gone, the sealed packet that should have contained them completely empty. How was that even possible? The pack had been sealed. Nothing should have been able to get in or out.
My matches were ruined. The supposedly waterproof container had been opened, the matches inside soaked and useless. Again-how? The seal had been intact when I’d packed it. There was no way water should have gotten inside.
And my rope. The rope that should have been a solid fifty-foot coil was now cut into useless short segments. The longest piece was maybe five feet. Deliberately cut. Deliberately sabotaged.
This wasn’t accident or water damage. This was intentional.
I looked around more carefully, my eyes finally adjusting to the forest environment. And that’s when I saw it -carved into the bark of a nearby tree. A symbol. Three wavy lines intersecting with a circle, the carving fresh enough that sap was still bleeding from the cuts.
A message. Someone had left a message.
And underneath the symbol, words carved in smaller script: *Expect the unexpected. Trust nothing. Survive everything p>
My blood ran cold for reasons that had nothing to do with being soaked. The Hunt wasn’t just about physical challenges and partner cooperation. It was about sabotage. About dealing with deliberately created. obstacles. About surviving when the very tools you’d been given to help you were compromised.
The Ghost Council had done this. Had started the Hunt by dropping us in dangerous locations and sabotaging our supplies. Testing whether we could survive when everything that should have been reliable turned out to be useless.
Send Gifts
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Mark