[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Verity Monroe]

[Level: 2]

Verity blinked awake; her eyelids stuck together by sleep dust. She reached up to wipe it off, her limbs heavy and stiff at even this light motion.

All around her, there was commotion. Voices. But darkness. So much darkness. And why did smell like salt and old seaweed in here? Her nose was scrunching up before she was even fully aware of the rough blankets she was wrapped in.

“Yeah okay, complain about the thread count, why don’t you?” A fond voice laughed from beside her, “Never heard you complain even when sleeping on the bare ground, but the blanket textures are where you draw the line.”

It was Ben, she realized after much too long, and once she realized that, she had to begin formulating a response, “Ha, well, says a lot about these shitty blankets, huh?” Verity wheezed as she sat up, more rough fabric chafing against her ribs. Except… she was wearing a shirt. Those weren’t blankets she was itching on. Bandages.

“Why did I need bandages?” She asked, reaching up to stroke a light hand over the injured area.

“I don’t know, maybe the fact that you had bruised ribs? And got pickled?” Tench replied, and his presence was such a surprise to her, she found herself jumping to her feet, her fist centimeters from his face. Tench flinched backwards, bringing his hands up to block the blow.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, locked in a standstill, until Verity brought the fist back down to her side.

“Sorry.” She whispered, “I didn’t- I didn’t mean. Never wanted to hurt you. Or anyone.”

“No worries.” Tench was quick to assure, “You’re taking this too seriously.”

Verity tried to breathe. Quick. Calm. It wasn’t working. The tears were already spilling.

“Great, we broke her.” Lucky commented, from further away, “I do not think childrearing should be something we should pursue outside of this adventure.”

“You lot will be lucky if a flock ever lets you near their young.” The raven mocked from above.

“Oh, yeah, by the way, the raven has a name now. It’s Feathertooth.” Tench whispered to her.

“Feathertooth tried to kill us.” Verity felt the need to remind them, “Why’re we being nice to it? What happened while I was out? Did we somehow repair relations with the crows and the ravens?”

“I am still being held here against my will.” Feathertooth called out reluctantly, “If you wish to change that anytime soon…”

“So that you can lead an army here? I think not.” Lucky rolled her eyes.

“Worth a shot.” It replied, giving a corvid equivalent to a shrug.

“Where’s Jared?” Verity asked, looking around. Her heart was quickly speeding up, throbbing in her chest. When she tried to pull herself up, but her head was spinning deliriously, nearly sending her to the floor. It took the combined strength of Ben and Tench to stop her from falling and cracking her skull on the rock floor. Jared wasn’t here. Michael wasn’t here. None of the others were here.

What had happened?

Had they died? Had Verity not really killed that squid? Or had the other squids come back to enact vengeance? Had their party been halved all while she lay there, none the wiser?

“They’re out scavenging.” Ben told her gently, “I can see you catastrophizing in there, and none of that is true. No one is dead. No one is even hurt. Except you. You were the one hurt worse.”

“Except maybe the squid.” Tench offered, a weak attempt at a joke, “That thing looked as if it had been stuck into a blender the size of your vet office, Ben.”

“Did it get away?” Verity asked.

“Nope.” A stick of twisted flesh entered her field of vision. It smelled sharply of ink and seawater and was skewered on a shard of wood. The skewer was being held up by a spidery claw. Lucky grinned at her, sharp and vengeful, “Ultimate revenge, is that not right? Help yourself.”

Verity took it delicately, her jaw feeling weak around the rubbery, chewy meat. It was dry and overly salted, but maybe it was like that because it was the first time she’d eaten anything for a very long time. Everyone watched her, the two Healers gauging her reaction as she chewed, and chewed, and chewed, until it was enough to gulp down.

“Should have gotten her water first, don’t you think?” Tench whispered to her.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Yeah…” Ben agreed, a crease appearing between their eyebrows, “Do you want water now?”

“Please.” Verity gasped, her throat burning worse than ever before. No, she couldn’t say that. It had been worse. It had been worse back in the deserts of Wayside. No matter how far away and unreal that phase of her life had seemed, it had been real, and it had been harder to survive back then. How could she had slipped for even a second and thought that this was even a smidge more bearable?

A canteen of water was raised to her lips, and the cove was so humid, it felt like ice flowing down her throat, a soothing balm in her moment of desperation. She’d never gotten that back in Wayside. When she felt like she was dying back then, no one used to be there to help her. She would just weather through it, and somehow wake up alive the next day.

Stop. She commanded herself. Just stop thinking about those days. She was never going back there. She would never lose herself in that red haze for expanses of time. It hadn’t happened since… well, since before the Game started. It would be fine. If she could just calm down and stop being so jumpy.

The trickle of water came to a stop, leaving her gasping for more, “Hey… zoned out there for sec. You done, or do you want more?” Tench asked, pulling the drained canteen away from her mouth.

“Is there more to spare?” She asked, because she did but there wasn’t any freshwater sources around.

“Just take the canteen.” Tench dodged her question, bringing another canteen to her. Instead of letting him hold it to her face, she took it from him forcefully. Her arms were shaky, and the grip was weak, but she forced herself through it, taking a deep draught, and nearly choking on it.

“Careful.” Ben chided, thumping a fist on her back, “You gotta take it easy.”

“I feel strange.” Verity replied, because that was the thought that was consuming her head right now. She felt uncomfortable in her skin. Too warm. Too cold. Consumed by the urge to get up and do something while her entire body insisted that she couldn’t handle even the slightest of movements.

Her body wasn’t trying to wrest control. Her head certainly wasn’t. This was a foreign thing. The redsight. Or maybe… the underlying Harbinger programming inside her. It was the first time she had seriously considered that as a possibility of what was happening to her.

“I need help.” She confessed to the others for the first time, “Something inside me… is slipping.”

She had had a dream while she was unconscious. A flashback, more like, but it still counted. She hadn’t had any ever. Except for the visions of bloodshed and rage that she had trained herself to block out. That had been before she found out about the Harbinger stuff. Now… it felt connected.

Ben and Tench exchanged glances, “Jared told us about that.” Ben sighed, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It?” Verity repeated incredulously, “Wait, how does Jared know about this? I never told him anything.”

“I’d assume that if you were friends with the guy for nearly a decade, he’d pick up some things.” Tench told her drily, “Oh, and by the way, was that ‘no dreaming’ thing legit, or just another thing he’s made up to make you seem scarier?”

“No, that’s real.” Verity replied with a confused frown, “Why would anyone lie about that? Not dreaming isn’t exactly the scariest thing. What- what would I be accomplishing by making people think that?”

“There’s this thing we call machismo.” Tench told her delicately.

“Never heard of it.”

“Perhaps for the best.” Lucky agreed with a shudder, “You check too many boxes in that for me to be comfortable with. Back to the burgeoning medical crisis we suspect you of having?”

“A medical crisis?” Verity repeated, hysterically. Had all that water damage gotten to her ears? Because she had to have misheard her. She wasn’t sick. She couldn’t be sick. She was a Harbinger. She didn’t get sick.

But they didn’t have the full picture. They were working off the information that they had. Which Verity had worked hard to make sure was very, very limited. And now she was going to have to come clean about the lying. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Now how to break this to them? Gentle was the way to do this, she thinks.

“Okay, I’ve been lying about a major part of my life since the beginning of the Game and have taken deliberate steps to keep the lies going for the months we’ve been playing.” She confessed in one sharp, short breath.

All three of the party members gaped at her.

“Okay… lot to process.” Ben rubbed at her temples, “You’re going to have to spill everything. Right now. I don’t have the patience to wait for the others. And to clarify, this isn’t a medical problem of yours? Because I’d feel pretty shitty if you were hiding a chronic illness and we all got mad at you for it.”

“No medical problem.” Verity shook her head, “Kind of an endangering everyone on this party and fraternizing with the enemy kind of a problem.”

Tench looked at her, almost blankly through her, “Ten months.” He said in a hollow voice, “We’ve been doing this for ten months. And you never thought to break the ruse. Why? Conscience getting too heavy for you?”

“Easy there, Gideon.” Lucky held up a hand, “Let the lass talk.”

She’d never said ‘lass’ before, but Verity felt like pointing that out right now would be violently unfit for the conversation at hand. Verity wrung her hands, trying to think of something to say. As she searched for the words, she pulled her feet off the bed and onto the ground. It made her feel better to be sitting up while having this conversation. And she could at least try to make a run for it if they became violent.

Everyone took a step back, as if giving her a wide berth in case she lashed out. Which was ridiculous. Verity would never lash out at the people around her. Not her friends, at least. And she was going to prove that by keeping a calm head and working through this conversation like an adult.

“I’m… I’m a Harbinger.” She confessed. Ben was staring at her. Burning holes into Verity’s skull. She could easily avoid her gaze, and yet she forced herself to return the look. It wouldn’t make sense to hide from the consequences of her own actions.

“It’s programmed into my genes.” Verity explained as best as she could, because she herself didn’t understand what had happened to her. But she knew that she wasn’t as bad as all the other Harbingers they had had the displeasure to meet, “Eleanor – my mother – worked something out for me. Changed me into… this in-between stage, I think. That’s how much I got out of Marc. In fact, I might be more like Marc than I thought. Do you know who Marc is?” She asked, looking around for support.

“Nope.” Ben replied flatly, “But if I understand this right, you were with Burks?”

“Yes.” She agreed, before realizing how that sounded, “I mean, they tried to recruit me. Because of who I am. But I turned them down.”

One look around and she knew that they were not buying this.

[Player Log End!]