Awakening (Born From Shadows #1)
Chapter Thirty-Five

Small wooden buildings appeared before Tatianna surrounded by tent like structures. She reached out with her hand to touch the wood, feeling splinters prick her fingers. It was real. A laugh of joy breathed out her mouth. A village, a real village. Wasting no more time she searched for a source of water. Stumbling around the small village she noticed a small stone structure. She approached it looking down the large well that led straight to her goal. Her mouth started to salivate as she smelt the water beneath the ground.

She lowered the bucket that was tied to a rope down, then pulled it back up. Her adrenaline giving her the strength to do so. She looked inside to see clear water splashing against the inside of the wooden bucket. The feel of it gliding down her throat was better than anything she could imagine. Her thirst was slowly quenched, and she was just left with the aching hunger. Looking around she spotted a small house, and no people were nearby. Upon entering she grabbed the owners buckets, only taking two for that as all she could carry. The she exited and went back to the well, filling both buckets with the water.

“Hey!” an angry male voice yelled at her. “Get off my property, thief!”

Tatianna grabbed the buckets and ran, trying not to spill any water. Her muscles were still weak, but her drink made her body feel so much more rejuvenated that she didn’t care.

As soon as she realised the man was not chasing her she stopped running, embracing the night’s cold air as it blowed through her hair. The suns faint light could be seen along the horizon by the time she returned to the others. They were lying down with their eyes closed and heart beats faint. Grabbing one bucket she passed it around to each person. First Nik, then Freya, then Riley until the bucket was empty. She then grabbed the other bucket and poured half into the now empty one and placed each in front of the horses and Nylif who gladly slurped it up.

“Where did you replace it?” Nik asked.

“There is a village a couple of hours away,” she said. “Although I think I angered the occupants slightly.”

“So, we can’t go back?” Freya asked.

“We can, we just might need to be ready to run once we steel more water,” she replied.

“You stool this?” Freya said shocked.

“How else did you think I got it?” Tatianna replied confused. It’s not like anyone would give them water, people were too selfish for that.

“Let’s get walking then. We will stop at this village grab more water then continue south,” Nik declared. “My body is still weak, but we have to do this.” Tatianna looked into his green eyes as he spoke her thoughts. They had to survive.

Nik and Freya let Riley use them as a crutch as they continued their expedition through the plains. Tatianna’s eyes closing every now and again from her lack of sleep. She led them through the seemingly endless grass for hours until they came across the same village as before.

“Why would someone even live out here?” Freya said. “There is nothing.”

“That’s the point I would imagine,” Nik replied. “Solitude. No strangers just yourself and a few others.”

“I would love it if there was more resources,” Riley commented.

“Most would,” Nik agreed. They came to a halt just beyond the village where Tatianna decided to go in alone and stock up on water. She grabbed the buckets from before as well as a couple of saddle bags and rushed towards the well. She moved as quickly as she could hauling up litres of water from the well hoping she would get enough before someone noticed her again.

She was filling up her last bag when her pointed ears twitched at an oncoming person. Turning she saw the same angry man before and collected all the water letting her feet carrying her away. The man did not even have time to see her before she was gone.

As soon as she placed down the amplitude of water that filled her arms Nik wrapped his muscled arms around her waist, pulling her head into his chest.

“I don’t like you going off on solo missions,” he whispered.

She smiled at his caring words, “I’m an Elf. I’ll be fine,” she told him.

“The Hunt-,”

“The Hunt haven’t been seen since Haveenté,” she interrupted. “I’m pretty sure they have given up hunting us now that we are out of their precious human kingdom.”

“Still don’t like it,” he said and pulled away from her.

“Which was is South?” Freya called out looking at the empty landscape.

Riley pointed at a certain direction, “this way.” Tatianna looked up at the sky to see if he was right.

“How did you know?” Freya asked confused.

“The sun,” Riley replied.

“Oh, well not everyone can figure that out,” Freya tried to defend her intelligence.

Tatianna placed the water onto Ida, positioning it so none would fall out. “We need to ration our drinks. It could be weeks until we replace another village.”

The others did not reply to her, and she took that as an acknowledgement of her statement rather than them ignoring her. She didn’t like to think about being dehydrated and starved again but at this point it was rare for her not to be. Tatianna looked towards the limping Riley, disregarding how odd it looked for such a tall man to be struggling to walk and thinking about how she could of prevented his limp. Riley wasn’t the most talkative of people, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he was fighting the hunt for her. No matter how much she told herself not to but the blame on herself, part of her would always do that. She didn’t know much about Elves and their emotions, but she knew that this emotion was definitely a part of being human so as awful as it was, she clung onto it like so many things in her life afraid that they would all disappear. Afraid her friends would all leave her, she clung onto every emotion and memory that they gave her no matter how horrible they were.

Although there was some diamonds among the rough, how her stomach became an acrobat at the thought of Nik’s smile. How her heart raced through every friendly conversation Freya had with her. How Riley’s caring nature made her smile. There was some definitely good memories amongst the horrors they endured, it was just unfortunate how the mind remembers pain more than anything else until the point where it comes unbearable, and an individual repressed every memory both good and bad. She knew that no matter how hard it got, she would not let her mind do that. She wanted to feel the pain, just to feel the joy.