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Survival Hunt - Part Nine

The distance between them and that dinosaur progressively broadened. The restless forest of flailing branches and trembling leaves slowly calmed. The foggy air cleared slightly and the blue sky above showed face. A little further away, one or two silhouettes scurried away without any vocal sounds. A brown bird was spotted; flapping its wings vigorously and flew away to another tree.

Chouchou followed Jonathan with shaking eyes. Her thin fingers constantly combed through her now tangled hair. She reached a knot and yelped slightly. Jonathan turned around immediately with a raised eyebrow and a face expression saying, ‘Be quiet’.

She nodded and walked a little closer. Then she rubbed her fingers together. “Can we please stop for a minute? We’ve been walking with no sense of direction for a long time already. My hands are cold.”

Jonathan stopped in his tracks and whirled around. His bright eyes were hazy and slightly darkened. He narrowed them and sighed. “Get your gloves. We’re starting right after you do. Twenty seconds. Get going.”

“Come on, Jonathan. Why are you so mean to me?” Chouchou pouted as she swung her backpack off. She dug through her back and pulled out thin, yet warm black gloves.

After zipping up her bag and putting it back on, Jonathan counted down.

“Five, four, three, two, one, we’re done,” he turned around and pushed a swaying green branch away as he walked by.

“I didn’t even put them on yet!” Chouchou complained.

“Did I say I’d wait for you to put them on?”

Just then Lenny came onto the path. He had leaves sticking out of his hair and dust all over his clothes. He wiped the side of his mouth.

“Another one spotted,” Jonathan commented. “Where’s the other kid?”

Chouchou stared at Lenny’s every movement. The air felt cold as a sudden gust eloped around them.

He shook his head. “Elias? I haven’t seen him since the dinosaur from earlier. Where’d he go off to?”

“You’re supposed to know that,” Chouchou argued. She had a frown on her face now and arms crossed. “Elias was with you and Matthew the whole time. Where did you come from?”

Lenny shrugged. “Where’s Matthew then?”

Jonathan pointed ahead without a word. His dirt filled nail was shaking slightly as it directed the others toward the distanced fog. Rustling tree top leaves and dried grass was heard. The ground beneath them was wet with early rain.

“How come everyone doesn’t care about each other?” Chouchou asked. She looked at Lenny. “Does it not bother you that one of our group members is missing?”

“Am I responsible for him? He’s smart. He’ll know his way,” Lenny responded. “Besides, this is survival. You can’t let one person ruin you.”

“But wanting to find someone makes you determined doesn’t it?”

 After a series of rumbling grow fainter, Mei Xing appeared. She rolled up two pieces of rope and stopped with the other three.

“The dinosaur tore it in half, scared, and ran away,” she laughed. But her laugh was drowned away when she studied the faces of the other teenagers. With a half smile she asked, “What’s going on here?”

Chouchou pulled up her backpack and stared straight into Mei Xing’s eyes. “I’m not accusing here but both Jonathan and Lenny don’t seem to care whether we find Elias or not. Isn’t that a problem? We went through trouble to search for Casey, didn’t we?”

Before Mei Xing could say a word, Jonathan shot a glare at Chouchou. He snorted and shook his head violently.

“I’m pretty sure we all knew that the point of the survival hunt was not to find a bunch of people to work with and socialize with. I knew I was going to work by myself way before I reached this age. We were taught about this hunt when we were little—the insiders that is.” Jonathan pursed his lips and breathed heavily. “You don’t know anything though. Outsiders don’t know a thing about this. You,” he looked at Chouchou, “You’re an outsider, aren’t you?”

Mei Xing shut her mouth and looked to the ground. Her eyes studied the dark, flooded grass patches surrounded by slushy mud. The silence caused her arms to feel cold and form goose bumps. Though she wanted to add to the conversation, she stayed quiet.

Chouchou replayed the same look Jonathan shot. “That’s right, I don’t know anything. I don’t know what I am and I don’t know how you all think.” She made a pouted face as her eyes bulged and reddened. “I don’t know if I’m an insider or an outsider. But I do know you guys are all so different—too different for me to catch up.”

“Chouchou,” Mei Xing started. “We’re all different. No one thinks the same.”

“But you’re all leaving me out; treating me different! I don’t want to be so different that I can’t keep up! I don’t want to be here anymore! I’ll go back by myself. No one was going to care if I died anyway!”

She pulled her black hood over her head and darted ahead of them without looking back; without listening to any words the others yelled to her. 

* * * * *

Chouchou’s footsteps slowed when she realized she had run a great distance. Her throat was cold and dried, as if every swallow scraped along sandpaper. Her nose was clogged and red from the cold.

She stopped by a tree and squatted down. The tree was surrounded by tall and strong-smelling berry bushes.

Her breath huffed heavily into her gloved hands. The gloves against her face now felt warm and friendly. Her once smooth and flawless cheeks were now dry and itchy. She had irritated rashes on either side of her face, caused by sweat and the environment itself. The tears that rolled down her face only made it worse. The more water added the slower to heal.

“I don’t care if I die,” Chouchou muttered in a whispery voice to herself. She huddled close to the tree and pulled the drawstrings of her jacket. Slowly her eyes shut, still mumbling. “I don’t care if all that’s left of me are bones. I wasn’t meant to be noticed or remembered on the last day of my life anyway. No one likes me… I’m too different. It’s been like this—since forever…”

“I don’t want to sit next to her,” a little girl with a bowl cut whined, pointing. “She’s wearing black and I don’t like black.”

The teacher knelt down beside the bowl cut girl and said in a friendly voice. “Chouchou is a nice girl; you two can be good friends too.”

But the little girl persisted, “I don’t want to be friends with a scary girl. I like girls that are like me.”

Chouchou sat alone at a desk with three other empty chairs. Her long, wavy blond hair did not help her blend in with her kindergarten classmates. Her black shirt with white kittens on it was newly bought and given to her by her aunt the day before her birthday. She wanted to wear it on her birthday at school so her classmates would like it.

That afternoon back home, she pulled her shirt and looked down at it. Then she complained to her mother she did not like the kittens on the shirt and wanted one with flowers instead, because flowers hardly ever printed on black backgrounds.

When her mother and father finally got her a new pink shirt, Chouchou pulled it on right away and went to school. She had a big smile on her face as she was brought into the classroom.

She hoped her new shirt would impress everyone. But it was just the opposite. The boys avoided her as usual, and the girls did not like the fact her pink shirt was prettier than theirs. That whole day Chouchou ended up colouring pictures alone again.

Years after that, in elementary school the same things would occur. When she had pretty hair accessories, or whether she had the newest clothing first, others would become jealous and leave her out of their groups, thinking she was too stuck up and spoiled.

As Chouchou slowly realized her parents were spoiling her, she wanted normal style things, to blend in with others. But when she got to school, they would say she copied them, or that she ‘finally wanted to join in.’

Apart from appearance, everyone was covetous over her creative stories, her beautiful artwork, and would criticize and tease her poor math grades.

That was until she turned eight and was forced to leave her country to a strange land far away by force. Her parents disappeared as she lived now with her mother, who revealed to have sneaked out of the land. Nothing school related or amalgamating with other people existed in this world. Solitude conquered every emotion.

* * * * *

“You’re an outsider, aren’t you?”

“I’m an outsider, aren’t I?” Chouchou sighed. She stretched out her legs for a moment, and then tucked her knees again.

The rough bark against her hooded head felt uncomfortable. Her long, messy hair wrapped around her neck as a wet and uncomfortable scarf.

But one incident did cause despondency previous to departure. In elementary school, the start of a new year in second grade, an experience never had before cropped up.

“Eli and Matt are partners, teacher, I don’t have one,” a girl with long black hair said. She had a tight elastic in her hair, bundling only a finger strand of hair at the back.

The teacher scanned the room and spotted Chouchou, again sitting by herself doodling on the requirements sheet. She came up to her. “Chouchou, can you work with Acacia for this project?”

Chouchou had a blank expression on her face as she looked up at the girl. The girl named Acacia was smiling. Chouchou nodded solemnly and continued to stare. The teacher walked away to help other students and the girl sat next to Chouchou.

Expecting another useless partner, Chouchou ignored the girl until she spoke. Usually the partner would read over assignments and tell her what to do. In this case, however, it was unusual.

“What do you want to do for the project?”

Chouchou heard the question twice before realizing it was directed to her.  She looked at the paper. “You pick.”

“Come on, you have to choose. I’m not going to,” the girl said. And she stayed quiet until Chouchou responded.

“Puppet show,” Chouchou finally said in a hushed accent.

The girl beamed and nodded, “I like that too.”

And for the first time, Chouchou responded with a big smile and a friendly laugh as if welcoming a great image that only appeared once in a lifetime.

* * * * *

            All the memories Chouchou had in her childhood before turning eight became a blur. The little details and the names of people all fogged. The new classmate’s faces readjusted into new people by the time she thought of them again. They were not who she thought they were.

Now fifteen years old, she still could not remember the name and face of the friendly girl who spoke to her in grade two.

Chouchou sat up with her eyes open and looked down at the ground. Her black gloved hands clenched tightly to the crumbled dirt and the foot of the tree. She opened her hand and watched as the crumbs trickled to the ground again.

            Everyone is different. Even though someone does not think anything has changed, quietly everything rearranges itself. The combination of two or more people would gradually adjust life and thoughts, forming a different person out of the same person.