Dawn Chorus (Proxies x Reader)

I think the world is ending, and I am not sure I am surprised. The forest has been dipping in and out of that odd silence, air too full instead of too empty. The pungent odor of evergreens is occasional disrupted with a more metallic scent. It's faint, but to be able to smell it at all not stooped over the source... Not everyone is making it out. Worst of all I can't find Mason or Camilla, and I never confirmed Sadie made it back to first camp let alone basecamp. Not everyone is making it out tonight. It's a risk of the run we never had to face to this degree before, and this time it may take my friends.

Any bit of thrill from the adrenaline from running from those men has fled. I can feel the coolness of the night against my skin again. I hadn't felt it since leaving the heat of the massive fires. It's gotten quite a bit colder since then. Not enough to shiver, normally, if my clothes weren't damp with sweat. They brush my skin and it's like an icy cloth when you're sick and even the heat is too cold.

I went back to second camp first, but my walkie-talkie was nowhere to be found. I had been expecting it to be broken anyways, but even that bracing wasn't enough to stop some of my hope from fizzling. I have to just wander and search, guess if Camilla and Mason had gone deeper into the forest to keep getting people out or if they found enough dead to decide to leave. Further in is worse, so I'm checking there first.

Somehow, it's gotten even darker. The evergreens are a multi-layered blanket compared to the broadleaves. The ground has gone spongy with needles that compress so far underneath my feet and shift like grains of sand. Branches still grow low here. Occasionally I can hear a soft plop of a conifer cone hitting the ground. My sense of smell is smothered, hearing going in and out, and now I have to stretch my arms out in a slow waving motion to guide my path by touch. Trees shouldn't grow this tight.

My fingers scrape and graze the rough bark. I grip and tug are smaller low branches. I shuffle, needles flooding into my shoes and jabbing my skin. That will be a rash. It's such a small worry. I hope I get to see it in the morning. Sadie will treat it an injury. Mason will mock me for needing help, until Sadie gets upset. I'll go to breakfast with them and Camilla. She'll be mad. She'll forbid me from going on any more runs. She'll stop the runs all together as the body count mounts or overhaul the entire event. I don't know how ready she is to let it go. I have to find them first. I have to find them and we have to get out...they have to get out at least. The man in the hoodie didn't make that same offer of my escape.

There has to be a better way to do this. Reorient to first camp and try to follow trails from there? Or access the communication system and check in? Run and shout for them and hope I don't draw the attention of any of the three men too soon? I shake my head, dislodge my thoughts. Overestimation of my skills, impossible tasks, stupid ideas. I rake my hands through my hairs. Fingers catch on the knots and frizz from all the excitement tonight. I tie it into a knot that won't hold, just a moment to keep it out of my face, off my skin and the sweat that is plastering it down. A break, a small reprieve from one minor discomfort against the building wall of worse problems. A deep breath.

There is one good thing. My body isn't heavy, my muscles aren't tight. It makes the situation feel tacklable, I have a degree of control. Shuffling around here isn't going to work. I have to make my way towards the thinner, younger part of the forest, where the ground is a bit softer and the light a bit brighter. There has to be common running trails. People move in patterns; we tend to favor specific pathways where the ground is gentler and there are less obstacles. Camilla is smart enough to follow those, Mason probably would too. And those are a lot easier to decipher than trying to pick out individual trails and try them all. It won't guarantee that I'll find them, but it's a start, more than this wandering. I've wasted time.