HAnnaH JueTt

[OnceForgotten*]

"Can't get away...get away from all of my mistakes..."

A light, airy voice sang the notes with an impressive resonance that seemed to echo in the burned out coppace. Hannah Juett was sitting cross legged, drumming on her legs to the rhythm of the song that blared through her i-pod. After a moment she winced and slapped away a bug that had landed on her knee.

Shouldn't have worn these stupid shorts...My legs are gonna totally get eaten up

She stood up, the notes of Relient K still comforting her, and began to pray.

Dear God...


Hannah stood on a small ladder, pinning up the advertisment for her brazil trip in the school gym. She was having trouble, because the left side kept flopping down, so she had begun taping the entire side to the wall with duct tape. She had almost finished when a man in a suit walked in to the gym and stood behind her. She turned and gave him a smile

"Can I help you, sir?"

The man grunted a response, poring over what seemed to be a grocery list or something.

"Do you know a... Hannah Juett?"

Hannah nodded and stepped down the ladder.
"Thats me, what do you need?"

The man gave her a breif look, eyebrows raised.
"Well...I am a representative of the Ride snowboarding company, and we would like to offer you a sponsorship..."

Before he could get another word out, Hannah had jumped at him, hugging him and repeating "Thank you" over and over.

He stiffened a bit, causing Hannah to wonder if their was some kind of bad news he hadn't told her yet.

"I still need you to sighn some papers for me, signifying your addition to team Ride. If you would come this way please."

Hannah followed the man outside, giddy with exitement. He led her to a limosine, which only increased the valididity of his statements. She got in the back, and immediatly was hit over the head with a blunt object.

The ride....
Muffled screams...
An airplane....

Hannah had woken up here, in a burnt out bamboo coppace, with several old half burned corpses. Needless to say, it gave her a bit of a scare. She had read over the manual, which revealed the direness of her position, and also had found that the friendly SOTF people had provided her with a pistol. To kill people. This had frightened her even more, and she had since placed the pistol back in her pack and had not touched it since.

She drew her map out of her pack and gave it a once over.

I wonder if there are people here who wont play...There must be. Everyone around here can't be crazy, can they?

She immediatly looked up, alarmed, when she heard a stick crack behind her. It was a small arab boy, who seemed to be carrying a spear of some kind. Hannah drew her pack up to her chest, turning to face the new boy.

"What do you want?"

"Whoah" Adib Harrabbi stepped back with his arms raised. "I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"Well then why did you sneak up on me?"

"I didnt!" Adib said, his voice raising an octave. "I didn't know what kind of person you were, and I was actually hoping to just avoid you all together, but it was impossible to move without making a rediculous amount of noise, so I just decided to gamble and introduce myself"

He stuck out his hand expectantly to Hannah. "Adib Harrabbi is my name."

Hannah hesitated a moment, then shrugged and shook it. "Hannah Juett."

"So...Hannah...What kind of weapon did you get?" Adib asked nonchalontly. I got this spear thingy. It would be sort of effective in hand to hand combat- that would be if I was playing I mean...which I'm not, of course." Adib let out a nervous laugh.

"Uh...I got a...brick. Yeah, I threw it away back there somewhere. It just weighed my pack down.

Probobly a good idea to not tell him what I actually got until I know I can trust him...

"So...what is your next move?" Adib asked, after hearing Hannah's answer to his first question.

Hannah shrugged. "I dunno. I might go to the lighthouse or something. See if I can't find other people who aren't playing. Try to get out of here somehow."

"Sounds like a good plan." Adib said, glancing around. "So...You got a map right? I can't see too well without my glasses, and those were broken when I got here."

"Yeah, I got it here." Hannah removed the map from where she had been gripping it, which let the top of her pack flop open.

"Ok well we should- Hey...Thats...Thats a gun!" Adib's eyes went wide, and he began to back away from Hannah. "You were going to kill me! You tried to trick me into thinking you were friendly, and then you were going to kill me!"

Hannah could not speak, she could only stand their adamantly waving her head back and forth, horrorstruck.

"I know! I know! You can't fool me! I'm smarter then I look!" Adib said, his voice at an incredibly high pitch.

Hannah began taking steps backwards, hoping to escape the now alarmed and paranoid boy.

"I...I can hurt you! And take the gun...Yeah! It would be in self- defense, since you tried to TRICK me!" A grim look appeared on his face. "Survival of the Fittest...Well, your plan failed you stupid bitch, and now I'm going to kill you, then I'm going to find real friends...and probobly escape!" He drew the spear up to chest level, slowly approaching Hannah.

Hannah was jolted out of her state by fear, and began to back up at the same pace the boy was coming foreward. "No! I didn't know If I could trust you! thats the only reason I hid the gun! I swear!"

"LIES! DON'T LIE TO ME! YOU CANT FOOL ME TWICE!" He then rushed foreward, thrusting the spear at Hannah.

It was then that Hannah the athlete took over. She swiftly sidestepped the oncoming spear and grabbed just beyond the back of the blade, pulling foreward with all of her might. It brought the boy stumbling foreward, not expecting such strength out of a girl. They began what turned in to a tug of war match, pulling back and forth on the spear. The small but muscled boy and the athletic girl were nearly evenly matched, and it was obvious that it was to be a test of will.

Lord, help me escape this. Hannah prayed, hoping for divine help in her battle with the paranoid-crazy boy. They both were red faced, pulling with all their might, when Hannah's hands began to slip with the sweat that was pooling in her palms. She could feel the back of her hands begin to run along the blade, which began to cut into them, sending drip streams of blood down the blade. Hannah could feel the painful injury, but still pulled, her eyes brimming with tears. She then got an idea.

Let go. Take out the gun, and scare him away!

With a jerk, hannah let go of the spear, which sent them both staggering back, and sent Adib reeling back. He quickly regained his balance, though, and as Hannah fumbled through her pack for the gun, she could see that she was not going to be fast enough. The boy was quick.

He took a smarter approach, slashing the spear at her this time, but again Hannah's athleticism was the determining factor as she duck and rolled with catlike speed. Hannah finally drew the weapon, which she had loaded upon finding it, just in case. She quickly flicked the saftey off and pointed the gun at Adib, who had already rallied from his last failed attack.

"Come at me again, and I put a bullet in your chest. That is your only warning." Hannah stared at him, chest heaving.

"You wouldn't shoot me" Adib hissed, baring his teeth. He then brought the spear back up and began approaching again.

I didn't want it to come to this... Hannah closed her eyes and held the gun in two hands, squeezing the trigger.

BOOM!

She quickly opened them, hoping (which scared her) that she would see the boy face down in the dirt. Instead, she saw him drawing himself up from the ground, a sly smile on his face.

Did he just dodge a bullet?

He immediatly darted foreward, thrusting the spear at Hannah again, who was jolted out of her shock in just enough time to panic. She let out a scream and fell backwards, avoiding the tip of the spear by a hairs breadth. She drew the weapon up again, this time shoving the gun into the boys gut. They both hesitated a moment, and Hannah could feel the boy's sour breath on her face as he lay perched on top of her. She then pulled the trigger.

Boom

A hole the size of a tennis ball blew out of the boys back, sending blood spraying over the burnt ground of the coppace. He began making weird noises, a combination of a cough and the noise you make when you hawk a loogie is what it sounded like to her, and then he shoved himself off, holding his stomach with both hands. He began staggering backwards, blood dripping from his mouth, still making the cough loogie noise. Hannah realized that it was him trying to breath. She held up the pistol, closed her eyes, and squeezed the trigger one more time.

Boom

When she looked up, the boy was lying face down on the ground. Tears began flowing down her face freely, and, in hysterics, Hannah Juett fled the scene.

B55-Harabbi, Adib-Dead


Continued Elsewhere