Chapter Twelve

*drum noise*

It was the next morning already when again those drums started beating just as if yesterday; they probably marked the beginning of every day.

Raven was inside her tent when she suddenly heard a voice. She struggles to get up while rubbing her eyes and yawns intensely. Her eyes were swollen from the previous night since she cried herself to sleep.

"Is that Trystan's smell? Why does it smell like Trystan? Was he here,in my tent? Oh crap, why would he be inside my tent? But he said he will be a tent away. Why would he be in my tent?" Raven's thoughts start to speak as she inhales a fading scent of Trystan. It was too prominent to be mistaken.

"Hey Raven, are you up yet?" Jasper surprised her as he stood there just in front of her at the entrance, with sweat dripping all over him from his face and his body; his biceps were clearly visible and his face looked even more attractive.

And yes, he was already better and exercising, it was far-fetched how fast Jasper healed. If it had been someone else it would have definitely taken at least a week. It was beyond her imagination. It looks like the medicine that Trystan gave was a pretty good one & was able to cure someone this soon.

"Uh yeah, I'm awake now, why are you up so early? And why all this sweat?" Raven manages to frame questions for Jasper while she wonders if it was him and not Trystan that she got a scent of earlier.

"Oh yes, I have a habit of waking up early for my morning workout routine," Jasper tells her with a smirk on his face.

“And look I am all better, my wound healed too” he adds in a definite tone.

It turns out Jasper shared the tent and slept in the second sleeping bag she had.

"What is that smell? Jasper?" Raven is confused as she sniffs some off of Jasper.

"Er, um prolly me, I'm sorry must be the sweat" Jasper replies in an apologetic tone.

"No, the one before you even entered," Raven says in a serious and curious tone.

"Um, what do you mean? I spent the night here, must be some of my stuff smelling, I'll get rid of it" Jasper replies.

"Nah, leave it. I must get up"

Raven replies, clearly pushing him aside. She didn't really care much, now that she knew it wasn't Trystan.

"Alright, alright, why don't you come out now eh? Maybe you could join me.." Jasper winks at her while he tries to take a sip of water from the bottle he had been holding all this while.

"Huh, Good grief! Why don't you get out of here instead?" Raven replied with an attitude.

"Calm down, I'm sorry if I was offensive in any way" Jasper says while putting his hands in front of him for defence.

"Whatever" Raven replies under her breath, not loud enough but clear enough for him to leave her alone.

She gets up and walks out of the tent, repeating the incident inside her head. She couldn't have mistaken Trystan's scent for anyone else's but it was clearly Jasper. Raven seems to have given in to her "Trystan thoughts"; she didn't speak much and was getting all grumpy for God knows what reason.

She walks and slips her hand inside her pocket when she finds another chit.

"It was me ~ T”

"How the fuck? When did he manage to even sneak in? " she is awestruck, her cheeks turn red. She can't stop blushing and daydreaming whilst fantasising about Trystan.

Her moment is interrupted as she trips over Tim, once again.

"ouch, sorry" Tim apologises while soothing his head with his hand.

"Oh crap, not again" Raven feels sorry and picks up Tim's broken glasses from under her foot.

Raven unintentionally yet successfully managed to break Tim's glasses for the second time.

"Uh.. don't worry about it, heh, it's fine" Tim tries not to make a scene while he scratches his head with a "It's okay" face. He looked silly.

"I'm so sorry" Raven apologises with a sad face and hands over his glasses.

"Heh what an unlucky day for me" Tim murmurs to himself but doesn’t mind much as he was by this time used to it. Earlier he saw Jasper leave Raven's tent early in the morning trying not to get noticed, without giving it another thought; Tim was already hurt.

"Come now bois and girls, start packing. We still have the morning before we go for forest trails'', Trystan announces in his authoritative voice.

"And for that I have planned something very special for you a lot today" He added.

"We gonna have some lessons taught on basic survival skills 101..." he continues ". .cooking, fetching clean water, distinguishing edibles (mushroom, berry, fruits, flowers) ETC"

"And lastly, we are going to build traps for fun..”

“Err Traps??” Tim interrupts

“Traps for whom Mr Tystan?” he adds, stuttering.

“For the wild Tim, for the wild” Trystan responds in a calm tone. It certainly was a white lie since there were no animals nearby and also no presence of any other living creature other than the campers & the incharges.

Before everyone started tracing their steps back to their tents in order to pack, Trystan asked them to hold on.

“Before you campers proceed, I want to announce the new pairs/partners for each of you to work with” Trystan

Everybody sighed at the same moment, it was clear that nobody wanted to switch.

“I better be paired with someone sexy haha” Lyla murmurs and laughs away with her slutty voice.

“Definitely not me, ugh,” Tim warns her beforehand.

“Yes, Tim you will be with Sharon” Trystan states.

“Are you kidding me?” Tim groans.

All of them were displeased, especially Valerie. While Raven crossed her fingers in a hope that she doesn’t get paired with anybody at all. Somebody heard her wishes this time.

“Lyla with Valerie..”

“And finally.. Raven with Jasper” he continues.

“And lastly, Raven you’re paired with Jasper” he declares for the second time staring at Tim’s face to look for a change of expression.

Raven instantly rolls her eyes indicating she didn’t want to be paired up with anyone at all. For a second she felt as if something was missing, but she wasn’t in a state to waste more of her energy on thinking.

“Everyone stand next to your partner” Trystan commands.

“First up, we will be scavenging some food from the forest so we can cook our meals since you already know how to start a fire that won’t be a problem.”

All of them were quick to gather up the stuff and eager to start the journey. It was getting more interesting since yesterday now that Trystan was a part of the pack.

As usual Tim tries to help Raven but she refuses. She wasn’t in a mood to deal with anybody today. Lyla for a surprise didn’t pull any stunts yet.

“Okay everyone let’s begin with the most abundant thing in a forest, ‘Mushrooms’..” Trystan Starts

“How do we know which one to pick?” Tim interrupts as usual.

“Wait lemme get there” Trystan continued.

“Lyla and Valerie follow me, you are on mushroom duty” Trystan asks them.

“Rest of you wait here, Tim & Sharon gather fire supplies till then” Trystan orders.

“Raven & Jasper, look for water bodies which can supply us with drinking water” Trystan continues.

“I have assigned you the most basic tasks, hopefully, none of you gets hurt till I’m back with the mushrooms” Trystand stops

‘C’mon Lyla and Valerie, let’s go” Trystan starts to walk away;

Lyla and Valerie follow Trystan into the woods on a hunt for mushrooms while the others stay back and wait for their return, but it was not gonna be that easy was it?

“So what now? Are we just supposed to stay here and obey him like small kids? Pfft” Jasper gets annoyed.

“Why don’t we just go and fetch some water eh Raven?” Jasper asks Raven to go with him.

“ Not now, we can do that later. I know a river nearby so it won’t take us much time” Raven mumbles.

“Oh cmon, we can be back by the time they are back” Jasper tries to convince Raven.

“Are you for real? I said we can go later, it's not that far.” Raven opposes and almost picks up a fight.

“Fine.” Jasper says diminishing the chances of any argument.

“I’ll do it myself I guess” he starts to walk away.

“You can join me later, Raven.” He adds.

“Why can’t he just leave me alone ugh!!” Raven gets all moody and talks to herself but tags along with Jasper anyway.

Meanwhile; Trystan was walking with Lyla and Valerie following him. He continues telling them

“**Brown mushrooms are poisonous, mushrooms with white gills are often poisonous too

**Edible ones are mostly brightly coloured

**So are those with a ring around the stem and those with a volva

**Poisonous ones have bad odour while edible has pleasant

**Mushrooms with red colour on the cap or stem are also either poisonous or strongly hallucinogenic, so avoid them..”

“Now why don’t we spread out and find some mushrooms to eat?” Trystan orders.

*10 mins later*

“Ouch!!! ARGH” Lyla screams in pain.

Lyla being clumsy or maybe it was one of her slutty tricks but she seemed to have slipped on the ground and sprained her left foot.

“AAARRRGGG, Somebody help me” She continued to scream in pain.

She was there sitting on the ground putting pressure on her leg in pain hoping for the pain to reside.

Trystan was nearby when he heard someone screaming, he rushed to help in the direction of the sound. Valerie was far away from both of them.

Meanwhile;

Jasper went out to Fetch water and Raven followed him. While they were going down by the riverbank, Raven tripped. Trying to match steps with Jasper, she missed a step and luckily Jasper caught her by her waist.

She immediately got pissed, “What the hell Jasper?” Raven yells

“Get your hands off my waist, go away” She is as moody as she can get and acts like a bitch.

Poor Jasper was just trying to help her but no Raven misinterpreted his actions.

“But..You were about to fall” Jasper tries and defends himself.

“I don’t need your help, should have just let me fall”, Raven yells again and walks away; abandoning Jasper.

As she was walking past some scarcely spread trees, she came across someone similar on the other side. She was walking grumpily, stomping her feet and arms crossed.

Bam!!! Look what she found!!

It was someone similar, she wasn’t mistaken. She could tell from just facing his back. Nonetheless, she sees Trystan and it’s not only him, it’s slutty Lyla in his arms, all cozy and getting comfortable, Trystan was carrying her.

“What???”

What the fuck was going on, Raven couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing.

Her footsteps came to a halt but not without stepping onto a broken branch.

The sound made Trystan and Lyla aware of her presence. She couldn’t bear the sight when Trystan’s eyes met hers. Her eyes in no time turned into a pool of tears and before anyone could do anything, she ran away. She ran as far as she could.

Seeing her leave, Trystan couldn’t help but drop Lyla and run to chase Raven.

“Wait for Valerie to come for you”, Trytan tells Lyla as he leaves.

“Wait, Raven” Trystan calls her as she runs without even looking back. She had her head hung low trying her best not to let her tears fall. She didn’t know where she was headed.

“Don’t go there, it’s dangerous” Trystan yells for her.

“Why do you care, go to her, that bitch. All guys like you, like girls like her” She yells back as her tears no longer stay back. It was immature of her but she had her reasons; she was hurting, that was the only justification she could give for her behaviour.

“NOOO!!” Trystan screams as he tries his best to get a hold of her.

Raven feels someone holding her back as she is about to take another step. Only to notice there was not only the ground but a new animal trap set.

As soon as Trystan pulls her close to him, the trap goes off.

“Raven, I told you it’s dangerous” Trystan screams in fear.

“I'll never do anything to hurt you Raven, and I won't spare anyone who dares to hurt you” Trystan tries to comfort her as he holds her tight in his arms while Raven continues weeping.

“At least give me a chance to explain myself” Trystan tries hard, wanting to gain her trust back.

Raven hushes Trystan as he tries to explain what happened and continues to embrace the moment.

Following the lead of the screams earlier, others were calling out for Raven.

AS their voices approached Raven & Trystan, Trystan immediately let go of Raven from his arms.

“You okay now?” Trystan asks Raven.

She nods as she wipes her eyes.

Soon after, Jasper and Tim joined them.

“There you are” Tim renounces.

“Yeah..” Raven answers in a low voice.

“What happened? We heard screams earlier” Jasper asks unsure.

Trystan's sight led them to see the trap which was now unset.

“We have to be careful around this part of the forest,” Trystan warns them.

“I think you should all head back to the original spot.. Where are Valerie and Lyla?” Trystan asks.

“Lyla got hurt, Valerie took her back to where we started” Jasper answers.

“Alright, You go ahead. I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit” Trystan orders and turns his back.

“Where are you going?” Raven and Tim ask at the same time.

“Some work to handle” Trystan speaks in a low and almost scary tone looking back at them.

“Go on now, Valerie and Lyla must be waiting,” Trystan adds and disappears into the thick dense bushes.

No one dared to question him back and they started tracing their way back.

To be continued...