The Village Idiot [Tsarashi]

[Eastern Orange]

The work day had come to an end. Fletcher left the recesses of the mine shaft and into the diminishing rays of the sun. Sweat poured down his face, leaving tracks in the soot that covered his face. He groaned at his aching muscles, and brought an arm up to wipe his sweat-soaked hair from his eyes, succeeding in only smearing the coal dust more.
“Good job in there, kid.” A nameless man came up behind him, and slapped him on the back without stopping.
Fletcher was intrigued by the taste that the string of words left him. It was warm, and liquidy, like soup. It had mushrooms in it, for the word ‘job’, and tomatoes for the word ‘kid.’ It tasted good.
“Job, kid.” He repeated, eliciting laughs from the men behind him. They were thinking he was a moron.
Fletch looked behind him and smiled at his fellows. “See you guys later!” He waved, and ran toward the row of houses.

The men shook their heads, chuckling. As soon as Fletcher was far enough away, they started sharing stories about his antics, and tried to one up each other. ‘Oh yea? You think that’s bad, he turned to me and started to list all these random words then said ‘Bad flavor.’ and resumed work!’ They all threw their heads back and laughed.

Fletcher slowed down once he got unto the main street. He grinned at the people around him, ignoring his short breath. He called out to the people he knew, and waved at people he didn’t. Most people ignored him, but a group of kids he past openly laughed at him. Fletcher, of course, thought they were laughing with him.

He mumbled a list of words under his breath, trying to see what flavors tasted good with what. ‘Cat’ and ‘Raspberry’ tasted horrible together. He made a mental note, not to use them together in a sentence. People shot him disgusted or worried looks as they past him, skirting as far around him as possible in the cramped streets, but he didn’t notice. He never noticed when people made fun of him, which was all the time.

“Good job in there, Kid.” He said, mimicking the worker from before. He really did like the taste of those words together.

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Heron looked at the street she was walking aimlessly on. School had gotten out a few hours ago but she wasn’t quite ready to go home to her small house back in the Seam. Her parents were still working and she felt terrible going home to an empty house. She would make sure to be back right before they got home though so that she could get a head start on the daily housework that needed to be done. Don’t get her wrong, she didn’t mind doing the chores. In fact, she enjoyed knowing that she was not completely useless to the people who have done everything to make sure she was happy. She just didn’t like being home alone.

It was as if the empty house would mock her because it knew her secret, that she was really a girl. Her parents knew and the house knew, that was it and it added to the already present creep factor of the rundown house. If she didn’t know any better she would have sworn that those walls actually had eyes of its own. Heron shuddered.

To her, the house personified what knew her friends thought of girls. They looked down on them, called them cowards but at the same time they looked towards them as a possession and a status symbol. If anyone were to ever find out she knew that she would never be able to live it down. She would be known as the freak who didn’t know what it was. But she knew. She just chose to be this way. Someone had to fill in for the son that her parents lost to the mines.

Instinctively she looked up so seek the telltale signs of the mines that were not far off. Her fist tightened for a moment, but a flash of wavy brown hair caught her attention. He was tall among the crowd, being about as tall as she was, but his boyish face made him unmistakable. She weaved through the flooded street until she met up with the boy whom she had met once before.

“Hey, I know you!” She said, happy to have a distraction from the mines and her brother’s death. “you….you…” she tried to recall his name before realizing that they had never exchanged pleasantries. So she said the first word that came to mind when thinking about him “…ally.” There she was again, making up nicknames from dumb descriptions, but what the heck.

As soon as she addressed him she could hear the unmistakable buzzing of gossip around them which was hard for her to ignore. She shook her head, not liking the things she was hearing. Instead of turning to scream her head off at the people around them she forced a grin and tapped him on the shoulder with a light fist. “You ok?”

[Eastern Orange]

Fletcher flinched, and tensed his body at the approaching male, getting ready for a punch in the face, or a kick to the knees or some bodily injury. But then he saw that it was the boy he had met the other night, and he relaxed. He grinned widely. "Hiya, ally!" He returned. He really liked that word, it burst in his mouth like a grape. "Fancy meeting you around here, eh?"

Fletcher did not know what he meant by asking him if he was okay. He never noticed what people said about him. He never had. Thinking the boy was referring to the beating he got the other night, he lifted up his shirt to show the yellow-green-blue splotches on the side of his rib cage. "Yeah!" He said enthusiastically. It was a nasty, oozing thing, but it's not like Fletcher had any money to get some medicine for it. "I still have a broken rib, though..."

The women around them clucked their tongues, and made disgusted noises in their throats, skirting even further around Fletcher. If he had known that he was talking to a girl, he would not have been so indecent. Fletcher remained oblivious. "What are you doing around here? You don't work at the mines..." He said, tugging his shirt back down. "Unless you're going to?" He asked, excited. The mines were hard work, but it'd be nice to have someone his age around since the other mineworkers were way older and barely tolerated him.

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Heron almost smiled at his positive attitude. It was kinda cute that he was so naïve to the blatant comments being said all around them. But it was still making her increasingly uncomfortable. She didn’t expect him to lift his shirt to show her the remains of the wound, and she didn’t even have time to register how awkward of a thing it was to do out in public when she bluntly gaped and stated “aww, that’s nasty, man.” She would have said that he should have that checked out, but she knew that he probably didn’t have the money to do so. No one had the money to see a doctor unless they saved up, and it would have been healed by then anyhow.
She looked up in the direction of the mines as soon as he mentioned them. A lot of people knew and adored her brother, and she briefly wondered if her ally had ever heard about him… She shook her head and looked back to the boy. “Yeah, actually. I’m gonna start workin’ there as soon as school lets out this year.” A smirk worked its way to her face. “Maybe we’ll be in the same department. It’d be good to have an ally on my team.”

Heron brushed her dark hair out of the way, which had gotten in her blue eyes again and suddenly she was offering her hand to him in a formal greeting. “My name is Heron by th’ way. Heron Kimberling, like the bird.” She always added that at the end of her introduction ever since she realized that her parents had a strange fascination with birds, enough to name their kids ‘Heron’ and ‘Finch’. At least she thought it was amusing.

[Eastern Orange]

Before Fletcher knew what he was doing, he repeated his name. "Heron Kimberling." He said, trying to decipher the taste. "Heron tastes like rabbit, but Kimberling is more potatoey." He was talking mostly to himself, but then he looked up at Heron. "You're name is good." Fletcher ginned.

"My name is Fletcher Gage. It tastes like lemons and butter, not very good." He grimaced. To Fletcher, this was a normal conversation. It never occurred to him that people may not know what the hell he was talking about. Sure, He knew that others didn't taste things when the spoke, but he figured that they at least knew about. Or somebody else had what he had...

While he had been talking his hand had been digging around in his pocket. Realizing it was empty, he frowned. Panic rose in his chest. "Oh no! My mother's necklace!" He frantically patted both his pockets, but they were empty. "I took it off when I went to work, so it wouldn't get ruined. I shouldn't have been wearing it in the first place. but I forgot to take it off before going to work....Mom asked me to keep if safe for her when she went out last night, I totally forgot I put it on!" Fletcher rushed through his words, barely noticing the tastes, both good and bad, washing through his mouth.

"It must have fallen out in the mine. That was my mom's only treasure! I have to go back to get it!" He shot off toward the mine, but stopped short, and turned back to Heron. "Will you help me?" He pleaded. "Two pairs of eyes, are better then one..." He trailed off.

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Heron blinked, trying to digest everything that the boy was telling her all at once. It was a lot to take in. Fist he was going on about her name tasted and then he was freaking out about a necklace that he had apparently lost. From what she could logically gather he could somehow taste either words or sounds, at least, she hoped that was logical. As soon as she was caught up to the situation her first thought was ’My name tastes like rabbit stew?’ She shook her head; she would have to talk to him about that later, there was a more urgent matter at hand at the moment.

Looking in the direction of the mine she almost faltered, but held firm. “Two eyes are better than…” She stated slowly to herself under her breath as if to coax herself. “You’re right. I’ll help you look for it.” Besides, she thought to herself, if she was going to have to work in the mines so soon then she would be better off coming to terms with her brother’s death before hand. That tiny fear that was always lingering in the back of her mind had to go.

”We’re allies, right?” She asked redundantly which was more so for her advantage than his. “We help each other.” Without even thinking much about what she was going to say next she smiled like an idiot at him as though no one else was around and admitted “And I like the flavor of lemons.” She was simply trying to lessen her tension and nerves from the combination of gossip around them and the thought of having to go in to the mines, both of which she feared to some extent, but the statement was true enough. Lemon juice, whenever she was able to get a hold of it, was a treat to her and she liked the sensation it left on her tongue.

[Eastern Orange]

Fletcher laughed. "They aren't very tasty when covered in butter, though!" He stood there for a second, then looked at the setting sun. "Come on, we should hurry!" He turned again and dashed between houses and through backyards, limping in an odd way because of his hurt side.

After a few minutes of running, they made it to the mines. A shack stood a couple of yards from the mines, holding equipment and whatever the miners needed. "Watch where you step." Fletcher warned, coming up to the shack and throwing open the door. It wasn't locked. Who would want to steal a bunch of light and pickaxes? The meager light revealed that the shack was extremely cluttered and disorganized, and everything was covered in a layer of fine black dust.

Fletcher didn't hestitate, he plunged into the sea of miscellaneous tools, and expertly dug out his head lamp, a helmet with a dingy light attached. He shoved it on his head, with one hand, and continued digging with another. He pulled up another head lamp, and tossed it toward Horen. "That one was Hemmi's." Fletcher explained. "Hemmi wont mind, because he was...well he's dead."

Fletcher looked back down at the pile. "I don't think we'll need anything else...." He said. He crashed through the pile and exited the shack, making his way toward the mines. "There are lights strung up in the shafts, but I don't know how to work them. I don't even know where the power is to turn them on, so our helmets will have to do." Fletcher explained. They reached the entrance to the mine. It was pitch black, the light that dusk provided only penetrated a few feet into the mine before it fell away to complete darkness.

"Okay." He said, stopping to explain a few things. "Do not get separated from me." Fletcher was uncharacteristically serious. "There are many veins down there, and if you get lost..." He trailed off. "We shouldn't run into any problems. My mom's necklace is on a silver chain, so if you see anything glinting light of your head lamp, then that's probably it." He smiled reassuringly, and flipped on his head lamp, keeping his hand over it so he wouldn't shine it in Heron's eyes. "Keep me in sight at all times!" He reminded him, then turned on his heel and walked into the mine.

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Heron laughed at his comment and her first response would have been ‘then don’t say your last name’ but she didn’t have the time to say anything before they started to run. She easily noticed his limping and that was when she started to have second thoughts about going down into the mine. If anything happened to him, would she be able to help him, or would she freeze up?

She stayed in the doorway to the shack when Fletcher started to rummage through the items. There were so many things in there that were both old and older. When she caught the head lamp a fair amount of soot covered her hands. But when she heard of the fate of its owner she stared at it. Almost everything Fletcher was saying went over her head as she slowly cleaned the light with her thumb. “Thank you.” Even Heron didn’t know if she was thanking Fletcher or Hemmi, but the sentiment was the same.

When Heron looked up she was at the mouth of the mines, having followed the boy subconsciously, and her ally was in front of her reminding her not to get lost or separated from him. She nodded towards him and flicked on her borrowed lamp before putting it on and followed him into the darkness.

This was the first time that Heron had ever been in the mines and needless to say it wasn’t much different than she had pictured. There were paths and tracks for carts to haul coal up the shafts and everything was black. Although, there wasn’t much else you could picture a mine looking like. Before they were too deep in the darkness she said in a firm voice “If you don’t think you can go on with that wound of yours don’t push yourself. We’ll just come back later, ok? Tell me if you start to feel bad, I can’t have you getting hurt on my watch.”

[Eastern Orange]

Fletcher waved off his concern, turning and looking over his shoulder to flash a reassuring grin, but it ended with a wince of pain as the motion disturbed his bruised skin, and broken ribs. "You forget, I worked all day down here. I'll be fine, don't worry" Fletcher laughed in his unconcerned way, leading them down a gentle slope of never-ending darkness.

After a few minutes of walking, the incline became steeper, and the air muggier. May veins branched off, and the shaft they were in forked over and over, but Fletcher never hesitated when he was faced with multiple paths. He memorized which shaft to go done when to get to his designated work area. Straight past four branches, left fork, right, straight, left, left, ect.

Fletcher worked in one of the deepest part of the mines, the shafts closer to the surface, having been cleaned out many years before. In fact, the shaft he worked in currently, was going to be abandoned soon in favor of a newly discovered vein. As they got closer, Fletcher stripped off his shirt, using it to wipe the sweat off his face. He then tied it around his torso, keeping his wound clean as best he could. "It is sometimes unbearably hot down here, especially in the summer. He aren't allowed to take off our shirt while working, but we're not working are we!" He said gleefully, breaking a rule that he had always wanted to break, but never had the guts to.

Finally, Fletcher took one last turn, and they were in the shaft in which he mined. The air was stagnant, making it hard to breathe. There were other branches way further down, one of which was the one that they would be moving to soon. Those branches slopped back up towards the surface. Rumor had it that even more branches from those branches, went so close to the surface that the roof had collapsed, opening to the wilderness outside of the District boundaries.

"Here it is!" Fletcher said proudly, spreading his arms indicating the darkness before him, proudly. "This shaft is pretty much dead, but I've worked here for a year. I'll be sad when we move..." He signed, moving forward, sweeping his ray of light across the ground. "Oh, and don't say...coal." He spat out the last word, chocking even before he was finished uttering the syllable. He gagged, and said 'fish' to get the taste of blood and bile out of his mouth. "It is the most awful word that I have ever tasted." He said, still coughing and wiping his mouth even though there was nothing actually in it.

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Heron scowled as he winced in pain. Why were men always so stubborn? She sighed and grumbled that she was only being cautious. Working all day in the hot mines made the chances that he would pass out from exhaustion even higher. She just needed to keep a very close eye on him as they searched for the silver necklace.

The tunnels were amazing, but after the first few turns Heron was already lost. She didn’t have claustrophobia, but she wasn’t one for small spaces either, and this place was a suffocating, dark and dirty death trap. Working down here would be hell, but at least she wouldn’t be alone. Fletcher was several feet ahead of her and she could barely see the his outline, what told her he was there was the spot light being shined ahead of them from where he was standing. When he stripped and she learned a bit of the protocol from him she was secretly glad that they couldn’t take their shirts off while working. If others did then they would wonder why she didn’t and no matter how you looked at it they would always discover her secret.

When they came to a halt, Heron looked around at the drab place where Fletcher was working. As soon as he started she followed suit by shining her light on the ground and looking for the tell tale shimmer of silver light. Suddenly a thought came to her as she was searching. “Have you ever found gems down here?” She asked as she continued to walk in random directions with her head down. “I heard some old women talkin’ about ‘findin’ diamonds’ in coa-I mean in the rocks in the mines.” Heron bit her lip for almost slipping and saying the ‘c’ word. “Diamonds are those glass like rocks right?” Hell, she’d never seen a diamond before. But if the old hags were gossiping about it then it must be some sort of get rich quick scheme.

Without waiting for an answer Heron wandered further away from him in search mode. Her head was down and she didn’t know where she walking exactly, she just figured that if there was a little bit of space between them they’d be able to cover more ground. Besides, she hadn’t walked that far and she knew that if she lifted her head she would easily be able to spot the beam of his light in the darkness. Suddenly, her light hit the glimmer of something silver near a wall ahead and she perked up. ‘The sooner I find it, the sooner I’m out of here!’ she thought happily as she jogged towards the glimmer.

She was torn when she found the broken tip of the pickaxe in the place where the necklace should have been. She sighed dejectedly before starting back the way she came, continuing to look to the ground. F she wasn’t looking at the ground, then she would have never seen the brighter shimmer of silver that was between the old cart tracks. She walked over to it and bent down, reaching between the rails of metal that made up one track to grab the foreign object. She grinned like an idiot when the thin loops of metal fell around her fingers lightly and swayed. “Fletcher! I think I found it!” Heron yelled happily.

Her face drained of color and her heart almost leapt from her chest when she looked up. “Fletcher?” she called in a cautious tone. When she didn’t hear a response she became worried. “Fletcher!?” Her voice raised an octave as she yelled, but she didn’t care. Had she really walked that far? It had been what, five, ten minutes? She couldn’t be that far. And she found the necklace! Well, a necklace. A strangled cry came from her throat before she could stop it. She would admit that the mines were one of the few things that scared her a bit, but this was terrifying.

Heron knew enough that it would be stupid to try and find her way back since she would probably get even more lost. So instead she sat down right where she was and took off the lamp to shine at a wall she hoped would be easiest to see from all of the adjoining paths. Then she curled her long legs to her chest like she used to do when she was a child and she waited patiently. Heron felt so scared that she didn’t even know if she was crying or not. “So much for bein' a man.” She laughed bitterly to herself.

[Eastern Orange]

Fletcher spent a few minutes searching in silence...Then he realized it was too silent. He spun around in a panic, looking for another beam of light, and not finding one. "Heron?!" He yelled. Then quieted when he had a far off voice calling his name. He ran towards it.

Fletcher memorized the turns he took, as he took them so they would be able to find their way out. People may think he was stupid, but that didn't mean he was. "Heron?" He called. He rounded one last corner, and saw a beam of light, way down the end of the shaft. He breathed a sigh of relief. But then he realized what part of the mine this was, and he choked on his breath in panic.

"Heron!" He called softly. "Don't move!" He hissed, making his way cautiously towards Heron. This was a highly unstable part of the mine, liable to collapse at any time. Someone, somewhere missed up, digging too many tunnels, making this part of the mine highly unstable. The end of the shaft had already collapsed.

He was a few yard away from Heron when his foot got caught on the track. The hard hit, sent a terrible jolt of pain through his side. He yelped and jumped, slamming his shoulder into one of the wooden support beams. Fletcher fell flat on his face, gasping in pain as his side hit the hard compact dirt. He lay there stunned, and afraid. At first nothing happened, and he almost relaxed, but then dust started to fall from the ceiling above him, and a crack appeared in the rock. Fletcher forgot about his side, and lunged forward. He reached Heron, and with out slowing down, grabbed his arm and yanked him down the tunnel.

The crack widened, the rock crumbled, and the ceiling gave way. Fletcher stayed ahead of it, pulling Heron along. He turned down another tunnel, and kept running. The entrance they just passed through, disappeared in a black cloud of rubble and coal. Fletcher tripped again, skidding a few feet before stopping, dragging Heron down with him. He coughed, coal dust invading his lungs and eyes.

He sat up, and looked around. The air was thick with coal dust that the cave in had stirred up. He was breathing heavily from his run, sucking more dust into his lungs, making him cough violently. "Are you alright?" He wheezed. "Come on, we have to get to clearer air." He got to his feet, and pulled Heron up again. He limped down the mine shaft, away from the clogged air.

OOC: I wanted to do this from the start! Do you mind? Also, Fletcher has a nasty ass burn scar all across his back, so Heron would see that...

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Everything had happened so fast. The relief and happiness that flooded her the moment she heard him calling her name was gone the instant he warned her not to move. Something had to be terribly wrong for that tone of voice. After Fletcher fell it was mostly all a blur to her. First were the sickening cracks from above, followed by the dust. Next thing she knew, she was being pulled along in a direction that she couldn’t differentiate from the other. There was so much dust and debris and it was so dark. Only the light of Fletcher’s lamp was there to guide them since in the chaos she had left her borrowed one on the ground where it sat. It was long beyond saving now.

The world caught up to her when she was pulled into the ground and was scraped against the hard surface. She could feel warm blood running down her face from just below her left eye. The shock was just beginning to wear off when she answered him “yeah… I’m alright…” in a small, forced voice. His coughing was starting to worry her before she realized that she was coughing herself, just not as bad.

Heron pulled her shirt up above her nose as a makeshift mask as she got pulled along again. She had no choice but to trust Fletcher, since he knew his way around here. But trust didn’t outweigh her lifelong fear of sharing her brother’s fate. Would anyone miss her when she was gone other than her parents? Sure she had friends, but none of them knew the real her, not even Fletcher here knew that. Would they mourn her for who she wasn’t? Or would they hate her for her lies?

Those were thoughts that she didn’t want to venture near during a situation like this, so she put her entire effort towards survival. “Listen.” She told her ally firmly as she returned his grip from where he was holding onto her to pull her along so that they were gripping each other’s forearm. “I don’t have my light and I can hardly see a thing with yours. If you need help walking, I’ll support you. You need to get us out of here.”

She looked directly at him, not caring that his light was shining on her face that was dripping with blood. “Just don’t you dare let go of me.” Her voice was hard and under her shirt her teeth were clenched. She knew that she was on the verge of tears again, which was an added something that she really didn’t need right now. Then, to show that she was serious, she squeezed his forearm as if it were her lifeline. “Please don’t let go.”


{OOC: Way to play into her only true fear and make her go soft. ^,^ I figured this would happen though, great minds think alike? And she will notice the scar when they are back outside. But it makes sense that she didn’t notice it yet because she didn’t pay attention to his back when she had the light and he didn’t take his shirt off (In a way that she could see his back) until he was well into the cave.}

[Eastern Orange]

Fletcher wasn't surprised at the other boy's fear, he had been that way when he first started. It never occurred to him that there were other reasons for his fear. "Don't worry." He smiled reassuringly, managing to be genuine even in this situation. He pulled Heron to his side, shook off his iron grip, and put his arm around his shoulder instead, leaning some of his weight on Heron. It helped that they were about the same height, Fletch being just and inch or two taller.

Now that that adrenaline was fading in his veins, he could feel the cuts from falling. He winced as sweat seeped into the superficial cuts, burning them. "I think I'll take you up on your offer." He grunted. He reached down with his other hand, and felt the shirt tied around his torso. It was warm and sticky. He didn't need to hold his hand up to the feeble light to know that it was blood. But he did, staring at his stained hand. "Well....that sucks." He sighed.

The falling and running for his life, had ripped open the scabs and skin that had healed. Now it would have to heal all over again. "Don't worry." He repeated, for both of them this time. He pictured the mine in his head, trying to figure out were they were. When he did, he felt his spirits raise. "Hey, I think we are in one of the shafts that slope back towards the surface." He laughed. Sure enough, the shaft started to tilt upward. "Rumor has it, that one of these shaft's roof collapsed, opening to the forest beyond the District. Some of the men supposedly use it to go hunting...we can find it and get out!" He squeezed Heron's shoulder, and grinned over at him, ever the optimist.

"It's quite a walk I hear." He said, less upbeat and more worried. He had worked a full 12 hour shift, walk and run the length of the mines, took some hard falls, and ripped open his side. Fletch could only take so much. "In the meantime...let's get to know each other to pass the time. I live with my mom and my twelve year old brother. My brother has the same...condition I have, except with him he sees words, and numbers, and sounds. Like in front of him, hanging in the air, in different colors...what about you?" Fletcher was very open about himself, and figured that other people were like that too. Words like 'privacy' and 'personal space' meant little to him.

[Tsarashi 2.0]

Heron cringed from his close proximity. Even though she had offered to help him walk, she hadn’t expected him to jump at the opportunity and touch her so openly. She would have felt self conscious if it wasn’t for her leather jacket. Sure, she was dripping with sweat and probably going to become dehydrated soon, but the barrier between her flesh and his was welcome. If she absolutely needed to take her jacket off though, she probably would. She didn’t care much anymore. Her main priority at the moment was to stay alive.

He was right. It did suck. Their situation really sucked. She reached up to wipe some of the blood off of her face which she could feel dripping down the front of her shirt now. She couldn’t tell if she was bleeding anywhere else and truthfully she really didn’t want to know. Vaguely she listened to Fletcher, who didn’t seem to realize how close to her ear he was and that he was talking pretty loud. She’d never been in the forest before. If they did get out of this mess she would be in for another adventure. The questions were was she ready for it, and more importantly, how would they get back into the district?

And then like a lightning bolt he was off on another topic, a little tangent about his family. Seeing things? She thought about the extent to which Fletcher’s brother saw according to his brief description. Every word, every sound, every slightest thing would flash in front of his eyes. And in color nonetheless. “Your brother must get quite th’ headache.” She said before she registered that he had asked her something.

“Wha-? Oh.” Heron stuttered awkward. Family matters weren’t usually a common subject around the guys she normally hung out with. Usually it was a touchy subject and if it was brought up someone got punched in the face. “I, uh, I live with my parents.” She said almost reluctantly. Then she realized her reluctance was pointless. This boy was nicer to her than any of her guy friends, not to mention he just saved her life. He deserved to know about her, at least, more than others did. “I had a brother too.” She said with a slightly stronger voice. “He.. died in the mines when he was twenty three. I was only six so I don’t remember too much about him. But I know he was the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

[Eastern Orange]

Most people would feel awkward if someone told them a loved one had died, but Fletcher wasn't bothered by such things. He was used to tragedy. "The mines, huh?" He said softly, casting his eyes about the dark tunnel. "These mines have probably taken so many lives." He trailed off, distracted by the taste that 'life' had left him with. After a few seconds of silence, he continued. "The mines tried to take my life once...other then today. There was a fire, and a support beam fell on me. I suffered 2nd degree burns on my back." Another stretch of silence. "Don't worry, Heron." He said suddenly. "The mines won't claim either of our lives today, I'll get us out alive!"

The mine stretched out before them, barely illuminated by the pair's one light. It was impossible to tell how long it stretched on for. Fletcher had never been down this part of the mine, but he still felt confident that they would escape. He cast about for something to say, to take their minds of the current situation. "So you like lemons, huh?" Fletcher asked, remembering what Heron had said before this whole fiasco had occurred. The poor guy didn't realize how stupid that he sounded, talking about lemons in a such a dire situation.

"So my name tastes like lemons, but lemon doesn't taste like lemon. It actually tastes really sweet. Like sugar. And sugar tastes like coffee, and coffee tastes like something slimy." He rambled, as per usual. This is the reason why people made fun of him so; he really did sound like an idiot, but really he was just trying to stop both of them from falling into despair or whatever and give up.