Children's Draft

Chapter 16 (Part Two)

(Landon's PoV)

Day five into our involuntary hunger strike: Tristan was nice enough to share some of his care package with me, but even his supply was starting to run low. Late that evening, Holly came in with four MREs, nearly tripping over herself in the middle of the room.

"I know, I know," Kent beamed. "The effects of my looks are almost intoxicating." He laughed as he high-fived Felix.

"Yeah, cuz your face makes me wanna puke my guts out," she retorted, but quickly winced and put her hand to her head.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," she responded irritably, still clutching her forehead. "Just shut up and eat your food," she ordered before heading back to her room.

"What's up with Holly?" I wondered out loud. Gavin and Tristan both shrugged, but didn't give it much thought beyond that. I, however, couldn't get my mind off her. I absentmindedly took a cracker from the communal MREs and pondered to myself. She seemed so out of it.

I put the cracker in my mouth and then it hit me: Holly hadn't been eating.

I mean, none of us had really been eating much, but I doubted Holly had eaten anything in the past five days. She'd never shared any of the MRE ration and no one ever sent her anything--plus she was way too proud to ask for anything from us.

I finished the cracker in another bite as I made my way over to Tristan's care package. "Hey dude," I asked him, aside. "Can I have something from here?"

"We just ate," he reminded me.

"Please," I begged. "It's really important."

He smirked. "All right, fine, but don't take any of the Oreos."

"Will do," I replied. I dug around the cardboard box, but there wasn't a whole lot left. I eventually settled on a bag of Doritos. I wouldn't be very filling, but it would have to do.

I walked over to the infirmary. "What do you want?" she asked as soon as I was within her line of vision.

"Holly you haven't been eating," I said matter-of-factly.

She rubbed her eyes. "And? That's not really great detective work when the whole base is low on food."

"That doesn't mean you have to literally starve yourself." I held out the bag of Doritos. "Here, take this."

Holly tried rolling her eyes, but I think that just made her more dizzy. "Landon, don't be stupid. I don't need that. People can go for weeks without eating anything."

"That doesn't mean you should."

"I'll be fine," she asserted.

Growing more frustrated with her, I immediately turned to my last resort argument. "Holly," I began. "If you don't eat something, you are most likely going to faint, and when you do, Sgt. Blake will never let you live that down."

She glared at me for several seconds then snatched the bag of chips out of my hand. "Fine," she muttered.

It was sort of cute watching her pretend she didn't absolutely love the taste of Doritos. Come to think of it, she probably hadn't eaten anything besides MREs in over a year.

"Hey Landon," she said before I made it through the doorway. She paused for a moment. "Thanks," she replied without taking her eyes off the ground.

I smirked at her before exiting. "Anything to help."

(Daniel's PoV)

After we came in from fighting, we were relieved to hear that this week's MRE shipment was, in fact, delivered. As Holly handed out individual packets to us, Michael asked, "Did you figure out why they never came in last week?"