*Please keep all hands and feet to yourselves during the drop if you’d like to keep them*

*Good luck*

*may the odds be ever in your favor*

“Wendy, do you copy. Wendy?” A staticy voice echoed throughout the building.

“,” she whispered and quickly turned the walkie talkie’s volume dial, “what is it, Irene?”

“You doing okay?” she buzzed through as I slowly slid through the packages of toilet paper, the plastic sticking to my exposed skin.

“Fine, did you find everything we need?” I whispered through the mic.

“Yeah, I’m trying to get back to the checkpoint now,”

“What’s the level?” I asked while checking my watch; thirty minutes left until it’s over.

“Duffel’s 100% full. I’ve got all the goodies. Tiffany’s gunna be happy,” she giggled. “I’m grabbing some carry ons on the way back.”

That ended our conversation. I quickly ducked my head after seeing someone else run by the feminine needs aisle. She better have gotten those Thin Mints I wanted. I took out my checklist with the things we needed and everything was a go except for one more.

I peeked my eyes above the toilet paper and confirmed my isolation. Usually me and Irene both hit the food together but this time we required other supplies and our food levels were decent. That led to our split. I wiped my sweating palms onto my tight black cargo pants before pushing up my black jacket sleeves all the way up. I gave the surroundings another look. All good. I threw my hood back on and dashed towards the next aisle.

After a year you would’ve assumed our government would have improved our system and living conditions but that hope was long gone. They deserted the rest of us that were struggling to live through a cycle we couldn’t escape. We could rebel but none of us had a competent system that allowed and provided us the supplies we needed outside of The Arena.

Every month certain sanctions are thrown into the Arena and only the chosen ones were allowed to collect for each household. We have two hours to collect all of our living supplies, food and whatever else we needed. The Arena was basically a really big Costco. There was only one rule; don’t try to escape. Not that anyone wanted to anyways.

Things would’ve have been easy if all we did was collect but there are Hunters among us. There’s only so much food and supplies in the Arena, definitely not enough for two hundred Collectors to share peacefully. So now we have two hours to gather as much as we could, whatever we could while traveling within the shadows.

Time was ticking and I had only twenty minutes left. I reached two more aisles down and climbed the massive storage shelves and surveyed the area from my position on top. Much of the supplies were collected already and all that was left were the hollow boxes that once contained the essentials. There wasn’t much to hide behind but luckily there were no lights. Only darkness. Absolute darkness.

I saw my target aim but it was nine aisles away. I’ll be cutting it close to calling time since the checkpoint was behind me, at the other end of the building. I better hustle.

I jumped into the towel bin across from me and shuffled through the rugs. I peered my head out and looked both ways. The coast was clear. I did the same for the next seven aisles through the kitchen section, grills, bathroom essentials, gardening tools, etc. it was hard with a full and not to mention, heavy duffel bag on my back.

It was the last stretch, one more aisle to go when I landed on the ground into a batch of crewnecks. . Wrong footing. I threw my head up just in case any of the Hunters heard me. No one. I heaved a thankful sigh and looked down. Tiffany and Irene would like these but I looked into my duffel and only had room for one.

“Irene, over,” I held onto the talk button.

“What’s up,” she answered a few seconds later.

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