HEARING DAMAGE
TEEN NOLA - CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT !

SHUDDERING, PANICKED BREATHS HUFFED past Nola's lips, her gaze unwavering as she stared ahead at the three strangers that had just invaded the village. This couldn't be happening. Who were these people? Why were they here and how quickly could she get them away before they ruined everything they had done here? Even the sight of them was enough to send an uncomfortable chill cruising up her spine.

            From somewhere behind her she heard Van's voice, dripping with relief. "We're going home." The redheaded girl breathed out. Nola's eye twitched at the words.

The woman of the trio of invaded looked nervous. "Sorry." She squeaked out, her body practically shaking. She looked like she didn't know how to move her feet all of a sudden, as though they were permanently glued to the ground. "We didn't mean to interrupt. We were just leaving."

They all saw the freaked out expressions these people wore, the fear that haunted their eyes, the tremble of their lips, all at the sight of Benjamin Scott's severed head perched upon the nearby table as an offering to the Wilderness.

Misty tried to reason with the strangers. "You know, h-he died of natural causes." She stuttered out an excuse as she tossed a picked clean bone over her shoulder.

"Wait, this is, uh..." the obviously scared man with glasses was struggling to speak, his mind racing a Mike a minute to come up with some explanation for everything in front of him that didn't end up with him dead by these savages' hands. "You all are, um..."

He swallowed back his fear as best he could as reality of what he had just stumbled upon seeped into his blood. His pupils shook as he spoke once more. "Oh my god."

Completely out of nowhere, like an agile cat bounding with natural ease, Lottie appeared behind the man and crash! The rusted metal of the axe head collided with a sopping wet thud against the back of the bespectacled man's head. The recently sharpened cutting edge split the back of his head to in two with a resounding crunch

She should have been more unnerved by the ease in which Lottie attacked the man but Nola honestly couldn't find herself to care and as the group around her screamed in horror at what Lottie has done, Nola could do nothing but slowly allow the corners of her lips to creep upward. An almost sinister smile appeared as she mentally noted, that's one way to deal with them.

"Holy shit." Shauna exclaimed in sick amusement.

With her hands shaking violently, moving as she struggled to decide to cover her mouth in utter panic, Natalie's voice trembled in pitch as she sobbed, "Lottie, what did you do?"

"They don't belong." The Matthews girl explained. She stared over at them all, an eerie smile on her face. "It doesn't want them here."

The remaining man of the trio turned duo, turned to the terrified woman next to him. "Run." The pair then spun on their heel and legged it back the way they came. The woman stumbled on her feet as she struggled to pick up speed.

"We have to catch them!" Stevie cried out.

Her words kicked the rest into gear and suddenly they were stripping themselves free of the weighty robes, ripping the garbs from their bodies and throwing them to the dirt.

            As many of them began racing after the escaping strangers, Natalie, who was still trying to get the string undone from around her neck, stopped suddenly to call out, "Don't hurt them. Just bring them back." She was understandably worried that some of them would kill the strangers upon catching them.

           Already Nola could feel her heart pumping with exhilaration, her blood thumping in her ears, so loudly as she ran that she almost completely missed the cry of, "Nola, please!" As she neared the tree line.

            Fortunately the voice managed to break through the roar of blood and Nola's head whipped around to see Melissa crashing to the ground with an arrow fully embedded in her shoulder, the metal tip burrowed into the flesh. Unfortunately, her shift of attention onto the injured girl caused her to slow down significantly and have her back facing the crossbow wielding man.

            Before she could even drum up an excuse to Melissa about needing the chase down the strangers, there was a slight prick of pain within her upper thigh. Her eyes unconsciously darted down to see an arrow lodged within her thigh. She swallowed hard when it didn't hurt but as she tried to reach out and grab it, suddenly a surge of agonising pain swarmed her leg before both legs gave out and she went collapsing face first to the dirt.

            "Fuck!" Her fingers dug into the dirt, grabbing fist-fulls as she cried out. She was quickly helped to her back, every slight movement aching more and more. Shauna, who had helped her, reached out to grab at the arrow, only for her hand to halt in place when Nola bellowed, "No, don't!"

            Shauna nodded before rising back of her feet. She looked around to find someone capable of helping Nola when her eyes landed upon Mari, crouched in the ground next to the dead guy, trying and failing to revive him. "Mari, he's dead. Get back there." She snapped with narrowed eyes. The scared Mari looked over to see Nola on the ground, blood pouring from her wound in rapid succession. "If she dies, you die."

            "Shauna!" Nola called out, her voice croaking as her energy quickly depleting. While the Shipman girl glanced back, she mustered some strength and informed the girl, "Don't let them get away!"

            Mari came rushing over to Nola's side, her focus pulled away from a man she couldn't help and placed upon a friend she hoped to help. "Are you okay?" She worriedly asked as she began to bunch up some fabric from a robe she had grabbed on her way over.

            "Do I look okay?" Nola sneered back through gritted teeth. Her annoyance at the question slipped away as Mari tried to place the fabric around the wound as best as she could without knocking into the arrow. A pained sob broke free from Nola's paling lips as she begged, "Please, Mari, just rip it out."

            Mari's eyes widened at the plea. A look of terror washed over her face as the huge weight of responsibility began to build upon her shoulders. "There's a fucking artery near this part of your leg. What if I hit it a-and you bleed out?" She was freaking the fuck out.

            "It doesn't matter." Nola whispered back. She weakly shook her head as she tried to smile up at the terrified Mari. She wanted to calm the girl, after all if she was supposed to live then she would. The Wilderness would save her if she needed saving. "I'll be...f-fine."

She might have been feeling calm about the fucking arrow sticking out of her leg but Mari felt like throwing up as despite the glow of the torches nearby flickering over Nola's face and casting a warm glow, they did nothing to disguise the quick desaturation of her skin. She was turning grey fast, losing colouring in her cheeks with quick work.

Though a lump formed in her throat as she watched her friend begin to fade, Mari swallowed it back as determination consumed her. "McClane, get the fuck over here!" She snapped over her shoulder.

Her voice roused the attention of Stevie who had been helping Britt and Robin with the injured, crying Melissa off to the side. Immediately Stevie hopped to her feet and raced over to Mari's side, her eyes widening with dread.

Mari paid her reaction no mind and instead started shouting commands at the girl. "We have to break the arrow first." She uttered as she quickly slid Stevie's hands to grip tightly to Nola's leg. They couldn't have her struggling against the arrow and risk her bleeding out more.

Once Stevie had a firm grip of the leg, Mari bit the bullet and grabbed hold of the arrow, her fingers wrapped tightly around the base sticking out of Nola's leg and the metal tip with her other hand. Then came the snap and the scream of agony that followed as Mari proceeded to push the now broken arrow through the flesh of Nola's thigh and out the other side.

Bright, crimson blood came gushing from the wound, water-falling to the dirt below into an ever growing pool.

"That's a lot of blood!" Stevie exclaimed at the sight.

Again, Mari ignored her. She kept her focus on the fabric she held in her hands. Ripped shreds of a robe that she shoved into Stevie's slightly bloodied hands, hands that were practically the image of cleanliness next to Mari's which were soaked in Nola's blood.

"Okay, wrap it! Fucking wrap it!" Mari barked, her hands rushing to wrap the fabric around the wound before more blood could bleed out of the Rilke girl, who had since passed out after screaming out in pain.

            They tugged at the fabric with all their strength, gritting their teeth with each sharp pull until it was finally fastened around the bleeding wound. Haggard sighs escaped them as they watched the makeshift bandage, waiting and hoping to not see blood seeping through. They breathed a sigh of relief when no blood could be seen. With no blood to replenish what Nola had lost, all they could do now was wait for Nola to wake back up.

Once the duo had vacated Nola's side and rushed back over to help the still awake and still impaled Melissa, Lottie slowly rose up from where she had been crouched down next to the man whose head she had split open with an axe. Her fingers were stained with his blood, the skin of her face dripping with droplets of the crimson liquid.

Without a second thought, she shuffled over to the unconscious Nola, kneeled down in the dirt beside her and began trailing the tips of her fingers along expanse of Nola's face, painting the greying skin with the stark contrasting red of the man's blood.

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HOURS HAD PASSED SINCE the hunt for the escaping strangers had begun and the morning sun was peeking over the horizon. The torches had long since burnt out and Nola had yet to wake back up. Her face was almost entirely covered with blood and not her own but the strangers, curtesy of Lottie who had a matching painting of dried blood over her face.

            Stevie had made her way back over to the Rilke girl's side, knowing she would be no use in helping with Melissa, who's screamed and shouted every time the arrow was touched. It hurt like a bitch each and every time it was jolted but she knew it needed to be dealt with. It wasn't as simple as Nola's injury, after all. Hers just needed to be snapped and pulled through. Melissa's arrow however, the tip was lodged deep inside her shoulder and would have to be pushed through to the other side, ripping through her skin.

            The girls had just barely managed to get Melissa's shoulder in a better condition before most of the group, sans Travis, Akilah and Misty who must have gone after the man, came walking back into the village, the frightened woman in tow. Some of them stopped short at the sight of a bloody faced Lottie, eyes widened at the sight of a grey-skinned, lifeless looking Nola and the scrunched up face of Melissa who was attempting to breathe through her pain.

The other girls looked rightfully fearful of Shauna's reaction to Nola's current condition. If she beat Lottie to a pulp to grieve her baby back when aggression wasn't her first instinct, then what the fuck would she do to them if Nola succumbed to her wounds? She had already threatened Mari's life, who's to say she wouldn't take it?

Understandably, this place, these girls, looked like a complete foreign concept to the outsider. What should have thrown them off and weirded them out seemed like the norm for them.

With her hands held tightly at her base of her back, no room for movement as the more aggressive one of the group pinned them harshly, the woman swallowed. "Hi." She began softly. She would need to think through every single move she made now if she wanted to get back home alive. "I'm Hannah."

A grunt then escaped her when she was tossed aggressively towards another one of the girls, the girl Shauna, commanding, "Hold her." as she shoved Hannah away. As Hannah struggled to keep her composure in such a trying time, she let out a few sharp breaths as she shook her head to remove the hair from her face, her eyes following along with the girl as she stomped away and towards the more injured one on the ground.

Hannah watched with desperate eyes as Shauna knelt down next to the badly injured, unconscious girl laid out on the dirt. The harsh expression and the hardened features seemed to melt away on Shauna's face as worry overtook them. The girl reached out a single, now shaky hand and began to gently stroke the unconscious girls hair. Her lips were moving but the words were quiet, most likely a whisper.

            Everyone in this group of feral teens seemed extremely concerned for the girl, but there was more to it. It was as if they all relied on her, as if their very survival depended on her. It was as if they had convinced themselves that they'd be lost without her.

Before Hannah knew it, she was thrown into a chair that was most definitely an old, weather worn airplane seat, and was surrounded by the group of dirtied teenagers. Right away, questions such as,

            "What day is it?"

            "Can you get us out?"

            "Where are we?"

            She hadn't been able to answer a single question as more and more words came spewing from their mouths, none of them allowing her even a second for her brain to function properly. Then came a question she certainly hadn't been expecting.

            "Did Mulder and Scully get together?"

            Someone spoke up, taking charge. "Everyone shut up. Let her answer." The girl had been there when she was captured but it was only now that Hannah took notice of her hair. The darkest of hair came spilling from her roots before a brassy shade of blonde bluntly cut it off. "Why are you here?"

Hannah swallowed. Her tongue felt massive within her mouth as she struggled to form words. "We're a..." she began, trailing off as her gaze moved over to the deceased, fly swarming body of her boyfriend, Edwin. The sight turned her stomach. "We're a research team studying a species of frogs out here. Maybe you've heard their—"

She was cut off quickly by a roll of the eyes from Shauna. "What are people saying about back home?"

Hannah frowned. "Who are you?" She asked them all, opening the question to the group. She truthfully couldn't place who the hell they were.

That question seemed to take them all aback. They clearly thought anyone and everyone would know about them, whoever they were. Only one of them managed to answer. The one clad in a worn out leather jacket took charge and replied, "We...are a soccer team from Wiskayok, New Jersey. Our plane crashed and..."

Brief flashes of the news appeared in her mind. She knew now. They were that team, the team that had vanished and been presumed dead. A sharp gasp left her lips. "Oh my god. I remember that. It was all over the news."

      "Is anyone still searching for us?" One of them then asked.

"I-I don't know." Hannah clumsily responded, stuttering out her words. She began racking her brain for any information she could give them to keep them at bay. She didn't want to end up their next meal. "They searched for months, but—"

      Natalie's bottom lip wobbled as she stared at the woman in disbelief. "What? What are you talking about?"

Hannah could only look apologetic. "I'm sorry."

            Everyone looked absolutely devastated. Whatever hope they had been grasping on to had just been destroyed with just a few words from Hannah.

The redheaded girl's face became awash with sadness. "Fuck. We've been out here a long time."

Shauna was furious now. She couldn't hide the anger, the frustration, the betrayal she felt. "So you're saying that people just gave up? Our friends, our families?!"

Hannah's blood ran cold with fear. Her head shook slightly as she desperately tried to defend herself. "I really don't know."

"You can get us home, right? If you got here then you can get us back?" Natalie questioned the Finch woman. Surely she could help them get back. She needed to help them get back otherwise they were stuck out there for another winter.

             Hannah's eyes wandered about her surroundings but everything looked the exact same. Nothing about what she saw was helpful in figuring out where she was or even how far she was from real civilisation. Something she earnestly explained. " I don't even know where I am right now."

            Without hesitation, Shauna sarcastically quipped, "You don't seem to know a lot of things."

            The way in which the girl before her was constantly taking charge or speaking over the others led Hannah to believe that she was perhaps the one in power in this fucked up dynamic they had going on. This led her to wonder if perhaps being overly nice would guarantee her survival.

            So she asked, "Are you, like, the captain of the team?" The pitch of her voice was all over the place, and her face certainly did little to help the situation since she looked so scared.

            A beat of silence passed before Shauna snarled her response. "If I say yes, will you start fucking remembering?"

            Once again, the leather jacket wearing girl spoke up. "She's not the captain."

            "Neither are you." Barked back Shauna, her gaze shifting into a glare as her head whipped around to glare at the girl.

             With just as much bite to her words, the dark haired girl snapped, "Yeah, cause she's fucking dead!"

            Did they eat her? Hannah wondered. Would they eat her? Would she end up as their food? She knew what she saw. They had been eating someone and enjoying themselves.

             "Guys!" Taissa uttered, cutting either off before they could carry on screaming at one another. With a sigh, she said, "Stop."

             With all of her strength, Shauna held back the urge to yell further at Natalie and ripped away her glare with a deep breath. She then stared back down at the stranger, her nose curled up in genuine anger. "Our leader is currently clinging on to dear fucking life thanks to you and your friend with the bow and arrow."

            Stevie chose now to speak up. "I'm pretty sure it was a crossbow."

             Shauna rolled her eyes with a huff. "Whatever."

            After attempting to complimenting her way to safety and failing after clearly touching a nerve with two members of the group, the Finch woman switched tactics and shakily began to speak to everyone. "So, you all built this? Yourselves?"

Shauna was exasperated now. "Yeah, who else do you think would have done it? You obviously all left us out here to die." She was pissed. They had been abandoned, left to rot while everyone else got to live their lives back home.

"It's impressive."

Once again, she was asked, "Can you get us out of here?"

Hannah's head shook. She knew she would be useless in finding the way back, which is why she brought up the one person she knew could. "Not by myself. The other guide we were with, he was—"

Suddenly, a voice rang out throughout the village. "Guys! I found them."

Everyone turned to see Misty, with wild, unruly hair that looked like she had been dragged through a bush and her glasses now cracked. She was sprinting as fast as she could, her chest rising and falling in rapid succession as she struggled to catch her breath. "What?"

Misty's mouth was dry as she huffed and puffed. "I know where they are. Akilah and Travis and um, the other one."

Without hesitation, Hannah began to provide as much information about the man as she could. "His name is Kodi. He was our guide." She told them all.

If they found him and let him live, then perhaps they could all get out of there. The woman noticed that they were all reeking of desperation, all of them seemed eager to get back home. They would do anything to get home and so would she.

"Come on, let's go." Misty rushed to say, the girl ready to get back out there and find the trio before anything happened.

Before taking off behind the others, Shauna turned to Taissa and gestures towards the tied up woman. "Watch her."

"Come on. Let's go!"

"Watch her, too." Shauna muttered with a jut of her chin in Lottie's direction, the girl staring down at Nola who lay completely still. Taissa nodded, her arms folded across her chest. Then Shauna pointed down at Nola "And get that blood off her face. We don't need her waking up covered in blood."

"Shauna..." Taissa breathed out.

The Shipman girl wasn't in the mood to hear whatever she had to say. She just shook her head and cut her off before she could begin spewing lies. Nola would be fine. She had to be. "Just do it."

Then before Taissa could even respond, Shauna took off into a run towards the direction the rest of the group went, disappearing into the trees. Taissa let out a defeated sigh while walking over to bowl of water they constantly had to stave off thirst. Just as she was about to grab a small cup of water and a sliver of fabric, she was stopped.

"Don't." Lottie called out, her eyes still locked firmly upon Nola yet she seemed to know Taissa's every move. "Leave it. It'll help her."

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BY THE TIME NOLA was finally rousing from her blood loss induced nap, bleary eyed and a gut punching pain in her upper thigh, the group had managed to successfully wrangle the strangers who had tried and failed to flee from them. Shallow breaths were taken as she struggled on weak arms to push herself up into a sitting position as best as she could manage without jostling her injury about. She felt insanely cold, colder than those first few days of winter last year, no doubt from the massive blood loss.

            She had to hand it to Mari. She had really stepped up under the pressure and rose to the occasion. She'd have to thank her when she saw her.

            No one had seemed to notice her awakening and so she took this opportunity to silently observe the group as well as the strangers. The man and woman sat in the airplane seats, their hands and feet cinched together with rope. She looked terrified while he appeared to be putting up a brave face as if showing fear would open himself up to being the next brought to his knees by the group of teenagers.

Her friends seemed to be interrogating the pair, questioning on whether they could help them get free from the forest, if his response of, "Six days if you can keep us." was anything to go by.

Natalie grinned. "Okay. Everyone pack what you can for six days." She declared to the group, turning her back on the strangers to face her friends. "We'll need designated water carriers, we'll need whatever food we can gather—"

Immediately, Shauna stepped forward, her voice dripping with venom as she got in Natalie's face. "Maybe you didn't hear it the first time but you're not in charge anymore." She snarled in defence of Nola's position as the groups new leader.

"It's fucking rescue." The Scatorccio girl sniped back.

Just as Shauna's lips parted to retort, Misty slid up alongside the furious pair, her back to the strangers as she quietly uttered, "What do we do with them?"

"We need them for—"

            The bespectacled blonde was swift in cutting Natalie off. "Yeah, I know but I'm talking about afterwards. I mean...what if they tell people what—" she attempted to lower her voice more despite everyone's ability to hear her. "What they saw."

"Hey." The man uttered loudly to catch their attention. Everyone glanced over at him as he shrugged and feigned ignorance. "I didn't see shit."

Hannah nodded in agreement instantaneously. "We'll say whatever you want us to say."

Understandably everyone was sceptical of their words. People would say anything to save their own skin especially when what you faced was a group of teenagers you knew had engaged to cannibalism.

"Yeah, well we can't really guarantee that, can we?" The Quigley girl pointed out, giving a voice to the group's scepticism.

Hannah quickly doubled down on her previous statement. "I swear to God." She solemnly promised the teens.

Shauna callously responded, "That means nothing out here."

With a clap of her hands, calling the group to attention after the straying from the main point, Natalie voiced her determination once more. "Okay, we have time to decide about this. To talk about it when we're back, what to do with them but..."her eyes travelled to the strangers.. "Right now, you should bury your friend."

"Uh, hello. That involves untying their hands." Mari complained with a frown. She gestured down at the pair who had been tied up for a reason, so they couldn't flee.

"And that's why you'll be supervising them." Natalie calmly commanded of the Ibarra girl. She then grinned widely, a toothy grin, at the others. "You guys...we can finally go home."

           Small, celebratory whoops began to echo across the village as Natalie excitedly called out once more, "We can finally go home! Let's pack."

           Almost everyone immediately kicked themselves into high gear and spun on their heels, ready to bound over to their huts with a pep in their step as the prospect of returning home dangled so deliciously before them.

"No!" Lottie suddenly cried out as she rushed forward, her body feeling heavy with upset as her hands lay lifeless my down by her sides. "We can't go back."

Natalie's smile crumbled away. "Jesus Christ. Lottie, why the fuck not?"

           "Because we don't belong there anymore."

           By now, Nola had slowly begun to climb to her feet. Her legs wobbled dangerously under her weight as she attempted to shift it between feet to alleviate some of the pain and discomfort that bloomed deep within her upper thigh. She hissed through gritted teeth.

           Natalie was in no mood to entertain Lottie's delusions. They finally had a chance to get the fuck out of the hell they had been living and Lottie was declining that opportunity? All because of what, they don't belong there anymore? Fuck that.

            The Scatorccio girl stepped forward quickly, gesturing toward the girl with someone's else's blood caked and crusted on her face. "Oh, really, Lottie? Why the fuck should we listen to you?" She questioned the girl, the ludicrous nature of the situation certainly not lost on her.

            "Leave her alone, Natalie." Nola croaked out, her voice crackling out into a spattering cough, a consequence of having not spoken for quite some time, as she stepped in and defended the Matthews girl.

           Expressions of pure shock and awe wandered throughout the village at the sight of a walking, talking Nola Rilke. Shauna immediately sprinted over to her girlfriend and reached out to carry the burden of her weight for her. "Oh my God, you're awake." She exclaimed in relief.

           Natalie's lips pulled tightly into a half smile, half frown at the reappearance of Nola. She hadn't forgotten what she had been forced to do by Nola's hand but now wasn't the time to linger on that topic. She wasn't about to let anything or anyone derail their chance for salvation. "Come on. We got a lot of shit to do. Let's fucking go."

            As the others began to shuffle back to their huts, Nola reached up and squeezed one of Shauna's hands that held her up and kept her from falling. The two girls shared a weak smile, all the while Nola thought, we can't go back.

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author's thoughts.
chapter fifty eight, not proofread
so yeah nola got injured lol. I've had this planned for a while to tie in the Shauna shooting at Melissa later on cause she needs a reason since they aren't together in this fic. also nola has zero intentions of leaving. Anyway I hope you enjoyed :)