The Challenge. (Started; accepting w/permission)

Mario

¨Wait, you can stay here, you know.¨ Rosette gave me a weird look before sitting down on the plastic sheet I had to try and keep the rain off the ground. She sat as far from me as she could, as if not really wanting to be there. I observed her out of the corner of my eye, she was pretty, and seemed shy.}
¨So, uh, having fun¨ Even to me that sounded like the world´s stupidest question. ¨Nevermind...¨

zohan

I smiled as rain bucketed down. It wasn't besause i liked rain very much, it was because i was prepared for it. (at this point of time i was trying to act like nothing happened). I was about to seclude my self again when i remembered the attack from earlier. I didnt want them to know that i cut out one side of the tent and folded the tent neatly so that katherin wouldn't notice, but hey! there were no rules that i heard of so far that forbid it. So i took out that sheet and got to huge sticks. I tied the sheet around the tree and the other end would just be help up by the sticks. so it was like i had a roof over my head. I wasnt planning on sleeping, I would take pictures or the beautiful forest in the rain, then i would do some gaurding.

Rosette|Woods

"Wait, you can stay here you know," says Mario. I look at him. Why would he let me be here? I sit as far away from Mario as I can, because I don't want to use up his space, he was here first. I look down at the ground, and he scares me when he says, "So, are you having fun?" Then he paused, and said, "Uh, nevermind."
"Fun? Are you having fun? I mean it's not THAT bad, but... but..." I say.
"But what?" He says. And a tear slides down my cheek. I turn away, but he already saw that tear. I wipe my eyes, and act like he didn't say anything.
"But what, Rosette?" he says, looking at me strangely.
"Uh, nothing. I-I, uh, nothing..." I stammer.
"I know you're not telling me the truth," he says, turning away from me. Looking at him, I force myself to speak, though I know what the consequences might be.
"Do you know anything about medical care?" I say.
"Uh. It depends... Why?" he quietly replies. Instead of answering. I start rolling up the left leg of my pants until it reaches my knee. I groan with pain, but bite my lip. A tear rolls down my cheek. Mario moves towards me, and looks at my leg. Right below my left knee on the side, there's a pretty deep cut. It's bleeding, and my pants are red with blood.
"I- I fell... I slipped. I slipped on a muddy rock, and fell. I didn't see the big sharp rock below me... I got cut..."
"Oh, Rosette! That looks awful! It's swollen." He says. I, myself, can easily see the swollen area.
"Please. Don't tell... They might get me eliminated! I can't get eliminated! Please!" I cry out.
When I look at my wound, I see it is all dirty, and probably infected. I take out my full water botttlebag.
"I won't tell." he says.
"I can't force myself to touch it. It really hurts. Mario, please, please help me!" I say. I try pouring a little of the water, but then stop. Tears roll down my cheeks uncontrollably. "Please. Please, Mario." I say, sobbing.

Mario

I stare at Rosette's leg and try to look unconcerned. The truth is, the cut looks awful.
"You should have rested, even if it meant losing the next contest. But, I can probably help." I reach into my pack and take out some gum. "Chew this, it will help the pain seem more bearable."
She looks skeptic, but takes the gum anyway. "I think I brought a first aid kit."

Brigid|Woods

Just a few minutes after falling asleep, I woke up to the sound of crying. That was odd. Nothing had even happened today. Why would anyone be crying?

I leaned to the side a little, trying to find the source of the sound. There--a fallen log right under my elm tree. I had seen it when I was setting up my hammock. It was hollowed out, the empty space just big enough for two people.

I swung my legs out of my hammock and hung upside down from one of the tree branches. There were two people hiding in the log. I couldn't see the one person, but the second was only half-hidden. I squinted, trying to get a better view. It was Rose--she was the one who was crying. And not just trickles of tears--big, heaving sobs. She covered her mouth with one hand...one bloodstained hand.

I pulled myself back up into my hammock, a little alarmed. How had Rose hurt herself? She had seemed fine when we were walking together. As I lay down again, Rose shuffled farther under the log, glancing around fearfully. She must not have wanted anyone to notice. I hoped her crying hadn't woken anyone else up. It probably hadn't--I was a very light sleeper.

I turned away from the log and closed my eyes again. Rose must have wanted to keep her injury a secret--she was smart; otherwise she would have told Katherine. I could respect that. If she wanted it secret, I would keep it secret.

Rosette|Woods
Sobbing, I put my hand over my mouth. Mario takes out a first aid kit. Grabbing a cotton swab, Mario pours some of my water on it.
"This might hurt... Actually, it WILL hurt. Try to stay still." Mario says. I nod my head. He starts dabbing my cut. I sharply breath in. Ouch! I turn away, and cover my eyes, trying to hide the tears from Mario. I breath in and out, trying to stifle the big sobs that are forcing their way out. "Okay. Rosette, I'm done."
"Th-thanks... I appreciate it." I say, wiping my eyes again. "Do you have anything I can wrap around it? I think I'll at least be able to limp along tomorrow."
"Uh, let me check..." I look around. It's dark now.
"I've got to rest... I think I'll be fine. I need to rest though, or I won't be ready for tomorrow's challenges." I say. Mario nods and I turn over to sleep, not noticing that Mario is still looking in his pack. "You can sleep, Mario. I'm okay," I say. Then, I fall into an unconscious sleep. Everything is black.

Mario

I clean out Rosette's wound, adding alcohol to the water when she wasn't looking. She doesn't even feel the change, so I realize how much her leg must be hurting. A part of me wonders if she'll end up surviving the challenges afterall. She then falls asleep, unconcious of me wrapping a piece of cloth around her leg.
As she sleeps I sit and watch her, and am surprised to see that she reminds me a lot of my sister. The thought makes my chest tighten, and I try to ignore the thoughts that spin through my head.

"I guess I'm not the social freak anymore," I whisper. Suddenly lightning strikes and I hear a tree collapse. My heart stops for a few seconds and I try to make sure that Rosette didn't wake up before moving from my shelter to make sure no one was hurt by the fallen tree.

Andy|Campsite

I hear a whistle blow. I jump off the ground in haste. I quickly put away the few things I had taken out last night. A shudder runs through me. I’m damp to the bone and my teeth are chattering. The wind is sharp and icy cold. I yawn. I look around me to see the rest also making preparations to head out. Katherine is also taking in the scene. How she gets up so early beats me. The sun is just starting to appear on the horizon and begins casting strange shadows all over the place. I look around to see if I can find anything to eat. I head into the woods. Just then I hear a muffled cry. I look around to see what it was. Then I notice a trail of blood on the ground. I follow it a couple feet until I see a hand. A hand! I brush aside the leaves and find Teal laying on the ground with a large bloody cut on her arm and a big gash on her leg. She’s laying in a pool of blood.
“Help me!” she’s barely able to gasp. “Please help me.” She begins coughing and blood runs out of her mouth. Just then I see claw marks on the tree beside her and scratches on her face too.
“Teal! Stay with me Teal! Don’t close your eyes!” I don’t want to hurt her but if I run for help she might be unconscious when I return. I slowly push my arms under her bloodied form and pick her up slowly. She groans with every movement and tears run down her cheeks.
“It’s ok Teal! You’re going to be all right!” She coughs and groans again. I make my way slowly back to camp. Oh please let them still be there! What will I do if they’ve left?
When I arrive I’m relieved to see them still there. They had found Teal’s backpack torn open and had found me gone and were waiting for me to come back.
“What happened!” cries Riled running to me. The rest are gathering around too. Katherine pushes through the crowd.
“Let me take a look. Andy set her down here.” She points to a grassy spot on the ground. “Warren, use my cell phone to call a guy named Jake to pick us up in the plane. Noah, bring me a bucket of clean water. Rose, you have a bandage right? Does anyone have a first aid kit?” Someone produces one and Katherine, along with my help, begins to clean the wounds.
“I wonder what happened!” says Brigid kneeling down beside me.
“Wolves,” says Katherine. “We thought we had exterminated the last of them. From now on you all have to sleep up in trees. We don’t want this happening again.” She looks awfully calm then I remember last year something similar had happened and it had come out in the newspapers. I hear a helicopter overhead and the next moment it has landed in the clearing nearby. Two men rush out with a stretcher and carefully load Teal onto it. She is most likely unconscious now. The last thing I see before the helicopter’s hatch closes, is a needle prick her arm and a liquid squeezed into her veins. I turn away. I guess that’s one person out. Katherine makes an announcement.
“Ok everyone, as you can probably guess, she’s eliminated. Not because of failing a test but because of lack of protecting herself during the night. All of you, learn from her tragedy and try to keep safe ok? Let’s go. We have to cover a long distance today. Our next challenge is what is called a Tyrolean Traverse.” She hands out some booklets to us. “Read up on it. It’s complicated. Oh and I’m not assigning partners this time. You guys have to figure that out yourselves. You guys need at least two people to pull off the challenge and I don’t want any groups larger than three. Good luck.” We follow her into the woods. I shudder. That could have been me flying off in the helicopter. Now I have to be more careful than ever before, if I want to win.

Spoiler

I'm not kidding guys. Google and read up about tyrolean traverse.

Rosette|Woods
I wake up to feel that my leg is throbbing. Ow! I look at my leg, and it's bandaged with my long piece of material. I had left the material out last night for Mario. I look around, and find that Mario's gone!
"Mario?" I croak. My throat is so dry. I take a small sip of my water, then push all of my stuff into my pack. I crawl out of my hiding place, then remember something. I quickly rush back into the tree. I take my water out again, and wash my face. I then wash my bloody hands. Stepping into the open, I yawn. I see a commotion going on by a bush.
"Noah, bring me a bucket of clean water. Rose, you have a bandage right? Does anyone have a first aid kit?"
"I-I..." I stammer. I had used my bandage on myself! No matter. They take Teal, who appearently was attacked by a wolf! I might end up like that! I hope this wound will be okay... I walk over to where Mario is standing.
"Hey, Rose. I see you're up! How do you feel?" says Mario.
"Uh, I'm okay. What happened to Teal? Was she eliminated?!" I say, a bit shakily.
"Yeah. She got attacked by a wolf. Don't sleep on the ground. Okay? You could be hurt too!" He says, with concern in his eyes. He tries to not look too concerned, and he looks embarrassed.
"It's okay. I-I- If you don't want to stay w-with me... That's okay... But, I wanted to ask you something." I say, and he looks more embarrassed.
"What is it, Rose?" He says, quietly.
"Uh, I heard Katherine say something about uh, tra- tyrolean traverse or something. Uh, I know something about it... It's almost like a-a zip line, sort of." I say, kind of nervously.
"What, Rose, what? Just ask!" He says.
"Okay," I breathe in. "Will you please team up with me.... If you want, just for the Tyrolean Traverse... Or, maybe longer... Please don't say no!" I say in a single breath. I close my eyes, waiting for the dreaded answer, no. "If you don't want to... I understand. I do. I know I'm not a very good person to be around... I know, just say it already... I-" He cuts me off.
"Rosette... Rose. Calm down!" He says.
"But what's your answer?" I say looking away sadly.

Spoiler

Cailey, it's your choice to choose if he'll join with her.

Mario

Spoiler

Are you kidding? Mario's a flirt and a people person. He'd never say no

"Team up?" I repeated, pretending to consider. After all, I didn't want to seem too eager. However, the truth was, there was no way I would risk being left out. Besides, Teal had been from my original team, and because of my fighting with her she'd been attacked. Now I somehow felt responsible for Rosette, like if I left her now, anything that happened would be my fault. Besides, I was the only one that knew about her leg. I wasn't sure what the challenge was, but she seemed to, and I would figure it out soon enough. It couldn't be anything where I wouldn't be able to make up for her leg. I was strong, I could do it. Besides, I liked her company.
"I guess so, I bet we can do this, whatever it is."

zohan

Impossible! How can that be! I stood up all night and i was on the ground gaurding the camp. Why would a wolf come out just to attack teal and leave the rest of us? For one they could at least have gone for me, i was an easy prey and besides i heard no growls and why would they leave teal with wounds instead of tearing her from limb to limb? Somehow this didn't all add up. I couldn't help but think back to the time i was attacked. This wasn't the work of a wolf, unless it was a wolf the wounded people for the fun of it which was highly unlikely.
If anyone would have the same suspicion as me it would be warren or andy. I would just go and ask them for there thoughts. It still bugs me that i didn't even see anyone or hear them last night. I was busy clicking away taking pictures.

Brigid|Campsite

A wolf, huh? If it was a wolf, why hadn't I heard it?

I shook my head, watching as the helicopter flew away with Teal. It wasn't that I doubted Katherine--it was just my own instincts that told me something was wrong. There were only two kinds of animals that I knew could move silently--feral cats, and flying panthers. I hadn't seen any flying panthers during the hike, but that didn't mean they weren't there. They were nocturnal, anyway.

But that was another curveball--I had been hanging up in a tree. Without any defense, I would have been an easy grab. Maybe it was the rain suit. It did still smell like plastic, after all. Or maybe the things had learned to avoid rope, for fear of getting caught in snares. Whatever the case, flying panthers or not, I was pretty sure I'd still be safe in the air.

"Hey, Andy," I said, walking over to him. "Want to team up for the tyrolean traverse?"

Warren-
I grab the phone and dial. Teal looks... bad. But not wolf-attack-bad, more of, I dont know, but bad. The helicopter comes within fifteen minutes, and we try our best to stem the blood flow and clean the wounds.
"I think Teal'll make it," Katherine says.
"Yeah," I say, trying to wipe the blood off my hands inconspicuously. I decide to go visit Rosette before the Tyrolean traverse.

Noah!

I grab a bucket of water for Andy, when I get back he says something about a Tyrolean Traverse. I may have read something about that when I was a boy scout, it was sort of like repelling across a line between two points. Hopefully it would be easy, odds are it wouldn't be. I certainly didn't pack any gear specifically for that.

I decided to talk to Rylet, maybe she would have something.

"Rylet!" I said when I saw her, she turned to me.

"Yeah?" She responded

"So what are you gonna do for this Tyrolean Traverse?"