Message in a Bottle

Summary
An ilovebees fanfiction.

Yasmine leaves behind a red balloon, a message to the outside.

=Message in a Bottle=

Yasmine-151 froze.

She waited.

Silence.

Slowly, she relaxed. She could have sworn she heard something moving in the bushes… Animals make noise too, she supposed.

Still, missions like this required the utmost security. Setting her pack against a tree, she crept lightly across the forest floor. She searched the surrounding area for signs of a tail, but found nothing. That meant nothing. She knew that if a trained ninja didn’t want to be seen, it wouldn’t.

I should go back, she thought. If she hurried, she could make it back to the barracks before any alarm was raised.

I can’t, she told herself. I have to leave breadcrumbs, something they could find.

So she continued through the dark woods, through seven kilometers of Reach wilderness, until streaks of blue began to light the sky. Far enough? It would have to do.

She found a good, strong tree, likely to last a few decades. Taking out a knife and spoon, stolen from the cafeteria, she carved into the trunk: DIG, followed by an arrow pointed down at the ground.

Willing herself to hurry, for there was little time, she dug a hole large enough to conceal a tin can originally used to hold beans. She hoped that its absence would go unnoticed. She carefully unrolled her letter, scribbled on a napkin with barbecue sauce for ink, and read it one last time.

''This is a plea for help. I am an innocent captive of an evil military program, designed by our highest authorities to create an elite unit of naval soldiers, codenamed SPARTANS, to eradicate the Insurrectionist threat. However, I did not elect to come here. I am not a military soldier that can be ordered into such a program. I am a free citizen of planet Coral, and I know my rights. Please, if anyone ever reads this, stop them!''

An unwilling slave

Underneath it was a similar message in Hebrew, and on the back were two in Chinese and Spanish. They were perhaps crude, a bit rushed, but they would have to do. Kissing the note lightly, she slipped it into the container with the other stuff: a crude map of the barracks; a list of all the SPARTANs’ names, hers at the top; and finally, a message detailing the criminals Catherine Halsey and James Ackerson.

There are people who love me, she thought determinedly as she buried her message in a proverbial bottle, a feat straight out of one of her brother’s stories. I will not be forgotten.

The night was over. It was too late for her to sneak back unnoticed, for the SPARTANs woke at dawn. She would have to make it appear as though she were just breaking the rules to take a midnight hike. The punishment would be severe, but she knew this was a risk she had to take. For all their sakes.

She jogged back toward the barracks at a diagonal angle to cover up where she had been. The note would not be found anytime soon, perhaps never, and all she could anticipate for now was the gruesome punishment that awaited her return.

However, she began to smile. It was dawn now, and this was an hour of hope.

I will not be forgotten.