Chapter 35 - Chapter 35 Get some food?

She thought over it for a moment as she examined Dick. She noticed the smile on his face every time he looked at Tina and she knew that he must have had a trick up his sleeve.

He had been allowing Tina to insult him far too much recently. She didn't want to team up with other students and end up wrecking whatever plan Dick had already formulated.

"Actually I think that it will be better for us to stick to a duo," she said as she linked her arm with his own.

"Are you sure because. I think there is a long line of boys willing to team up with you." He said to her knowingly and just as he had said soon enough they were surrounded by a small crowd of boys.

At least the fight with Tina hadn't completely pushed away her appeal to her male classmates. "Gloria can you please be on our team,." A scrawny boy at the front asked and the others nodded their heads at her in agreement, clasping their hands together.

Dick had expected that she would chose at least one or two of them but he was shocked by the next words that left her mouth.

"I don't want to team up with you losers. I already have Dick on my team so how about you idiots find someone else to pester." She hissed. They seemed taken aback. "But why him. He is useless to you and will only slow you down." The boy at the front said.

"The only people that are useless to me here is the lot of you. So how about you run off before I kick your brains into your tiny cocks." She yelled.

Dick watched as they widened their eyes at her words before they turned around to leave. "Why did you do that?" he asked her in confusion. "I know that you have something planned for Tina and I am not going to have one of those idiots messing it up." She said to him.

She knew that he must have been planning something serious and that was most likely why he spent a week away. Dick didn't respond but his silence spoke volumes.

The two of them stood to the side as they watched as the other students divided themselves into teams. Tina's original plan of dividing everyone into equal teams of four was quickly dismantled when Dick and Gloria decided to go as a pair.

The other students divided themselves into teams of various sizes as some of them decided to team up with their friends while others paired up as a couple.

"Well what are the lot of you waiting for. It is time for you to get me some food." Tina announced to her boys. Dick watched as they carried her through some bushes before they disappeared out of his sight. He could hear her barking out orders still.

The other students seemed to have the same idea as well as they began to look through the bushes in the hopes of them being able to find something to eat. On instinct Gloria's stomach growled.

"I guess that we should find something to eat as well. If we are lucky we could find some bush berries." She muttered. 

Before the course had started, the students were informed about the program a year ahead of time. And this gave them proper time to research into the course. There were also documented experiences by those that had taken the course in the past. 

Based on the research most of the kids knew that the most important thing to consider which was crucial to them surviving the course was team work. 

They all knew that in order for them to make it out of the forest alive and successfully finish the course they would have to work together rather than against each other and their team work. 

No one would survive the forest if they chose to work alone. Although more often than not that was easier said than done. Like in a group such as their own where they had been removed from civilization and they were put in an isolated space away from other human life things were bound to get tense. Often students that go out into the wilderness may present contrasting personalities and this would be heard for them to find a proper way to work with each other.

They would often have several dominants in the group and it is known that often a times dominant s tend to clash. In Dick's setting one of those dominants was Tina. She found an opportunity to take her leadership skills to the next level and take control of what was going on around them.

It is known that when people are placed in an enclosed space with others some might react differently. Some may become more affectionate whilst others could become angrier and they might make rash decisions. They could go as far as acting out and tacking some of the other students.

In the past the course has seen students behave in a plethora of ways and there has even been an incident where one of the students lashed out and ended up going crazy and murdering the rest of his peers. 

It had only ever happened once but it was something that was bound to go down in history and it showed that although the students could work together in order to achieve their common goals it didn't mean that they should let their guards down.

There were those who would be willing to do anything in order to finish the course successfully and graduate and that included killing others. What these students had to ask themselves now was what were the lengths that they were willing to go to in order to survive.

 Dick knew that there weren't a lot of people that he could trust but one person that he knew for certain he had to keep his eye out for was Tina and he knew that she had something up her sleeve. And if it were to come to it she wouldn't hesitate to take the rest of them down in order for her to get what she wanted.

To avoid this the heads of the academy as well as the students came to a conclusion of how to stop such an incident from happening again. The students would have to keep safe distances from the other teams. This was to avoid 'accidents' or fights that would have been inevitable between the groups. Also it would make it easier for them to find practical ways to carry out tasks and also work with each other rather than against each other. 

It also meant that the leaders could work with each other to solve problems from a safe distance without leading to the harm of the other students. It was the best solution for them and it meant that Dick and Gloria could also work together in a safe distance away from others without Tina or anyone else growing suspicious of what it was that they were doing.

Dick and Gloria decide to perch themselves under the base of a large oak tree. The two of them observed the other students carefully as they watched them go around the field as they continued to forage for food. As for Tina she was busy barking out orders to her boys.

Gloria looked towards Dick in confusion as she wondered why he wasn't going out to get some food for them as well and he didn't seem to care that they hadn't done anything yet.

"Don't you want to get some food?" she asked him and he shook his head at her in response. "I am good. I am going to rest for a while and recharge. I am going to need you to watch over my body in the meantime." He said to her. Before she could respond to him she watched as he snuggled his body into the bark of the tree as he closed his eyes.