MORE THAN NATURE

Chapter 5

Diana

Screaming.

Someone screamed so loudly that it woke us all up all of sudden and looked around to find out who. I knew straight away that something was wrong, the person that screamed is either in trouble or saw something that was wrong. I bolt up from my sleeping place and quickly looked at mia and Kimberly because the voice clearly belongs to either one of them.

Kimberly. She was the one that screamed and now she was crying in Parker's arms who was trying to drag her away from Lloyd's sleeping figure. Now that's really weird, he's not moving a single muscle and not even his chest is heaving up and down to let us know that he's breathing but still fast asleep.

I stood up from the ground and walked over to parker and Kimberly, mia and Corey were both standing as far away from them and they both look really shocked.

"What's going on?" I asked parker. He slowly looks up from the ground and I saw the visible fright in his eyes.

"See for yourself." He nods at Lloyd and I slowly turned around to see what was the reason why they all looked shook to the bones.

I was right about something being weird about Lloyd. He looks dead! My hand flew over my mouth to stop the scream that had bubbled up my throat and I stumbled away from the body. What really frightens all of us, was his whole face. It was unrecognizable, his whole skin had turned a light shade of grey and his lips.......

Oh my god.....I think I will throw up if i keep staring any longer

His lips, had turned dark blue and there were small red bumps around his whole lips area. It was sickening, what happened to him?

"Do you know something about this?" I asked parker.

He stood up from Kimberly's side and faced me.

"I don't know, he was perfectly fine yesterday." I pointed to Lloyd's face.

"Well he wasn't! Something must've happened to him last night because look at his face! That's not perfectly fine!" He sighed out loud and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Did he eat something?" Mia slowly asked from the back. Parker swiftly turned around to face her, looking like he just realized something.

"He did."

"Well what was it?!" I yelled at him.

I didn't mean to yell but i was trying really hard to keep my emotions under control. My mom may be a nurse but it's not everyday I see a dead body. It's clear that we're all trying to keep calm but Lloyd is dead, so freaking out is an understatement in our situation.

"Um during the time we went to get firewood, he ate some....orange round looking berries. But I told him not to do it cos I thought it would be poisonous but he just ate it anyway. Said he was starving."

Oh my god, now that's something else we have to worry about. Eating something in this place could easily make what happened to Lloyd, to also happen to us. How the hell are we even gonna survive out here?!

"Kimberly, your mom is a nurse so do something. Check his pulse." Corey said. She stood up from the ground and glared at him.

"She's not a freaking nurse, she's a surgeon! And there's no way in hell that I'm touching that!" Than, she turned around and glared at me next.

"You're the one whose mommy is a nurse, so do it." I don't even wanna waste time asking how the hell she knew about that, but I did what she asked anyway.

I kneeled down next to Lloyd's body and forced myself to feel his pulse. His skin feels ice cold that I almost withdraw from doing it. There wasn't a pulse, but i had to make sure so I leaned my head sideways on his chest to hear if there's even a small flicker of heartbeat I can hear.

Nothing

I stood up and shook my head disappointedly at them.

"He's dead. It looks like he died last night, his body is really cold." Kimberly started crying all over again making me feel sorry for Lloyd all of a sudden.

We seriously need to get out of here as fast as we can if we want to stay alive.

"See? I told you something is wrong with this place." Mia said me, and everybody turned around to look at her. Kimberly looked back and forth between the two of us with a confused look on her face.

"Yeah no shit sherlock, but you informed her first about that instead of telling the rest of us?" Kimberly snapped all of a sudden.

"I wasn't sure yet, but now I am."

"How do you know that?" Parker asked her. She looked down at the book in her hands and then glanced around the forest.

"I did my research for this place before we came here, they only put up the good stuff on the net but if you dig a little deeper, you'll understand why something feels wrong around here. This forest is not just like any other forest, it's a native forest that belongs to a powerful clan a thousand years ago. They say that the ancestors, the true owners of this land we're standing on, still roams this forest. This place is literally haunted! How else will you explain that no one has ever bought this land or even build a construction here? It's impossible, something bad will definitely happen to those that dared to disturb this area. We shouldn't even be here in the first place. This forest is taboo and this is what happens to us in return for just being here for a stupid class project."

We were all speechless. Everything she just said not only gives us the chills, it's also starting to make us feel aware of our surroundings.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe you could explain that to the teachers before they decide to go along with this field trip?!" Kimberly yelled at her again.

"Do you think they'll believe me?! I literally sound crazy right now and you're all just starting to believe me now because of what happened to Lloyd! They'll never believe me, and I bet none of you will if we were still back in school right now."

She's right, we won't even believe her about all this. This whole forest may look normal on the outside but what happens within could be beyond imaginable and we're just beginning to see that.

"Alright, here's what we're gonna do. Corey, you need to help me bury him." Parker suddenly announced making Corey do a double take when he heard him.

"Wait what?"

"We can't just leave him out like that for the animals to feast on. The least we can do is give him a proper burial." Parker reasoned out.

Corey reluctantly followed him and they carried Lloyd's body to the side. They broke off some big sharp branches from a tree and start to dig a hole on the ground. We stood nearby, watching them dug deeper in the ground till they managed to make a big hole, large enough for Lloyd's body. They slowly carried him and placed his corpse slowly in the grave and then moved all the soil back in to cover him up. After they're done doing that, they threw away the branches and put some big stones around his grave. Kimberly pulled off some wildflowers nearby and placed them on top of the grave.

Corey and parker didn't even care that they look so messy and dirty from all the digging they just did. We just stood next to each other, said our silent goodbyes to Lloyd before we left to find our way out of here.

"What could be so dangerous about this place anyway? It's just nature." Kimberly suddenly said before giving a long glance at Mia.

She turned her head to the side and looked straight at Kimberly and said;

"Believe me, it's more than just nature."