MORE THAN NATURE

Chapter 8

Diana

When we woke up the next morning, we were surprised to see a small waterfall right outside the cave, falling from the top of the cave rock and down below, creating a small pool. My clothes not only feel dry, but they clung onto my body almost making it difficult for me to move around. I went outside and noticed that the weather looks fine again, despite the stormy weather yesterday. I filled my water bottle up from the waterfall streaming down from the big high rock and kept it inside my bag. I turned back around and almost collide with mia who was surprisingly standing right behind me.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She said with a small smile on her face.

"It's fine." I looked down and saw that she was holding onto her book again, now tucked under arm.

"What's so special about that book?" She frowned at me before glancing down at it.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what's so special about it that you always have to take it around with you?" I mentally slapped myself when I realized that I sounded more accusing than curious and she quickly picked up on that.

"It was the only thing that my mom gave me before she passed away, now what's so wrong with holding onto the only last thing that reminds me of her?!" She started to get all defensive and angry at me, making me feel like an idiot for even asking her in the first place.

"I'm sorry mia I just-" She quickly held up her hand right to my face.

"Save it Diana. I don't even wanna have this conversation anymore." She walks away from me just as parker was starting to approach us. He glanced confusingly back at mia before looking back at me while pointing his thumb back to her.

"What's up with her?" He asked curiously.

"It's nothing, just a small misunderstanding." He pursed his lips and nodded.

"Alright, so you ready to go?" I frowned in confusion.

"Go? And go where parker? We have been looking for a way out of here for ages but we still haven't found anything. If we keep going, we will eventually die out there with no food and shelter." I reasoned out.

"We can't stay here Diana, we have to keep looking. None of us will survive out here anyway, so we have to keep going no matter what." He argued back.

"It will take us forever to even find a place for us to stay in! We're lucky we even found this cave." I started to yell back at him.

I seriously have no idea why he still want us to keep going when none of us have the energy to. We will literally faint from exhaustion and hunger if we waste our energy going around in circles looking for a way to get out of here when we simply know that's it's getting harder day by day.

Parker was about to say something but someone coughed from behind him and we both turned around and saw Corey limping out of the cave, looking a lot paler than normal. Parker rushed towards him and helped him to keep steady. His eyes are darker and swollen and his lips are almost paler than his whole face.

"See? We have to keep going so we can get him to a hospital because he's getting worse!" Parker said to me.

I quickly nod my head and put on my backpack before helping Corey too by putting his other arm around my shoulder to keep him from falling down on the ground. Mia slowly trailed from behind and we quickly left and started to walk down a hill, till I looked back and saw that the cave was no longer in sight. It was harder to keep moving while trying to help someone else to do the same thing, but good thing was that Corey was doing most of the walking himself. We were just helping to keep him steady.

We were walking for about a few minutes till he yelled out for us to stop. He removed his arms away from us and collapsed down on the ground, suddenly acting all dizzy. I crouched down by his side and put the back of my hand against his forehead.

A fever.

"His temperature is rising." I stated out loud.

"Well what do you want us to do?" Parker asked in a panic.

I looked back at him and saw his varsity jacket he has on.

"Give me your jacket, he will start to feel cold soon so we need to keep him warm."

Parker took his jacket off immediately and passed it to me. I helped Corey to put it on and slowly helped him to lean back on a tree and he started to breath heavily with his eyes rolled to the back of his head. I stood up and ran my fingers through my hair. I was starting to run of out of things to do to help him.

"I knew it." Mia suddenly said.

"We're gonna die out here. It's not gonna let us see a way out till we're all dead. We're gonna die!" I walked right up to her, the urge to slap her out of it was tempting but I optioned to grab her shoulders instead.

"Mia, stop it okay? Freaking out about this is not gonna help any of us. Can you please just try and stay calm?!"

She glared at me and shoved my hands away.

"Stay calm?! I am serious Diana. We're all gonna die out here. Kimberly and Lloyd are both gone and now Corey is next!"

"Hey! Can you just shut up?!" Parker suddenly snapped from the back.

She looked back and forth between us and glared down at Corey lying down on the ground.

"I'm telling you the truth, something bad is happening around here and we're not the first people to go through all this." She said in a whisper.

"And how would you know?" I asked her sharply. She stared at me straight in the eye and I almost didn't catch that ghost of a smile that appeared on her face for a fraction of a second.

"I can hear it. I hear voices and it's been happening since the first night we spent here. I don't know how or why, but I can still hear them. People screaming and this other voice, it's just kept telling me that we're all gonna die here!"

A part of me wanted to believe her but the other part is already starting to believe what's really going on with her.

She's starting to get crazy

"Cut the bullshit mia! First, you said that this place is haunted or something which is ridiculous by the way. And now you're telling us that you're hearing voices? You're starting to get crazy for even believing into that crap you know that?"

She kept glaring at parker and than turned away while folding her arms in front of her. Corey started to groan and i kneeled down next to his side again and touched his hand.

"Corey, can you hear me?" He slowly opened his eyes and looked back at me.

"Will you guys quit arguing? You're just making my head feel worse." He mumbled weakly, making me chuckle.

"Hey, Diana, you still have some of that energy bar? Now would be the time I really need the energy." I shook my head in disappointment.

"I'm sorry Corey, I only had two. If you're hungry, we can go out and look for something that we can all eat. I don't know, a rabbit or fruit or something."

He nods his head and attempted to stand and i slowly helped him up.

"Okay I'm coming with you guys but just don't, leave me with her here. Something about what she said about hearing voices is really freaking me out." He said while staring at mia and she narrowed her eyes back at him.

"Believe me, we weren't planning to."

Especially after what she just said, I don't think it's best for any of us to even be alone with her right now even if it was  just for a few minutes.