Pirate's Treasure

Chapter 20

"He's a strange little boy, isn't he?" He asked as I craned my head back to see the top of the mountain. "What do we do now?"

"We go to the top of that." I stated, pointing at the top that was cutting through clouds.

"That's insane! It's way too tall." Christian shot down the idea, but I already started walking towards the mountain. "Please don't."

"I'm going." I stated, turning back around. "Whether you are or not is completely up to you."

He looked back up at the mountain, and shook his head as he ran over to me, and a smile plastered onto my face. "You're crazy."

"I know." I assured him as I took his hand, and we started our journey to the top of the mountain.

"How long do you think this will take?" He asked as I pulled out my scroll, unrolling it, still seeing the simple word in the middle of the page.

"I don't know, but we have to find whatever this 'childhood' item is. You know how Val gets." I stated, rolling it back up.

"Why are we always the ones to find it? Why can't one of them risk their lives to find the damn item?" He whined, but honestly, I didn't trust any of them enough yet to do anything. It's what David always said to me as a kid; if you want it done right, do it yourself.

"Because we know what we're doing and kinda what we're looking for." I answered, but as the higher we climbed, the colder and more steep it got. "Is it supposed to be getting colder?"

"I thought temperature rose." He admitted, but apparently not. We weren't at the snow yet, but we were getting close. "Is it also getting harder to breathe?"

"I think so." I said as I felt my foot slip, and I fell to the ground and started sliding before Christian caught my wrist, and I was looking down the mountain, terrified of falling. "Help me up! Help me up!"

"Hold on!" He ordered and pulled me up, helping me stand and brushing myself off. "Be more careful. The ground is slippery and I don't think falling would be good."

"No, it wouldn’t." I agreed as we continued, and the snow flurried had begun to blow in our face. "I can't believe it's snowing up here!"

"We're getting close." Christian stated as I looked down, and the only thing I wanted to do then was be on the ground with my feet firmly planted.

"How are we going to get down?" I asked seriously, and we both looked at each other with blank expressions. Nobody thought this through.

"We'll figure it out." He assured me as he grabbed my hand firmly, pulling me to the top. The snow wasn't too deep, but it was freezing and I already had enough snow back at the last place.

"Something out of place…" I thought out loud as we were only feet away from the tip, and I saw a glimmering thing up there. "There it is!"

"Where?" He asked as I let go and took off at a dead sprint, so eager to get down. "Wait!"

I only smiled and ran as I found it in the snow, picking the thing up… but I was confused when I did. It was only an empty glass jar, but it was making some sort of noise on the inside.

"What, a jar?" Christian asked, his arms wrapped around himself and shivering. "That makes no sense."

"It's not supposed to make sense." I replied, placing my hand firmly on the lid and unscrewing it.

"Don’t do that!" I jumped as I heard Adam's voice, and he took the jar from me and screwed it back. "Do you know how precious this is?"

"What… is it?" Christian asked, and I held out my hand for Adam to give it back, be he shook his head, clutching it at his side.