The Uktena

18. This Feels Wrong (Inola)

I couldn't stop myself from panicking at the idea of going to that cave. I could feel that there was something there that didn't want us to keep walking that direction. It felt like it was threatening me with something, but I couldn't tell what it was. Mika backing me up made me feel slightly better, but because I didn't know the way home, she couldn't just come with me and go somewhere safer.

"So, why exactly did you start to have a panic attack? I thought you outgrew those." Emmet, while I loved him more than anything else, was incapable of figuring out that you can't just outgrow having panic attacks. I wish you would have agreed with me that it feels too dangerous to keep going. If it was three to one, Ro would have taken us home right away and I wouldn't need to worry about the fact that it feels like something powerful wants us away from there.

"You've been feeling like something is watching us too, right? The feeling just keeps getting more and more intense for me the further we go into the forest. Forests are older than us, and will live long after we die. Same thing with some of the things that hide out here." I took a deep breath, trying- and failing- to hide how shaky it was. "We don't belong out here, and something in this forest wants us gone. We need to be careful about what we do from now on. I honestly think we should go home and never come back out here." Especially now that I'm going to be kicked out of my childhood home over my mom and dad fighting with Ro. Again.

"Just don't worry about it. Don't you get jumpy when it's dark out anyway? It could just be your anxiety playing up since you're in a new environment." I wanted to agree with Emmet, I really did, but it was hard when he and Ro were both carrying weapons on top of everything else they were carrying. Why would they even need the weapons if they think we'll be fine? If something gets close enough to us, it'll be too late anyway.

Both of them were strong, which would explain why they weren't really worried, especially since they had gotten rid of the biggest threat that had been roaming around near the camp we had originally set up. Killing the mountain lion must have made the two of them much braver than they originally were coming out here, especially since Ro had been acting like they didn't want to come out here in the first place. What if Ro was tricking us, and wanted to use us as bait for whatever has been watching us? Would they really do that to us? I hadn't wanted to believe the rumors that there was an Uktena around here, but maybe there is one. It would explain everything we have been feeling, the watching, the way everything got silent, like when a predator passes through an area, and the fact that we haven't seen a single snake since we came out here.

***

Once we had been walking for two hours, Ro insisted that we take a break, refill the water bottles that had been finished, and eat something while the water purified. Why did you let us come out here when you didn't want to come out here to begin with. I don't think we should trust you anymore. As I put my bag down, Ro came up to me asking to talk alone.

"Hey, if you really wanna go back, I can give you the map. You and Mika can head back home, and I'll just take the pictures on my phone and if you leave your camera with a fresh memory card I'll take them on there too. I know you don't like it this far out, so I'm giving you an out now, while you're calm and can actually use a map." Ro looked sincere enough.

But I still didn't want to trust them. They had always been jealous of me, and may be using this to set me up for whatever was in the forest. I'm not trusting Rosemary out here with Emmet, she'll just hurt him, she doesn't care about anyone but herself. I hadn't noticed when I stopped seeing Ro as Ro instead of Rosemary, but the idea of Ro and Rosemary being the same person, just a different gender expression had slipped, and Ro was now just Rosemary, my overly jealous little sister who hated when I had friends over, because she saw herself as being pushed out of the family a little more every time I made a new friend. She's so afraid of being left alone that she pushed us all away so that we couldn't distance ourselves without being painted as the bad guy. I shook my head, trying to convince Ro that I was fine.

"I'm good now, I just didn't get much sleep last night. It took me a while to fall asleep, especially with how quiet everything got around midnight."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you not hear everything go dead silent? There was no wind, no crickets, no anything. How quiet it was is what woke me up, it was like how in some dinosaur movies everything goes quiet right before the T-Rex shows up and roars at everything." Ro was looking at me like I was crazy and needed to get help.

"We should all be staying closer to each other then. I'll have Emmet stay behind y'all so we have one person with some kind of weapon in the back and one up front. It'll also make sure no one gets left behind, but on top of that, I'll make sure everyone's radios are working 100% and clipped to everyone." Ro looked me in the eye and started reassuring me that nothing would happen as long as she, not she, they, and Emmet were on the outside and making sure we had eyes on the- well, everything around us.

Ro looks worried about what I heard. My baby sister can't be the one who is messing with us. Maybe Mika? She didn't want to come out here, plus she was alone all day yesterday. She could have contacted someone to come mess with us. I don't even know what to think anymore. What if I'm just delusional? Then they'll all be worried over nothing, and I'll be the bad guy. I started walking back to where Mika and Emmet were waiting for us, Ro following behind me. I can't believe I'm being this paranoid over nothing. I shook my head slightly, trying to shake off how bad I felt.

Once we had made it back to the other two, Ro and I grabbed lunch out of our bags. As we sat on the ground to eat, Mika started making comments about how weird it was that we hadn't seen any snakes or predators other than the mountain lion the first night. It is weird, but what can we do about it? They're just animals.

"Like, I swear, this is the creepiest thing. There's no way that there are just no predators in the area other than one big predator." She was absentmindedly tapping on her leg while talking again. That's her nervous habit, tapping her thigh while talking means she's freaked out. I started looking at Emmet and Ro to see if either of them were nervous.

"You're right, it is weird, but it could also be because it's hot as hell and everything just wants to stay in cooler locations." Emmet wasn't worried at all. I guess I'm just being paranoid.

Soon the conversation died down and we started repacking our bags to continue the walk. I kept glancing around, watching the ground and creek to see if I could spot any animals, not caring what kind I would see. I just want to see any animal. As long as I can see a living creature, everything is fine. Hopefully.