Little Miss Perfect | Neteyam¹

Chapter 08: Late Night Adventures

It was a whole lot of maybes and not enough answers to ease the boy's mind.

Not to mention the fact that the girl he's had a crush on for basically his entire life, up until he decided to try and hate her, was 10 feet away from him, sleeping between his two sisters. The boy sat up as quietly as he could to take a look at the girl, only to be met with an empty mattress.

Where was Marali? Why was she not in her bed sleeping? Where did she go? And his mind continued to ask questions that he didn't have a whole lot of answers to.

Neteyam had two options. Wake his family up to search for the girl, risking his tail that he knew little sister would tie into a knot for waking her up from her slumber, or don't wake his family up and search for the girl himself.

The boy knew what his first choice should have been, but he went against his gut and decided to search for Marali on his own.

When he found Marali, Neteyam knew that he was going to give her the scolding of a lifetime for going out on her own.

How could she be so stupid? Neteyam thought to himself.

No, he knew Marali wasn't stupid. The girl was anything but stupid. She was being reckless. Which honestly shocked the boy, he had known Marali his entire life, and she had never been reckless. Except for when she followed his irresponsible brother into danger. But that was beside the point.

He slipped his knife into the pouch on his chest and grabbed his bow and arrow before walking out of his family's Mauri pod. The boy hoped that he would find the girl soon, or at least before sunrise. Otherwise, both of them would have a whole lot of questions to answer about why they both disappeared in the middle of the night.

Neteyam blushed when he thought of what types of questions his father would ask the two teens. It didn't take a genius to know what Jake would think happened between his son and his best friend's daughter. His father's head always went to the worst-case scenario in these types of situations.

As Neteyam neared the beach, he saw fresh footprints engraved in the sand. He knew they were Marali's, as no one else was up at this ungodly hour. However, he was shocked to see that she didn't even attempt to cover her tracks.

She must have not seen the point, seeing as it's getting closer to sunrise. Neteyam thought to himself.

Following Marali's footprints had been the easiest part of the entire journey, what had been the hard part was that they led to the forest. Of course, the boy wasn't worried about having to track the girl through the forest, he was worried about the fact that they led to the forest. All of the Omatikaya children had been warned to stay away from the forest and he knew that Marali rarely ever disobeyed orders unless she had to, so why had she done it this time?

He slowly crept through the forest and stopped once he heard a shrieking sound. Suddenly, it dawned on him why she had gone to the forest. Neteyam looked up to see Marali's ikran coming down to land, and he let out a sigh of relief when he saw the silhouette of Marali.

The boy made his way over to the clearing to see Marali softly talking to Tíli while rubbing her hand up and down the animal's neck. Neteyam felt a flush of reassurance coursing through his veins when he knew that she was okay, that she was safe.

He slowly backed away from the scene and cursed himself when he stepped on a branch, the echo of it making its way throughout the woods. When he looked back at where Marali and her ikran had just been, his heart skipped a beat when he saw that the girl had disappeared. Neteyam fully turned his body and took a few steps towards Tíli, looking around for the girl who had been present moments prior.