BLACKOUT; JR [1]

1.2

I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jacket, taking in a few deep breaths as I picked up my pace.

I hadn't been walking for very long before I heard a few of my other classmates, their crestfallen cries reaching me through the scrub. I stopped upon hearing their voices, trying to decipher which direction the noise was coming from.

Then, as if they knew I was listening out for them, they yelled again.

I darted toward the sounds, sprinting through the forest and jumping over whatever nature lay in my path.

I saw colour then, taking note of the mix of orange and grey that shined between the trees.

I quickly recognised that it was Jake, but I didn't care who it was as long as I was finally with somebody. My heartbeat thumped in my chest when I heard the familiar jingling of Andy's backpack, and when I finally sprang out from the trees, four pairs of eyes turned towards me. 

"Edith?"

I leapt into his arms, latching onto him with a ferocity he didn't expect; there was only silence as I sobbed unwarranted tears into his wrinkled shirt carelessly. I felt him hesitantly wrap his arms around my shoulders, giving them a sympathetic pat. I heard his voice rumble inside his chest, but before he managed to get any words out, Andy spoke up.

"Are you okay?" He asked me, rushing over to me in a frenzy. His bag weighed him down, and so he wobbled slightly as he approached. "What happened to you?"

I tried to calm myself enough to talk, but I was just so relieved I couldn't help but cry. I whimpered a bit more before finally relaying to the four boys what had happened to me.

By the time I had finished telling them, I was sitting on the ground with my legs crossed.

Jake, looking vexed, stormed away from the group. "They left you?" He exclaimed, seeming to search the forest for my foes. I was a little taken back by the fact that he actually seemed to care when I assumed he didn't like me, but I wasn't about to knock back his defense over me. All I could do was nod slowly, staring at him with wide eyes.

"It's okay, Edith." Any mumbled, squatting down in the dirt beside me before placing a hand on my back in an attempt to comfort me. "When we get to the lunch area, we'll tell Mr Bates."

Felix, who was staring intently at the map, mumbled behind the paper. "Yeah, I found a shortcut." He mentioned, flicking his eyes up to the other boys. He almost seemed smug, and so I suspected that they had been arguing about which direction to go in before I arrived.

Jake began to follow in the boys' footsteps, taking a quick glance at the rest of us as he passed. "Good one, Dracula." He quipped, but when Andy remained stationary, he groaned impatiently. "Let's go!"

Andy looked sceptical, and from the way his eyebrows were knitted together I could tell he was also a little worried. "Maybe it's not such a good idea to leave the path?" He suggested, then asking to see the map for a while, only to be harshly rejected by the Goth teenager.

We only walked for a few minutes before being blocked by a mountain, our only other options to turn back or try to make it down the steep cliff.

Jake, who had been leading the group, turned to Felix with a scowl. "This is a dead end, you moron." He shouted, irritation dripping from his words.

Felix cowered slightly, but hid it by locking his gaze on the map. "It looked like a shortcut." He mumbled, now terribly discouraged.

Beside me, Sam pulled out his phone to presumably search for any kind of GPS app. When he whined, I knew it wasn't a good sign. "I don't even have a signal!" He exclaimed.

Andy glanced over at him, wearing an incredulous expression behind his glasses. "Of course you don't, we're lost." He deadpanned, shaking his head at the boy.

Felix waved one of his hands in the air frantically, the other holding the map. "We're not lost!"

Then, in the same second, a large gust of wind came flying past and stole the map from Felix's gloved hands.

My eyes widened at the sight of the map gliding towards the cliff, and so I raced forward along with the others. Felix, having misplaced his foot, began to slide down the edge of the slope.

"Grab him, he's slipping!" Andy yelled before each of us reached out to pull him back.

My fingers closed around the material of Felix's jacket, and as a result I began to fall, too. I tumbled down beside the boy, clinging onto his clothing like my life depended on it as I heard the yelps of the other boys now falling as well.

The air had been knocked from my lungs as my back collided with the hard ground, landing ungracefully next to Felix. I was still struggling to get my breath back when Andy fell down, Jake and Sam closely following him.

I continued to lay there when Felix rose, not knowing whether or not I could even stand. I wasn't in any pain, but that didn't mean I wasn't in shock from the fall. I eyes squeezed shut when I heard Felix's gravelly voice asking me if I was okay, and I only nodded in response.

I then tried to sit up, letting my arms rest heavily on my knees as I brushed the loose hair from my eyes. Andy, also appearing uninjured, crawled up beside me. "Are you hurt?" He questioned me, anxiety radiating from him as he stared at me.

"No, I think I'm okay." I mumbled, offering him a weak smile as I checked him over briefly with my eyes. He stood up after that, coughing a little and uttering something about finding his backpack.

I stiffened slightly when I felt a hand on my shoulder that gently tapped me in order to get my attention. I didn't really relax when I realised it was Jake, but I also didn't flinch away from his touch.

"Do you want some help?" He asked me, extending one of his hands out to me. I looked at it from my seat on the forest floor, and hesitantly took it. He pulled me up, and when I swayed on my feet he made sure to steady me.

Before I could thank him, Felix began to talk. He spoke quickly but it was timid, almost as if he was afraid to utter the words that danced on the very tip of his tongue. "Has anyone seen the map?"

All at once, everybody's wary eyes landed on him.

Andy's expression turned hard, and he appeared incredulous. "I thought I saw you grab it." He noted, cocking his head to the side. Felix only shook his head, but there was a strange emotion in his gaze that I wasn't able to detect.

Sam stood up from his position on the ground with narrowed orbs. "What the hell is wrong with you, dude?" He shouted, throwing both hands up into the air in anger.

Felix cowered a little, and so I interjected before the other boy could continue. "Sam, stop." I told him, practically scolding him like he was a child.

I had to sigh, because then again, so was I.

Andy started to walk away at that point but didn't let us know why until Jake called out to him. He shrugged but didn't look back at us. "Waterways lead to civilization." I was glad to know he was being realistic, because the rest of us weren't.

We walked for a while then, choosing to follow Andy in silence. I tried not to notice the slight throbbing at the back of my head as we trekked through the bush, but that only worked for so long.

"Guys..." Jake mumbled, instantly catching our attention. I turned back to look at him just in time to see his unsettled expression before it disappeared and returned to its usual hardness. We all followed his eyes, finding small trinkets that looked like they belonged to somebody who experimented with witchcraft. My thoughts instantly drifted to the woman from earlier this morning and I shivered, fear closing in on me.

Felix came up from behind me, lightly brushing my arm with his fingers. "We should go." He murmured, pulling us all from the slight trance we were in. The other boys quickly carried on with the journey, but I remained still. I didn't know if I was too afraid to keep going, or if I was simply just too exhausted to, but whatever it was kept my feet glued to the soil. I felt Felix nudge me, and then my eyes finally darted over to him. He stared at me, his gaze seeming to be a little confused but incredibly wary at the same time.

I offered him a weak smile before we kept going.