Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

We're Going Home

Kirt Heinrich
Morning. Next Day.

When you are in the jungle, no matter whether you're a night owl or not, your body gets adjusted to the dawn to dusk routine. When I was in Wolfgang academy, the idea of sleeping at 8:00 p.m or sleeping at night, during vacations seemed obnoxious, but when I was in the jungle, even though I was a night owl, I began sleeping and waking up like an early bird. When the rays of the sun hit my closed eyelids, making it look red when I closed my eyes, I woke up. My classmates were preparing themselves to leave on this day. I consoled myself over Amor's disappearance by hoping and believing that Amor being a dog would be able to survive in the wild on his own. He survived before he met me. Therefore, he could survive without me. Although I consoled myself, the weight on my heart still weighed me down. The grief over missing him tormented me. When we planned to leave the jungle, we thought we could take Amor with us, wherever we were going, but things didn't go as we thought it would.

Alice was checking through her bag, checking if she had all her clothes. While we boys waited near the fire, the girls went to the river and bathed. They changed their clothes. When they returned, we boys went to the river and bathed. By now the stench in the water had faded away and the water was cleaner than before. We went to the bank and walked into the river until a part where the part of our bodies below our chest was submerged. Taking a deep breath, I submerged myself completely. Bubbles went up as I went into the water. I pressed my fingers against my cheeks moving them up and down. Then I resurfaced. The other boys were doing the same. After washing ourselves, we dressed up and went to the place where we camped. By the time we reached there, the girls were fully ready. Hernanda wore a white shirt and dark blue jeans. She looked beautiful in those pieces of clothing. Before leaving the camp, I looked through my bag to see if there was anything I was missing. I only carried two changes of clothes with me, unlike the others who stuffed a lot of clothing into their bags. All of us took with us paddles that we shaped out of wood using our machetes. We went to the bank with the paddles and knapsacks and placed all our stuff there. Then, Rhett, Tom, Timothy and I went back to the camp and with great difficulty, we dragged our recently built raft to the river bank. The wooden raft scooped up mud as we dragged the raft across the muddy forest floor. Once we dragged the wooden raft up to the bank, we let it rest on the ground.

Glancing at the river, I observed the moving water which flowed serenely. The bright rays of the sun shone against our faces, and the gentle lullaby of the waters was heard. There were some insects flying on top of the water. The wind was blowing lightly through the forest. It gently caressed our faces. We felt calm as we stood in the banks surrounded by warm, humid air. Relaxing, calm and peaceful it was observing the river flow. Tiny waves from the river lapped onto the bank. The wind gently pushed water on the surface of the channel. The insects on top of the water had a wonderful time flying here and there. Looking at the waters brought us a strange sense of calm.

"How far do you think we must go before we reach a village or town?" asked Timothy as he looked at the scenery with me.

"I have no idea but perhaps for five days," I said, " We better take this with us." I took the fishing rods in my hand.

Alice came near both of us. " I hope we would see a village in three days' time and that all would be over." She sighed, as she looked at the river.

"Shall we go now?" I asked Timothy and Alice.

"Yup"

We all put our bags, the remainder of the rope and the fishing rods on the raft. Then, all of us pushed it into the water. Once in the water, we carefully got onto it, making sure that while we got onto it, we didn't make the raft lose balance. Getting on the raft was the most difficult thing to do. During our first few attempts, the raft was about to tip over before we could shift our weight to the center. We had to try multiple times. In our final attempt what we did was when one person got onto the raft, those of us who didn't get on held the raft to ensure that it didn't tip over. The person who got onto the raft would then go to the center, adding weight that would prevent the raft from tipping over when another person got onto the raft. In this way, everybody got onto the raft. I and Timothy were the last ones to get onto the raft. Before I got onto the raft, I looked in the direction of the bank, wishing that I would see Amor come running up. I was disappointed: there was no sight of Amor. Wishing Amor good luck with surviving in the rainforest, I got onto the raft.

As soon as I got onto the raft, we used the paddles that we fashioned out of wood with the help of the machetes to row our boat away from the bank. I bade a final goodbye to the bank where we stayed as the raft made its way downstream. Hernanda sat beside me on the raft. She smiled at me. I smiled back. "We're going home, Hernanda. We're going home," I said. The trees near the bank from where we departed grew smaller and smaller as our raft went further and further from them until they vanished out of sight.

The sun was shining through the waters, illuminating the surface for us so that we could see the fish that were swimming close to the surface. The sway of the raft on the water was gentle because the waters were calm and the current was slow. Despite the sad events that occurred, the joy of knowing that I would soon go home made me happy. Hernanda and I ran our hands through the water, enjoying it, as the raft sailed downstream, laughing as we threw water at each other and played.

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Next Chapter: Goodbye