Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Atlantis

3 days later
Hernanda Wilkinson

Miracles are real. You may disagree with me, but I know very well that my survival after that accident was indeed a miracle. I was off the raft, holding Rhett's hand when the watercraft bashed into the rock. After the collision, Rhett let go of me, and I fell into the water. I was drowning, struggling to surface in that wrestle with the raging waters. By the time I reached the surface, gasping for a breath, I saw the raft had broken into two with Timothy, Alice, and Shifaly on one piece and Tom, Rhett and AnnSophia on the other. I began drowning once again, just as I was observing the ordeal with a gaping mouth. My struggle with the water resumed. Kicking and rapidly moving my arms, I only managed to move a little bit in the water. Hollywood portrays this struggle as something very easy, but in reality, fighting with water isn't something easy. It is an extremely physically demanding activity. After a quick burst of thrashing the water, my energy had drained and I began to concede to the current. Because I was occupied with fighting the waters, I couldn't see what happened to my classmates. All I saw before drowning once again was Timothy, Alice, Kirt, and Shifaly on pieces of wood that came from their half of the watercraft which had smashed into other rocks. I tried screaming, in order to make my presence known, but they didn't hear me. I struggled for a while until I found a piece of wood floating near me. Grabbing onto it, I discovered that it could carry my entire body weight without sinking.

I got carried downriver for a long time before somehow - I know not how- I landed on the bank. Once on the bank, I walked aimlessly, not knowing where I was but believing that by just walking in some direction, I'd reach a village or even the border with Argentina or Brazil.

More than 10 days had passed since the day of the collision. I survived by eating termites. I knew that Kirt told me it's risky to eat insects in the rainforest, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I chomped on a few of those pests. A few days ago, I thought that I heard Timothy call my name, but I didn't search for the source of the voice because I knew very well that it was a hallucination. How could Timothy be where I was? He would have probably died. So, I just ignored the voice and continued my walk. I didn't walk near the river. I walked into the forest. It was sunny during the days I spent alone in the forest. I could feel a tinge of heat amid the usual humidity of the rainforest. The forest floor was relatively dry, even though some parts of it were damp as usual because of decaying matter.

Claire Dakota

In the evening that day, I received the phone call. It was a phone call I least expected. Before I received the phone call, I took a stroll down four or three streets near my hotel in Santa Cruz De La Sierra. I bought some empanadas and some groceries in the supermarkets nearby. The weather was warm. It hadn't rained in four days. I was very hopeful that Captain Felipe would find the kids. Every day when Headmistress Longhorn inquired about any updates in the investigation, I assured her that I strongly believed that soon the Wolfgang Academy children would be discovered and that they would return home, with me. Headmistress Longhorn loved these children to death because to her they were like her own children. Ever since her children abandoned her, she has been taking care of the children in Wolfgang as her own. She would be devastated if something happened to them.

Luismar was very busy these days. She told me that she would be gone to La Paz to deal with the case of the three bodies that were discovered in Brazil. Apparently, the Sri Lankan embassy was pressuring the Bolivian government to return the bodies. From what Luismar told me, I found out that what happened to a group of Sri Lankan kids caused a great debate on the news channels in Sri Lanka. There was a lot of namecalling and accusations thrown across the table. The Srilankan school in Doha that the children were part of faced a lot of questions from parents who accused the staff of not making sure that the children were going to a safe place.

By noon, I finished my stroll and shuffled up the roads towards the guesthouse. The security guard greeted me with a "Buenos días, señora" when I got inside the guesthouse's compound. Once in my room, I opened Netflix and watched a few episodes of 13 Reasons Why Season 2. I wanted to be finished with Season 2 before Season 3 came out.

By evening, I just had three episodes left. Just when I switched off my television, exhausted by binge-watching, the telephone in my room began to loudly ring. The telephone was old and not surprisingly, the ringing was more of a screech. Dropping the T.V remote on the couch, I moved towards the telephone. Putting the receiver on my ear, I answered, "Hello?" There was so much static noise that I couldn't hear what was being said in the other end of the line.

"Ms. Dakota, I'll call you back," the person on the other end of the line said in a distorted voice.

"Okay then. I'll hang up." I hung up and pulled up a chair. I was waiting for the man on the other end of the line to call me back. After five minutes, my telephone began to ring. "Hello?"

"Miss Dakota. I am Captain Felipe. This is regarding the kids."

I was glad. I thought that Captain Felipe might have been bearing good news. "Are they safe, sir?"

Captain Felipe might have not heard me. "I don't know how to convey this news to you..."

"What news?" My gladness turned into a worried curiosity.

"As you know my team and I have gone to the rainforest, hoping to find the camp..."

"Yes?" My voice dropped low. I began to imagine the worst that could happen to them.

"We went to the area their camp was supposed to be and found out that it was entirely underwater. They were probably killed by a flash flood. All of them. There's no chance they could have survived the flash flood," said Captain Felipe. He said this part quite quickly as if he wanted to be done with telling me of the bad news as soon as possible. It was understandable. Nobody likes to be a bearer of bad news - they want to get over conveying it as quick as possible.

After saying that, he continued to give me a lengthy explanation of the Police's discoveries. Captain Felipe stressed that the Police would send a team of divers and forensic scientists to examine the area. I was left speechless. Captain Felipe had to say my name five times when I was on the line with him, to grab my attention. "How could they die?" I thought, taken by surprise. This news came when it was least expected. All that while, I was hoping that Captain Felipe found the kids. But it turned out that they were dead. Besides this shock, I was also wondering how I would tell Headmistress Longhorn about what happened.

Everything didn't go as how we expected it to be. An hour after I spoke with Captain Felipe, I phoned Headmistress Longhorn who was waiting for updates on the investigation, diligently.

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