Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

The Visitors

Next Day

AnnSophia Fabron

It was a pleasant day, after a bout of rainfall the previous night. The wind was chill and refreshing, bringing with it a sense of calm as it passed down those hills in the distance. With a mug of coffee in hand, I stared at the fields in the back porch, wishing that Eustacio and his friend would have gotten Tom to the hospital on time. From what MariaRosa's grandmother Melinda told me, the journey to the nearest settlement from Blencojo was long, and it could take days as the roads would have to go around a few mountains. That was why we had waited for them to return for a long. We expected that they could return anytime then.

I then looked back at Rhett was sitting there with his hands on his face thinking.

I didn't know what to say. "Rhett?"

"Yes?" He took his hands off his face and looked at me. He tried to smile, I could tell, but his grief was too much.

"Don't worry about Tom. He'll be fine," I said, "trust me."

He looked at me and thought for a while before lashing out, "And how do you know that?"

"I - "

"I am sorry, I shouldn't have...I shouldn't have lashed out like that on you. It's just - "

"I understand, Rhett. I loved your brother the way you did too. But not eating is not going to help you. Have confidence that things will be fine."

He scoffed. "Things will be fine? My foot!"

I didn't respond. I turned to the hills and looked at the clouds caressing its top. I wondered what it must be like to be on top of the hills when there was a thick cloud on top. How would the experience be? Then my thoughts were rudely interrupted by the gravity of the situation we were in. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," I told him.

Rhett apologized, "I'm sorry once again, AnnSophia. I can't take this." He took a breath and continued, progressively getting louder, "I wish I never...I wish we never signed up for this tragic trip. When I signed up I thought everything will be fine! But things get only progressively worse here. First, our chaperones were dead and we were left in the jungles for ourselves! And then we were stupid enough to sign up for Kirt's idea of waiting till our then dead chaperones to return, while Jackson King chose to escape with Savannah and Bill and Zach and the rest who chose to split before that stupid flood carried us away. Then came this devilish flood. And finally, after being in the forest, we build a raft. But things didn't get better at that point, didn't it? We separate and we end up as castaways in some isolated village in Argentina, where no one except Eustacio's family and neighbors knows about us! If that wasn't enough, now Tom - my brother - was almost fatally ill and then I don't know what happened to him. All this because we signed up for the [Explicit] trip!"

I was taken aback when Rhett cursed. He rarely cursed and rarely behaved the way he behaved that day. That wasn't the Rhett I knew before this messed-up field trip became messed-up. Everything, every death and loss, and separation seemed to have chipped away his once jovial attitude. I didn't want to make him ponder on the grievous topic once again, so I looked at the mountains once again.

It was getting dark, and the light of the sun was beginning to grow dimmer and dimmer. The sun was about to set. Looking in the direction of the front yard, I could see the sun calling it a day On the day Eustacio and his friend Bustamente rushed Tom to the nearest, it was frightening to see Tom convulsing and vomiting blood. He had contracted some form of a terrifying disease, and that's for sure. Staring at the darkening sky, I wondered what must be the reason why Tom contracted the disease. Perhaps he might have eaten some fish or drank the water. A lot could have happened in the jungle. There are microbes everywhere. Just like the forest is a place for floral and faunal diversity, it is a place of microbial diversity. Perhaps Tom did eat or drink something bad.

While I thought that, my mind wandered to the nightmares I had when I was on the raft. Images of Shifaly flashed before my eyes. Those where disturbing images. She was disintegrating at one point and then screaming. But I couldn't help her.

I didn't tell Rhett about the dream.

Both Rhett and I were brought out of our brooding by the noise of someone knocking at the door.

"I'll go get it," I said as I was about to enter the house through the back door, before Rhett got up and said, "I'll come with you."

Before we went to open the door, I called out to Melinda, who was in the kitchen, informing her that someone was at the door.

"Don't worry! I'll get it. You didn't have to do it!" she said, as she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

She peeped through the peephole before opening the door to whoever had been knocking.

Felipe Altamirano Altamirano Álvarez Espadachín

Claire Dakota was lost! We didn't know where she had gone. Luismar sent a request to the phone company to find out the last tower Claire was connected to. But, we knew that that would take a lot of time. The bar manager knew nothing of Claire but on the road outside, we found something interesting: blood. There was some blood on the road and two teeth. We feared that it was Claire Dakota's. But we couldn't assume. Shantytowns like the place where the bar was, are known for occasional gang fights. So blood wasn't a strange sight. The possibility of the teeth and blood belonging to Claire, though, was the fearful thing. We managed to get the forensics to take samples.

By afternoon, we had confirmed that Claire was nowhere to be found and that she had actually gone missing. The most frustrating thing was that I forgot to ask the girl to stay for a while. She had gone away before I came out of the bar, to look at the blood and teeth that were first discovered by one of my aides.