Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Recollection

The Narrator

"Alice?" Kirt called out with his dry voice. It was painful for him to mouth those words because his throat was parched. He hadn't drunk water or eaten anything for seven days, and his stomach was acidic, screaming at him to grab a bite of anything, even leather or his own flesh. It was the thought of the pain that dissuaded him from biting off his fingers like the characters in the survivor novels he had read.

Alice lay in the same position that she had collapsed three days earlier due to the intense seizures she had experienced. He even had the temptation to go and eat Alice, just like the beast. But, the remnant of civilization in his mind didn't allow him to do that, just like the chains in his leg which hindered his ability to even go near the unconscious or dead girl. She hadn't woken up and there were stains of dried blood and vomit on her face, mouth, nose and on the ground.

The room was saturated with a pungent smell - a fresh smell, unlike the scent of dried feces and urine that was in the room before Alice passed out or probably died. Kirt only wished that the odor did not indicate that Alice was dead. Houseflies were feeding off the bits of dried vomit on the floor.

He broke into tears and another round of deep groans and grunts. Well, he tried to break into tears, but couldn't grieve; for, his throat was raw from dehydration, and there wasn't sufficient water in his body for tears to pour down and moisten his ragged face.

On top of all the suffering that he underwent, was the physical and mental agony of hopelessness. He wanted to die and get over everything that had happened as fast as possible, as painless as possible.

The torturous reality for him, though, was that no matter how much he desired death - to him, a quick escape from his pain - he was not dying, or at least he was dying slower than he wanted to.

"What is taking you so long? Kill me!" he screamed, loudly, his voice breaking as his throat screeched through the torturous pain. "KILL ME!" He wished that the demoness - that creature, poltergeist or whatever it was - would hear him. He wanted it to gladly oblige.

He shook his feet and exerted as much force as he could in trying to break the shackles only to end up hurting his legs before giving up.

Did I just see something? He strained his eyes to look at something close to the wall, covered in cloth, a bit far from his leg.

***

Headmistress Longhorn was restless. She checked her cell phone for the last time Claire Dakota had called her and it was a week ago before the cell phone towers were damaged by the second earthquake. Even after the telephone lines and cellphone towers were repaired in time three days earlier, Claire hadn't called. The police weren't co-operative too. She phoned the number they gave her but no one spoke to her because everyone "was busy." She dialed Claire but her phone was switched off since two days ago.

More than 20 children were stranded in Bolivia and she couldn't tolerate the fact that the police were 'busy.' These are minors here. You can't [Explicit] stop taking this seriously. They have been stuck in this jungle for more than a month!

Captain Felipe hadn't been responding to her either. Irresponsible officers! she thought.

It's no good waiting for them to respond. It's better if I contacted the US Embassy and complain about their negligence and irresponsibility in handling cases involving American minors. I've never seen such a level of irresponsibility and failure to communicate with any police officer in my entire life.

After the browser of the computer in her hotel room, she noticed that there was a new email in her inbox. It was her private email that she gave to the Bolivian Police. She didn't give that email address to anybody else for professional use back in Wyoming. So she thought that it must be the Police. She opened the peculiar new email that had this subject: Anonymous Message. She opened to read the file.

***

"A lake?" Hernanda Wilkinson said when Jackson King, Timothy and she saw a lake, at last, ending their three-day trek through the forest with a vague idea of the direction of the house.

"[Explicit]! We've reached the lake again. We are about 2 days far from the house now!" Timothy muttered. As the trio walked through the jungle losing their way many times, circling around at different instances, they hoped that they would finally reach the house. Instead, they had headed in a completely different direction and ended back at the lake where Timothy, Kirt, Shifaly, and Alice had started their journey towards 'Casa Amada.'

"So this is the lake where you guys found Kirt with the box that had the book about the house inside?" Jackson asked. He looked at Hernanda.

"I don't know, Jack. I wasn't with them. After the raft split, as I told you, I never saw them again until Timothy rescued me from a trap," Hernanda said. "Is this the lake you told me and Jackson about?" she asked Timothy.

"Yeah," Timothy muttered as he tried to think. "Alice and Kirt are [explicit] stuck in a house, about to die any moment, and we've ended up in the wrong place!" Timothy said as he sat on a rock and buried his face in his hands.

Jackson King placed his hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, man. We can still find them out. We've just got to try and remember how y'all found your way to the house from this spot."

"We used a map from a book. But the book and map were in Alice's bag. And she threw off the bag when she was running out of the house. Either that demon has it or it is lying somewhere in the jungle. Without the map, you are not going to find a way to the house. It's too difficult."

"Don't you remember any landmark?" Hernanda asked him.

"No!" Timothy replied. "There were so many, and we had to take many turns at different rocks. You both know how we tried walking in what we thought was the direction of the house but ended up here after losing track of our path many times. There's no [explicit] way we can find our way without a map."

Hernanda sighed but said nothing as she tried to think.

Jackson crossed his arms and was pondering too.

"Timothy?" Hernanda asked, "you said that Kirt found the box under the lake bed, right?"

"Yeah?"

"In some old battle site that was under the lake?"

"Yes. But how's that going to help us?"

"Jackson, can you dive?" Hernanda asked.

Jackson smiled, understanding what Hernanda was thinking about, "I wouldn't have been a state champion for swimming if I couldn't do a little dive in a puddle such as this."

"What?" Timothy said, "I don't understand."