Creature

Discovering the Dark

"Smoke? Like from a fire" Carter worries. Scott sarcastically replied, "No smoke from water. YES! Smoke from a fire." Attempting to calm any distress that begins to grow, Melissa adds, "I don't hear any screaming child." "Maybe it's because they're already dead" I whisper to myself. "Now Thomas! Don't think such harsh thoughts" spits Mom. Oops, so much for whispering to myself. "We just need to wait till they get closer to here to get a better look at what we are viewing. As of right now, I am going to retrieve a few apples from home to bring back here for them. Don't do anything stupid boys." Then with that, she was off.

"What do you guys think is happening," I ask. "Not sure, but as your mother said. Not much we can do when the ship is way out there and we're over here" Scott includes. "So what DO we do, for the time being," questions Carter. With no reply from anyone on an idea, we just decided to sit on the dock in silence, with our own thoughts bouncing around in our skulls a thousand miles a minute.

After about two hours had passed, the ship that once was producing black smoke, had come close enough to finally be docked but is no longer exhaling toxic smoke. Once it touched the dock, no one came off the ship to tie it, which was more than not. strange. Looking at each other, we each got up and headed towards the ship to retrieve the ropes and to tie it to the dock. When we finished tieing it, Mom had returned with a hand-woven basket of red and green apples. She was smiling, expecting to see adults, but to no avail, she only saw us three children. Her smile fading fairly quickly, she questions, "Where is everyone?" Scott, Carter, and I each exchange a look of worry.

 "We uh...we aren't sure. No one came down to tie the ship to the dock, so we did it ourselves. Not as easy as we thought it'd be" Scott said with a forced chuckle, trying to cover up the sound of fear rising up from his throat. "Well, that is most unnatural. Let me go have a look," and with that Melissa slowly, but surely, walks towards the ship and reaches for the rope to pull down the opening to it. Before she could even take one step onto it, we each were hit with a stench that could make you wish you had no nose. The only one who was familiar with the scent was the Healer, and she knew that there was no way to mask that strong of a stench. No matter how hard you tried.