“He had every right to be worried.”
-Ethan
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I felt a slight onset of nausea as a wave of memories came flooding back to me. Breaking into Mr. Higgins’ office, stealing a key, risking my life and almost getting shot by Mr. Grey for Kathryn’s letter. He wanted a key… A key we thought was so insignificant and placed it right into his hands. I should have known that Mr. Grey was a lot smarter than made out to me.
“No, it can’t be,” I sighed, trying to put all of this to logic. “We gave him the key to cabin 203. This is cabin 302. So it’s merely just a… coincidence that it’s the flipped number…”
“Coincidences don’t happen!” Kyle stated. “Something fishy is going on here. He wanted that key for a reason. I don’t know where cabin 203 is, but I do know we are staying in cabin 302 and these things could very well be connected.”
“These numbers are giving me a headache,” Johnny groaned, placing his hands on his head. “Can we just go in and lie down? It’s been a long day.”
“No!” Matt abruptly stood in front of the door. I rolled my eyes at my protective brother, even though this time I didn’t blame him for his caution. He had every right to be worried. “Nobody is going in there until I say so. It’s not safe.”
I knew what he was trying to say is ‘what if Mr. Grey is standing inside with his gun, just waiting for us to come in and shoot us all?’ Because essentially we would literally be placing everything into his hands, so easily. He would barely have to lift a finger. Well, except for that one moment when he pulled the trigger that is.
Though I knew my brother was a tad on the over-protective side, okay maybe more than just a tad, what I did not expect was for him to pull out the gun from his backpack.
“Matt-!” Amy protested, but Matt just shushed her, and she clamped her mouth shut. I think she was scared of the gun in his hand. Heck, we were all scared. Julia seemed the most traumatized by the whole thing, though.
“Trust me on this guys,” Matt sighed. He edged closer to the cabin, gun by his side. My brother has never shot a gun before. That gun would do him no help whatsoever in the case that Mr. Grey was in fact in that cabin.
My brother poked the wooden door, but it didn’t open. Locked. Well, that was actually a good sign. Matt got the key and twisted the door open, jumping inside with his gun at the ready. But there was nobody inside. All that was there was a dark and empty cabin, the creaking of the door echoing in the silence.
“Well, I guess we can rest now, right guys?” Johnny gave a slight laugh and went straight to one of the beds, where he flopped down on his back. The rest of us were still silent, still caught up in the fear of the moment.
“See,” I muttered. “Coincidence. This is cabin 302. Not 203. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” I’m not sure who I was trying to convince more, myself or the others.
“Knock on wood,” Andrew replied back.
“Guys, here,” Julia was the last through the door, gasping for air as she brought in the bag of supplies that we had forgotten outside amid all the drama. “What?” she asked when we all gave her looks. “The bag was really heavy.”
“Should we see what’s inside?” Matt suggested. We all nodded, and he effortlessly lifted the bag onto a bed and started to un-zipper it. Inside it was nothing that I hadn’t expected. “Hot dogs and buns for dinner I guess,” Matt nodded approvingly. “Oh, and look.” He held up a bag of marshmallows.
“S’mores!” Johnny exclaimed, and I laughed at how my tired friend had suddenly become very hyper.
“Then some other junk,” Matt said, “like blankets and all… Oh and lunch for tomorrow. What is this?” He held up some packages with words in some foreign language.
“Whatever it is, I’m not eating it,” I shrugged. “Granola bars looks like a healthier meal than that.”
“It might be poisoned,” Kyle pointed out.
“You would come to that conclusion,” Johnny scoffed, rolling his eyes at Kyle.
Kyle held up his hands. “Hey, don’t blame me. Mr. Grey obviously knows about this trip, he could have poisoned this food. It’d be a great way to get rid of us!”
“But not as satisfying as shooting us with a gun,” Amy contemplated.
“Hmm, she has a point.”
“Yeah, but that would take too long.”
“We have a gun too. So he’s sorta out-numbered.”
“We don’t know how to use the gun, Johnny…”
“Good point.”
“Guys!” Julia exclaimed. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Don’t give Mr. Grey any ideas. He might be listening to us at this very moment.”
“If he was listening to us, then he’s probably going to come shoot us any second,” Kyle said slowly. “So either way it doesn’t really matter.”
“O-kay, moving on,” Matt coughed. “Let’s put aside all conversation pertaining to Mr. Grey, shall we? Let’s just try and enjoy the night.”
“Like that’s gonna happen,” Andrew muttered.
“Hey,” Matt snapped, pointing a finger at Andrew, “no comments from the peanut gallery.”
It was obvious everybody was on edge. We were all paranoid about Mr. Grey, some wanting to talk about it while others weren’t so keen. In my opinion, I should have been acting the most terrified out of all of us. I was the one who had been personally targeted and tortured by the teacher. Yet, I didn’t say much because displaying emotions wasn’t really my thing to do.
I’ll admit, I was absolutely terrified. I wanted to go back to school and hide under the covers in my cabin. I didn’t want the recurring memories of the night of the kidnapping to flash into my head every time somebody mentioned his name. The knife. Blood. Screams. It was all a painful pile of thoughts that kept on building. And I knew that nobody else would get that. Nobody else knew what I was going through, and I sure hoped they would never have to know. Mr. Grey may seem scary, but that word won’t even begin to explain the feelings of terror he can inflict on a person. None of the others knew what they were talking about. Mr. Grey was smart, vindictive, and just pure evil. And he had a way of being everywhere.
“Yo Ethan, you okay?” Johnny waved a hand in front of my face.
I snapped out of it and gave my friend a sure smile. “Yeah, just fine. When are we gonna eat?” I clapped my hands together and acted like food was the biggest thing on my mind. It was a great way to get my thoughts off of other things, but it couldn’t block off the memories completely. Nothing could, those memories would always be embedded in my brain.
Gosh I need counseling.
If only I was allowed to tell people… But I couldn’t.
“We have to find our first object,” Kyle grabbed the map and began scanning it. “Says here that it’s some sort of instruction manual… Can be found ‘where beauty from the sun and music from the wind, combine as one until the light has thinned.’
“What the hell is that supposed to mean!?” Amy asked, exasperated.
“Even I have no clue,” Kyle sagged his shoulders in defeat. “Beauty from the sun...”
I realized that staying inside wasn’t going to help us find something relevant to nature, so I stepped out of the cabin and decided to take a look around. Johnny must have realized what I was doing, because he followed me out the door.
“Hey man, you sure you’re okay?” he asked me, his face filled with worry.
“Johnny, don’t worry about me.” I cracked a smile. “I think you should be worrying about your sister there.” We both turned our heads and looked back through the door, where Amy and Andrew were having yet another argument about something.
“Those two…” he shook his head. “Better than cable.”
“So do you have any idea what that riddle means?” I asked him.
“Not a clue. You?”
“Nada.” I looked up for the sun, realizing it had set without me even noticing. “Until the light has thinned… Maybe that means until the sun has set?”
“But what about it?” Johnny pressed. “Light, sun, beauty…”
I heard a tinkle of bells as the wind blew that made me realize something. “Music.”
Both Johnny and I looked at each other, not having to say what it was out loud. We both knew the answer. Rushing over to the back of the cabin, we found exactly what we were looking for.
“This must be it,” Johnny said. “A wind chime. The wind makes the music, and the light from the sun catches to create the beauty.”
“But where could the instructions be?” I wondered. Suddenly, I had an idea. “Here, lift me up.”
“If you say so.” Johnny sounded a bit skeptical, but let me climb onto his shoulders so I could reach the wind chime.
I took it down from the hook, and then started observing the piece of wood that it was hanging from. I felt around and found a false board, pushing it up to reveal an instruction manual. I grabbed it and hopped down from Johnny’s shoulders. I held up the manual in victory.
“Let’s go show the others!” Johnny said excitedly, as we both took off for the other side and flew into the room.
“Guess what we have,” I said in a sing-song voice, my spirits temporarily lifted from our little victory.
“How did you guys find that!?” Kyle exclaimed, surprised that we had actually outsmarted him for once. And I’ll admit, it felt really great.
“Our secret,” Johnny smiled mischievously.
“Doesn’t matter how, what is it?” Matt didn’t seem like he wanted to get hung up on the little details. It was obvious how on-edge he was.
“It’s…” I looked it over, the manual was only three pages all together. “An instruction manual on how to build a raft.”
“A raft?” Julia sighed. “Of all things, a raft?”
“Looks like we are going to have to build. And go in water.” My brother didn’t look too happy about either of those things. “Oh-kay then. Well, thank you Ethan and Johnny for finding the manual. Can I see it? I just want to see how hard it will be to build.”
“Sure.” I handed it to Matt. “Wind-chime by the way.”
“Wind-chime!” Kyle exclaimed. “A wind-chime!? I could of gotten that, if you have just given me a couple more minutes…” I laughed at my friend, amused by his aggravation in all if this. “So how easy is the raft? Can I see the manual?”
“Pretty easy.” Matt obliged and handed over the manual to Kyle, not wanting to upset him any further. “Just ya know, a typical raft you build on an every-day basis. Yup.”
“Oh yeah, I do that all the time,” Amy smirked. “Let me get some wood I keep handy for raft emergencies. Yes.”
Kyle, who was looking at the manual, said “I sure hope they don’t make all seven of us sit on the one raft. The weight and buoyancy of the raft just doesn’t add up and, well, we would all sink.”
“You mean we’re too heavy?” Johnny mused. “Good to know.”
“Soo… What should we do now?”
I knew where this was going…
“Dinner?” Johnny asked his sister hopefully.
Amy sighed, but gave him a grin. "I guess, let's go make a fire!"
Making a fire turned out to be a somewhat interesting task. Johnny, Kyle, and I were in charge of finding some wood while the others cleared a space for the fire and prepared stuff. Why the asked the littlest kids of the group to collect wood, it beats me. I think it was just a reason to get us away so they could talk.
Whatever.
While looking for wood, I realized how unhelpful survival skills were.
“Here's some wood!” Johnny held up a large piece.
“Johnny, that would has moss on it. Seriously, we learned this in class.”
“Okay, Kyle, I see how it is. Well-”
“That's damp. Won't work.”
“Hmph.”
After a while, we ended up collecting enough wood that seemed up to ‘Kyle standard.’ We let the others build the fire while we laid out some blankets and collapsed on them. I was exhausted after a whole day of hiking. I felt myself dozing in and out of sleep as the fire began to start. I must of completely passed out when the next thing I hear is a scream followed by “it’s on fire!”
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Holaaa. Soo, what do you guys think is on fire(; Oh and who do you think of the wind chime thing? Gahh I'm not good at coming up with riddles.
So yeah, that's it for now. Next chapter is an Amy's POV. SEVEN votes and I'll upload it Friday. Otherwise Monday...................................................yup.
Any of you watch the TCA's last night?
Hankuna Matata. Peace out.
xx
Ella
Comment, vote, fan<3
Btw I have like a BIG obsession with the show Psych. Blame that show for taking away from all of my writing time. I just can't stop watching it... It's a detective ish show, but also comedy. Epicness<3(: