Storell jumped back over the bush that separated the group from the dead beast. She looked over to Derrin and Xecure. They sat huddled near the crevice they jumped into moments before the beast attacked them. They looked fine. Slowly, she turned to face Vesuvius. He stood over the beast, silently examining it.
Storell caught Brady trying to mouth something to her, but she didn’t understand. Something about Vesuvius gave her the creeps. It wasn’t the grunge dress up – she had dealt with punks and emo-goths of all sorts back at her previous school. It was more due to his silent demeanor, his shifty eyes that aroused suspicion with every move. The way he had hidden something from his locker in the circular room had bothered her, and now she realized why. “What happened?” Storell asked. “How did you kill this thing?”
Vesuvius’s eyes slowly shifted to her. His cold lips drew a sharp, stark smile. “With this,” he said as he pulled the gun from under his shirt.
The others gave out varying reactions from audible gasps to screams. “Storell!” Brady shouted. “Watch out!”
Vesuvius looked at the others, grunted slightly, and put the gun away. He walked away from the dead beast, heading towards the part of the forest he had sprung from, away from the others. “Wait! Vesuvius!” Storell shouted.
He stopped briefly to turn around and show his cold, emotionless face to her.
“Shouldn’t we stick together? We could… use your protection,” Storell said. She could hear Brady groan from behind. She could tell the others did not want the punk boy around. However, he did just save them from being the afternoon snack of some disgusting monster. He did have feelings after all, even if they fit on the top of a needle.
Vesuvius turned away. “Sorry,” he said. “I prefer being by myself.” He scratched the back of his neck and headed his separate way.
Storell sighed. “Okay, good luck then!” she shouted.
Vesuvius made no acknowledge back to her.
*
After roughly an hour, the group found themselves near a river. “Water! I’m so thirsty!” Cassidy said out loud. She knelt down near the river bank and doused her hands in the stream.
“Is that real water?” Brady asked.
Storell looked around the group. Everyone except Cassidy seemed hesitant to drink the river water. “Cassidy, are you sure it’s safe to drink?” Storell asked. “I mean, I’m sure that’s real water, but what if there’s like, a dead animal in the river upstream?”
“Yeah, ever see the movie Cabin Fever? Ich. I stopped drinking tap water after seeing that,” Brady said.
“Oh you guys are so paranoid,” Lettiere said as she walked towards the river bank to join Cassidy. “I actually did an essay on freshwater rivers and the safety of drinking from them in 8th grade. All you have to do is check for a few indicators and if they all pass, it’s fine.”
Lettiere grabbed the back of her pleated skirt and knelt down at the edge of the river and examined the water. She bent over to get a closer look, oblivious to the people behind her.
Xecure and Brady both blushed. “They’re striped,” Xecure whispered to his friend.
“Oh you guys,” Earchon Franche, who was in earshot of the two, muttered as she instinctively covered herself even though the two boys ignored her.
Lettiere, unaware of what had just transpired, got up. She looked towards the left. “There’s a waterfall over there!” she shouted to the group.
The river went upstream from that direction. That meant the waterfall came from a mountain or high cliffs. “There might be a spring there,” Storell said. “We should check it out.”
*
The group reached the source of the stream. Water fell from a large rocky plateau. Directly below the plateau, behind the waterfall, there was a grassy enclave, with some burnt wooden logs lying about. Odd colored flowers dotted the edges of the enclave. The confused looks on Xecure and Lettiere’s faces when they examined the flora gave Storell the impression that the plants definitely did not exist on Earth.
“Hey,” Cassidy said. “This looks like the remnants of a camp,” she said.
“How can you tell?” Storell asked.
“The burnt logs,” Cassidy said as she pointed to the charred remains. “Someone lit a fire here. Look!” she shouted as she pointed to a small, glinting object in the grass.
Lettiere walked over to and picked it up. “It’s a zippo lighter,” she said.
“A lighter?” Earchon Franche said.
“I bet it’s Ves’s,” Brady said.
“Are you saying he came all the way here, lit a fire, and then wandered off? It’s only been a couple hours, I don’t think he did this,” Storell said. No, someone else has been here before their group.
“Wait wait wait,” Earchon Franche said, interrupting the others from their speculation. “Montgomery.”
“Montgomery?” Brady asked.
“She’s a smoker. Maybe it was in her locker. Maybe she used it to light the fire. Maybe she’s around here!” Earchon Franche said. She dropped to her knees and started looking through the grass. “A cigarette butt!” she said as she picked one up. She stood up and cupped her hands in front of her mouth to accent her voice. “Montgomery!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
“I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t believe she was here recently,” Cassidy said. “The logs are a bit damp and there’s a layer of dust on them.”
Earchon Franche ignored the girl and ran to Storell, grabbing her hand. “Storell, let’s go look for her, please?”
“Go look for her yourself,” Brady said. “We’re all tired and need some rest. And I’m freakin’ hungry.” Brady turned to stare at Xecure who had a hand in a box of cereal.
Storell did nothing but stare back at the girl. Deep down she felt like she should help the girl out, but she felt agreement with Brady. They had been walking through a dense forest for the last two hours. She needed to rest. “Why don’t we look for her after we rest for a bit?” she said to her.
Earchon Franche backed away from her and looked down at the ground. “Oh, oh right…”
*
The sky illuminated red. Evening approached in this strange, quiet world.
The group had set up a makeshift camp in the enclave, with Lettiere and Earchon Franche sharing towels from their lockers with everyone for something to sit on. Cassidy had filled a plastic bag with water from the stream and set up a crude water filter using rocks and the sand bed. Xecure, sitting atop the branch of a tree, played with his game system.
Storell stood near the waterfall, at the center of the enclave, and looked all around her.
She felt queasy and feverish. She blamed this sickening feeling on the stress of coping with surviving in a strange new world and the death of her boyfriend, Paul. Some of the others had tried to console her on the loss, but she had pushed them away. Talking about it would not help.
Storell sat down and thought hard about what exactly occurred before they found themselves here. Her memory was a bit hazy. She could not remember much of the details of the last two days prior to awakening in the white circular room. Paul had mentioned someone named Bennett moments before he died. Who was Bennett again?
Storell saw Brady walking towards her. “Hey,” he said. “You look like you could use some company.”
Storell averted her eyes from him. “My mood hasn’t changed since… what happened earlier…”
Brady sat down next to her. “I know what you’re thinking about. I’m thinking about it too.”
Storell turned to face him. “Oh?” she said.
“You’re thinking that, maybe, just maybe, this is a dream, and we’re still in a coma in that room, right?” Brady said.
Storell shook her head. She knew better than to think that this was a dream. No, everything that had happened so far was real. She could feel it. “Brady… Who is Bennett?” she said.
Brady’s face contorted in a grimace. He sighed and paused, before finally speaking. “Bennett huh…”
…
