“There sure are a lot of trees out here that can conceal our path. The police probably won’t be able to find us if we were all the way out here.”
“Stop talking about people trying to find us! Maybe if we stop thinking about it, then nothing will happ—“
“GET DOWN!!!” screamed Stephen as he tackled me into a bush.
“What are you--?” But before I could finish the sentence, several search lights appeared on the ground, barely visible to the light of the sun. The beating of the helicopters wings struck the air, putting off some of the leaves from the trees. There were some voices I could hear from the outskirts.
“I think they might have gone this way,” I could hear an officer say in the distance. I looked up to see a soldier clad in a white uniform. He stalked across the premise of the clearing.
“What do we do?!’ I whispered. I was freaking out.
“Uhhhh…Lexi?” said Stephen.
“Do you have any ideas, you moron,” I whispered.
“Moron? How am I the moron! Just look to your left and you’ll see what I’m talking about!” The buzzing sound was too high. Before either of us knew it, a hornet flew in my face.
“Ah, get it off!” I whispered, causing my body to shake.
“I think I detected movement!” said one of the officers.
Then the swarm came.
“AHHHHH! GET US OUT OF HERE!!!!!” cried all the officers. At one point, all of them were walking soldiers stalking the entire premise. Now they were raving lunatics running in all directions.
“Come on, Lexi!” cried Stephen. Together with our hands locked as one, we dashed through the forest and the trees that were heading towards us. Our feet never stopped. All we cared was getting out of there.
“How—are—you (pant)?” Stephen sat on the ground staring at the sun blazing in his face. “Think—we—lost (pant, pant, pant) them?” We both fainted. One on my leg and another on his arm, there was a bleeding welt the size of a pimple.
***
There was no way we lost the hornets. I’m not really sure how I flickered back and forth between being conscious and not.
When I woke up, I was lying on somebody’s bed. In the backdrop a clock was ticking. The first thing I realized: I was alone.
“Stephen,” I said to myself. Where was he anyway? Well, as far as I was concerned, I could care less. In the middle of a thought-provoking conversation, he tackled me, then felt the need to pull me out of the way and into the bushes. What a great form of protecting a woman!
“Hey, my body is clean. It doesn’t have any leaves or anything like that,” I said, turning my hands around.
“Are you quite awake?” I heard a voice come down the hallway. My door was creaked open. My hearts started to pound. I was caught, wasn’t I? I was literally caught and they decided to take me into custody. Oh great! I’m screwed. This hospitable house—it’s probably nothing more than a mere ruse in order to attempt to brainwash me into thinking that I am inside of their clutches.
“Now, hold up there!” the man said, like he was reading my mind. “I just want to make sure that you are all safe and sound.” I smelled a bowl of simmering soup coming in from the room.
“Do you know where my friend Stephen is?” I asked.
“Stephen? Haven’t heard of a Stephen,” the man said. He put turnips in the soup. The taste caused my entire mouth to light up. I gorged down the soup with a lot of eagerness. It tasted so yummy to my stomach, for I was starving.
“Thank you for the food, kind sir,” I said as I handed the plate back to him. He winked at me.
“Now, your old friend is probably somewhere in the other room.”
“Oh GREAT!” I exclaimed as I started to race out of my bed and go to the other room. I was just glad that I was not alone in some old man’s house.
“Wake up! Wake up!” I said to Stephen. He was sleeping so soundly in the middle of the bed. It was almost as if he didn’t seem to mind what was going on around him. He felt safe, not afraid at all of what could possibly approach him. I backed away from his room and closed the door. How I could trust this kind of guy I really did not know.
***
“Good morning! Well, I’ve got some breakfast on the table, and I’ve also designed quite a bit of different happy plates for you to enjoy!” I took my seat at the center of the table. The plate was decorated with taffy-paper cut into several strips surrounding the circumference of the plate.
At the center of the plate was a pancake. “Go on. Eat it,” he said. I stabbed my fork into the pancake. The syrup oozed off the surface of the pancake.
I took a bite out of it. I took more bites and more and more—to the point I was scarfing the entire pancake into my mouth.
“That’s great that someone loves my cooking!” the porkly man said. His smile gave me some serious Heebie-jeebies, for it sent tendrils through my stomach like a knife had just been pierced through. I took another bite of my pancake. The desires were just so irresistible.
“Great, tastes good, eh?” he said. Together we sat as one, reclining at the table. “You like computer games?” he asked. “Well, it looks like you might want to take a break from all this crap I throw at you.” He stretched himself out. “Do you want to watch some videos?”
“Sure,” I said. It had been so long since I had last relaxed before.
“HELLO, I AM JUST A PANCKAKE!” the video said.
***
“RAIKU! WHAT THE FLIPPITY FLIP ARE YOU DOING!” cried the character Sora. I was sitting in the middle of the computer, dazed—very relaxed. I had never felt like this before. All this time taking all the classes with the psychologists and how boring everything was.
“DON”T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE TO JUST A PANCAKE!” the voice at the end said.
“Don’t.” The voice inside my head rang with a warning. I lowered my hand away from the mouse, my eyes figuring out how I had gotten here.
“All done watching the tube I see!” the man said. He grabbed my sides like he was going to carry me. I slapped his hands away.
“Now come here you! Come here!” he said. I struggled. I knocked the chair over and prepared to fight. “So that wasn’t enough to knock you over? Well, I’m going to have to do it the hard way then!” He picked me up and threw me into a room. Easy as that.
**487Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh6v3Zw99Vd
I opened my eyes to see Stephen lying in his bed.
“Stephen, wake up!” I cried, but Stephen continued sleeping within his comatose state.
“Come on, Stephen,” I said. I grabbed him and started pulling him out of the covers of his bed. I pulled him over my shoulder and tried messing with the door handle.
Locked.
“Let me out! Let me out!” I cried as I also tried to carry the weight of Stephen’s body.
“Trying to get out I see! Good luck with that!” I turned to see my attacker. A knife was in his hand, ready to block me from ever getting out.
“You’re with them, aren’t you?”
“Not sure who you’re talking about lady, but I won’t mind fresh mortal blood for me.”
“Ok! Stop!” I said, holding up my hands. Stephen’s limp body sagged as I dropped to the ground. “What is it that you want?”
“I just need a proper human sacrifice,” he said. “That was all. I figure that your friend over there was the perfect candidate for something like that. I guess now you surrender. I s’ppose this is going to be a lot easier than I thought.”
**
Leading us outside, he showed where the cave was. Sand started muffling out of the ceiling.
“Just trust me, ok?” he said as he pushed me inside with his gun. Of course. I shoved him into the cave before running off myself.
“What the—“ he cried at the top of his lungs, but the cave was too much for him. Sand started to pile up on top of him. I carried Stephen’s limp body as I made my way out of the clearing.
“Wait! I fed you! I—“
“What else did you do?” I asked. The voice was silent as I carried Stephen’s limp body across the rest of the ground.
“You owe me one,” I grunted to the unconscious Stephen, but for once, I felt like I was actually getting along with him.
***
“Wake up,” I said as I sat near a creak and splashed water in his face. He shook his face with disbelief as his senses started to return to him.
“What?”
“We got hijacked somewhere along the road,” I said. “Now come on, I don’t think we have a lot of time left.”
“No, we’ve got plenty,” he said. “Those hornets sure as hell probably fucked those guys over.” He sat on a tree and closed his eyes.
“Listen, Stephen, this is not funny. Who knows what will happen if we get sent back there.” I looked into the sky. “It could be worse than I know.”
“Yeah, well, I also kind of want to just rest up. I’m tired after all that.”
“But you just took a long nap?” He didn’t seem to hear me as he fell asleep. I couldn’t help but feel like I too wanted to wander off into a deep sleep. “Ok,” I said, yawning. “I’m kind of tired myself. If I were to fight my way through all this crap, then I guess it might not be so bad.” So both of us fell asleep underneath the Sycamore Tree.
***
“Wait, where am I?” I asked myself as I got up from the ground and started surveying my surroundings. In front of me, I could see a horde of dancing elephants. Their legs swished back and forth that it was mesmerizing just watching them swish their legs back and forth.
They were coming at me. Towards me.
I jumped out of the way, but the elephants danced into the lava underneath me. Their arms slowed as they singed in the stinging lava. Their trunks let out an ear-piercing scream as they burned up within the lava below. I gulped. The hot air made me faint. I started to feel dazed and drowsy. Someone wake me, I thought.
Lexi, Lexi…
“Lexi!” I jumped at my name. It was still night out. Stephen was hugging his legs with his arms like he was really scared about the forest.
“Lexi, you might not believe me for saying this (since I did this to myself), but I want to go home.”
“What do you mean?”
“Back at the hospital. Maybe I felt miserable there, but at least it was something.”
“Yeah, the doctors are probably really worried.”
“To be honest, I’m starting to feel like I don’t really want to go out and run anymore. It just all feels really stressful!” He buried his face in his legs. “God, how did I ever come this far?”
“No worries,” I said. It was all that I could figure out to say. A shooting star dazzled across the sky.
“A shooting star! Make a wish!” I cried.
“What, that stuff is childish?” Stephen said. “Even I don’t believe in that crap!”
“But maybe it will make you feel better,” I said.
“Ok, I wish we were back at home.” He opened and closed his eyes like he was expecting it to happen in this minute.
“What’s the point if it is never going to happen?”
“Who knows? Maybe it will,” I said. “Maybe we will find a safe place.”
“You’re not truly certain about that,” Stephen said. “Don’t lie to me. Be honest.”
“Ok, you are probably the dumbest guy I have ever met to run off like that.”
“So then why did you bother running after me?” he asked. I shrugged my shoulders.
“You know, I’m not sure if I can quite pinpoint that,” I replied, totally unsure.
***
Stirring several times, I just couldn’t sleep. I looked into the satchel of Stephen’s pocket. There I pulled out a picture.
A small degree of shouting could be heard in the distance. I perked my ear.
“Stephen,” I said, shaking him. “Stephen, I think we need to—“ But I couldn’t finish my sentence. The shouting kept coming closer and closer. It was then that I wondered where we had ended up.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and forced onto another’s.
“What?” Stephen said as he got knocked across the head with a club. His body crumpled onto the ground, barely conscious. The tip of the staff planted on the boy’s jaw, the main bad guy looked at me with a menacing glare as if he was trying to understand why two children had for whatever reason stumbled upon his turf.
***
“Show me,” the main chief said as he handed me a little drum with a pair of sticks. I thought of the drummer in the band. I started playing a rhythm.
The numerous villagers looked on with a lot of interest inside of their faces.
“Chee cha chee,” the villager said as if he was trying to mimic me. For once, all seemed well. For once I thought that everything was at peace.
Until I learned my enemies were still around.
***
Bombs flew down from the sky. I knew that this wasn’t going to be a pretty sight.
“AUGH!” cried the chief as he started running towards the front of the village. Stephen and I escaped with the last of our lives.
***
“Sometimes…I wonder if we did all of this for nothing,” I said as I kicked some sand underneath my feet. Stephen looked at me with those eyes—those eyes that told me that he too was confused. Immediately I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for another whine from his mouth.
“I don’t understand where we are going,” he said. Neither were any of us really making any sense. He slumped to the ground, all of his residue energy having been sapped away. Dragging him over to a creak, I placed a cup of water into my hands and slipped it into his mouth.
“Unh (cough) what…?”
“I’m going to go do something really fast,” I said as I left him at the foot of one of the rocks and started to run towards the street.
I heard no shout as I made my way towards the street.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
