Part 2 of "The Search"

After a sleep full of nightmares about Karen, I woke up to still find that I was on that beach, that this wasn’t some huge nightmare. I decide one thing is certain, I am alone and I need to stay alive to find those people that I care about. First things first I think, I need to find some water. I glance around my surroundings, and notice that the only thing that would be able to keep these trees alive, would be freshwater, so I begin to hike into the forest dense with trees and different shrubbery.

I find animal tracks unlike any I have seen before, and follow them, hoping they lead me to food or water. As I track the prints, I sense someone…or something following me. I try to shake off this feeling of being followed, but it’s as if I can feel everything living around me, like we were connected in some way, shape, or form. Eventually, the tracks stop at a clearing filled with a lake and freshwater. I immediately walk into the lake laughing joyously at my discovery, when I feel the sensation of being pulled under water.

My eyes blink, and suddenly I am again on the deck of Iglasius talking to my father.

“Seth, if anything ever goes wrong on this boat, follow the stars.”

I lazily flick my blonde hair roll my blue eyes, and say to him, “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” He doesn’t reply, but looks to the ground and sighs.

Suddenly my eyes open, and my mind snaps back to reality, where I am sinking, sinking….sinking. AND SLUUUUURP, I am falling, and then SLAP, I hit solid mud. I think back to days before we set sail and find myself thinking to when I was talking to my 10 year old sister Kaili, about how she had gotten into my stuff.

“KAILI!!!!” I had yelled, “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM!!!!!????”

“Nuthin”, she replied.

Then I had done something I will always regret.

“I HATE YOU, AND I WISH YOU HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!!!!” I had yelled. But what was strange was now I had gotten what I wished for, she and my whole family were gone. Then I was back in reality, my yell still echoing in my ears.

Unnerving sounds surround me as I trudge through the mud, such as animal cries, and wolf howls…or so I thought. I noticed that as I walked forward, the sounds got louder, and louder until eventually they started to sound… human. I walk faster now until I reach the clearing from where the noises were coming from, and find myself face to face with my shipwrecked family tied together with rope by an angry clan of mutated wolfbirds.

(end of part 2)