The Great Unknown

Chapter Two

        Juliana sat on the couch, watching some random TV show. She had just gotten up maybe all but 5 minutes ago. Looking at the clock, she realized Ariana should be coming in about 10 minutes. She sighed, standing from the couch, as she went to sit at the kitchen table with her mom.
"Hey, sweet pea, what are you up to?" Juliana's mother gave a weak smile, clearly trying to hide her grief.
       "Ariana is coming over soon." She replied briefly, watching her mother work in her Sudoku book. She never understood Sudoku, but she remembered when Max would pester Mom into teaching him how to solve it.

       "Mom!" Max whined, "Can you teach me how to do the number thing you always do?" I plugged my ears, hating when he whined to get his way. It was always so annoying. I don't remember why, but I was in a particularly foul mood. I crossed my legs, unplugging my ears, and continued to watch my show.
        "You want to learn Sudoku?" Mom sounded surprised. Turning the TV up I focused on the show while trying to block out Mom and Max. On a commercial, I stood from the couch and went to get some water. Passing the dining table on the way to get a glass, I noticed Max was hard at work on a small 3x3 Sudoku puzzle Mom had handed him. I chuckled a little as it looked like Max was getting frustrated. Getting my water I sit down at the table next to him.
        "What's wrong bud?" I asked, taking a sip of the water. Looking down at his puzzle, he had only 2 numbers written down. 
        "I can't figure out how to solve it. What goes here?" He asked, pointing to a blank space. There was a 1 already in the column and a 2 in the row. The row below the 2 had a 3. Because it was only a 3x3 puzzle, I knew exactly how to do it, but sat back in my chair.
        "Well, if there can only be a 1, 2, and 3 in a column and row at a time, what do you think?" I asked, taking another sip of water. Mom looked at me and kind of smiled.
        "If there's a 3 here, then a 2 has to go here right?" He pointed to the row with the 3, looking to me for validity. I simply nodded. He looked at the puzzle a bit longer and put a 3 into the column. After a few moments of looking at it, he looked proud of himself. "I finished it!" He grinned wide. I rolled my eyes giggling.
        "I knew you could do it!" Mom looked over the puzzle and gave Max a high five. I took another sip of water and walked back to the couch to finish my show.

        Juliana was almost half asleep when the doorbell finally rang. Her eyelids flew open as she quickly stood from the couch, walking to the door to let Ariana in. Ariana smiled, stepping inside. "How are you doing Jul?" She asked, looking at Juliana, then looking past her and waving at her mother.
       "I could be better." She sighed. "Let's go to my room, I have a neat project to show you." They quickly went to Juliana's room as she shut the door. "So I think Max went into the forest. So I want to go in there to get him... Or his body." She didn't want to think of the worst, but she knew the likelihood of him being alive in there was slim to none. But I can hope...
        "Well. Like I said earlier, We can bring in Nathan and set up the rope system..." Ariana trailed off. "Is there even a signal in there?" I shook my head.
        "I don't think there is, Ari. I mean think of how many RC cars and drones get sent in there and then the camera feed cuts out and gets lost forever." The thought scared Julie. "And are we sure we want to involve Nathan?" She asked, looking at Ariana. Nathan and Ari have been dating for 2 years now, and Julie wasn't sure if she wanted him to worry about Ari.
        "He could help us a ton. But I don't know. Would it worry him, do you think?" Ari sat on Julie's bed, looking down and twirling her fingers.
        "I think he would be very concerned about you. I mean, how would you feel if he decided to go into Death's Grove?" Julie sat next to her. "You don't have to go in there with me. You don't have to risk your life just because I'm going in." She spoke softly, suddenly afraid that she was putting not only herself in danger, but also her best friend that she has known since 1st grade.
        "I'm going with you. I'm not going to let you get killed while I just sit here and silently hope you make it out alive. We can get bells, tie them to the ropes, so when we shake the rope violently, he can hear the bells and pull us back." Ari closed her eyes. "We're going to need food, water, light, and some essential survival supplies."
        "Flashlights probably won't work, so we could use the oil lamps from the attic. And we can get a 10 pack of lighters from the corner store so we can start fires if we run out of oil in the lamps." Julie started brainstorming and running scenarios in her head. She was terrified of anything bad that may occur, and she wanted to prepare before they even took a step into that forest.
        "I have some oil lamps at home that I could also bring," Ari stated, looking at the clock. Oil lamps are fairly big though, Julie thought.
        "No, if we bring all these lamps, we'd have a fairly heavy load. I'm thinking two oil lamps and some extra oil for them will be fine enough." Julie looked at her closet door, quickly standing and walking over to it.
        "Jul, what are you doing?" Ari questioned, glancing towards Julie's direction. Julie stood in place for a moment, obviously thinking about something. For a moment she was silent, lost in her own thoughts. "Jul?" 
        "Sorry, I was just thinking about some things," Julie looked back over to her closet. "Do you think we should pack some clothes, just in case?"
        "I think packing clothes would just make our load heavier. We should just stick with the bare essentials that we discussed." Ari shifted her leg. "Besides, if we do, y'know, die, perhaps our parents would want more things of ours as keepsakes."
        "What will we even tell our parents?" Julie let out a long, slow sigh as she went back to sitting on her bed. "We can't tell them we're going into Death's Grove, they'd stop us for sure!" Julie looked over to Ari, who seemed to be deep in thought.
        "We can tell them that we're going on a trip. Just you, me, and Nathan?" Ari suggested, her voice making it seem as though she wasn't very sure about her idea.
        "My parents would question where we're going and why. We'd have to plan an entire trip. Besides, how would that explain our disappearance if we were to go missing?" Julie started fidgeting with her bed sheets, soon falling back and laying on her bed. Staring at the ceiling, she could see all of the glow in the dark stars that her and Max had put up there a few days before he disappeared. 

        "Max, what have you got in your hands?" Julie stared at her younger brother standing in her doorway. She noticed he was carrying some sort of plastic bag filled with plastic stars.
        "They're glow in the dark stars! I was thinking we could hang them up in your room?" Max beamed a smile at her as he stepped into her room. Julie let out a small laugh.
        "Those? In my room? Why?" She snorted. She didn't really want stars on her ceiling, as she thought it sounded tacky and childish. Max moved closer to her until he was standing by her bed.
        "I just thought it'd be cool if we had matching ceilings! Mom said she'd get me some stars next week!" Max sat next to Julie on her bed. He held out the plastic bag, expecting her to grab them from him.
        "Do you really want to have a matching ceiling with me?" Julie sighed, but the more she thought about it, the more she kind of liked the idea.
        Max let out a huge grin and nodded his head eagerly. "I'd love to have something in common with you Juju!" He smiled wider as Julie took the bag from his hands and stared at them in her own.
        "Okay, but on one condition. You have to help me put them up!" Julie stood from her bed, and Max quickly followed. He nodded his head again and watched as Julie started taking the stars out of their bag.

        He never got to put his stars up in his own room... Julie thought somberly. "Earth to Juliana. You alive over there?" She could hear Ari's voice popping into her head. She looked over at her friend who was now staring at her.
        "Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?" Julie felt bad that she had missed what Ari had said, and even wanted to pretend she knew what she had said. I'd better listen though, it was probably something important!
        "I said, we could have Nathan say something about how we got into a boating accident or something, and how he tried to save us, but our bodies were dragged under the water too quickly for him to react." Ari looked down at her lap. "That's the only thing I can think of..." Her voice seemed to trail off, as if she had something more to add. After a moment however, she said nothing more.
        "Why don't we just have him tell the truth? Have him say we went into Death's Grove, and never came out?" Julie knew it was probably better to tell their parents the truth, so they at least knew where the two of them disappeared to.
        "My parents would be so upset with me!" Ari exclaimed, wide eyed.
        "Dude, we'd be dead. It's not like they'd ground us in the afterlife." Julie rolled her eyes, wondering how her friend could possibly care about what her parents would have to say if they disappeared.
        "That's true. I don't know, man. I just don't want my parents to be upset with me when I'm already gone." The comment made Julie laugh a little. Looking at Ari she quickly stifled her laugh and shook her head.
        "Wouldn't it be better that they know the truth, rather than everyone searching the waters, looking for bodies that won't even be there?" Julie sighed, suddenly having second doubts. "Should we even do this? We're literally talking about losing our lives... Just to find my baby brother, who is probably already dead," She let out a slow breath before continuing. "Besides, even if he was still alive in there, he'd have surely starved to death by now... It's been an entire month!"
        "I know Jul. I don't know myself. But I know you. You want to see him come home. You want to give your parents the closure they deserve." Ari wrapped her arms around Julie, and gave her a tight hug. Julie started sobbing into her friend's shoulder, knowing that she was right.
        For a while, they sat there like that, comforting each other, as Julie slowly tried to dry her tears. "I miss him so much, Ari..." She wiped more tears from her face. "It's so hard to be here without him. I was suppose to keep him safe." Ari didn't reply, only gave her a tighter hug.