Stranded Together

Chapter 5

A.N. Screw my updating schedule. I'll update when I update. 😘 Happy Valentine's Day!

The other kids had found a spacious cave at the foot of the mountain, and they were all arranged inside it, either sitting on their suitcases, or leaning against the wall. When Danny, Cammy and Sam entered, their heads went up, but soon went down.

Cammy walked over to where Alex was. She couldn't see Sarah, and hoped her friend knew where she was.

The brown-haired girl told her she had gone exploring. "I think she needed some time to herself. Nothing much has happened here; the cave was easy to find, so that was over quickly. I think we just all need some space."

Cammy agreed. The mood ever since she had entered the cave was solemn, and everyone was quiet, except for the twins, who never said much to begin with.

Soon after the storm started. The rain pelted down, and you could hear the thunder in the distance. It was one of the worst storms they had ever heard, the kind that made you want to crawl under your covers, and hide there until morning. Cammy, not being able to handle the silence, decided to wander.

The cave they were in was one of many, a whole labyrinth of rocky hallways. Cammy wandered, being careful not to get lost. Suddenly, she heard a sound, like someone slipping.

"Who's there?" Cammy said, apprehension crawling into her voice. There was no sound, then suddenly the pattering of feet, like someone was running away from her.

"Hey, come back!" Cammy yelled, and followed the noise. At one point, she thought she was catching up to the noise, because it was right around the corner, but when she rounded the corner, no one was there. Confused, she kept going, then ran smack dab into Sarah!

Sarah yelped, then slipped. Cammy helped her up, noting that the sound of Sarah slipping was very different then the noise she had heard.

"What are you doing here?" Cammy asked her friend.

"I went to explore, took a couple wrong turns, and then ended up here." Sarah gestured to the cave they were in. "I tried to figure out which way led back to the rest of you, when I heard a noise, like someone coming towards here. So, I went towards it, but then you came around the corner like a lightning bolt!"

"I heard a noise, too." Cammy told her friend how she had heard someone fall, then
someone running away from her, but finding no one.

Sarah looked around warily, as if this mysterious figure was still around. Then, she looked at Cammy. "I been meaning to talk to you. I've been treating you wrong. We're all allowed to have our secrets, and I trust that what you're keeping from me is important, otherwise you would tell me. That shouldn't stop us from being friends."

Cammy smiled. She was glad Sarah had agreed to be her friend again. Maybe, one day, she would tell Sarah and Alex about Lola. But not while Sam had power over her.

"Thanks. Now," Cammy stated, turning around, "We need to find a way out."

All of a sudden they heard a noise coming from where Cammy had appeared. They went towards it, and heard the sound again, only farther away. They moved forward. When they reached where it was coming from, it moved farther away again!

After 5 or so minutes of doing this, the noise stopped. Cammy and Sarah rounded the corner, and suddenly they were back at the cave where all the other kids were.

Alex stood up and went over to them. Cammy and Sarah looked at each other, deciding to not to tell Alex what they had realized.

Someone else was on the island.

Said someone watched as the girl approached her friends, who had just returned from almost the middle of the cave. She shook her head. They would have never gotten out if she hadn't helped them, banging a rock on the floor of the second layer of the cave maze.
But why did she help them? She tried to convince herself that if she didn't, they would find her stash of food, and take it, but she knew that wasn't the real reason. She felt sorry for them. When she had been left on the island, a winner of a contest, of which the prize was a stay at the hotel, she had no one to show her what to do. She had survived the storms, and the animals, without anyone finding out about her.
At least, until she had slipped, and alerted the brown-blonde girl that there was someone else there. It wasn't her fault. She had come in from the rain, and her feet were slippery. And brown-blonde was good at noticing details. She was fast, too. Almost as fast as the wild dogs that first chased her when she arrived on the island.
Luckily brown-blonde didn't realize that the level of caves they were on was the bottom layer of many, all the way up the mountain. No one knew how high it went, not even the girl watching the group of kids wait out the storm.
She left her ledge, and retreated back to the small cave she used as her home. Maybe she would see these kids again. Maybe she would help them, and become friends with them. Maybe.