Preknowings: Success Always Fails (PUBLISHED ON AMAZON)

Captured

The sky turned gray and it started to rain lightly. More men with guns kept coming, searching around trees and under shrubbery. The tension around us seemed to thicken. Apparently, it was too much for Pauline. Suddenly, she lifted her grappling hook gun and aimed it for an even higher branch in the tree across from ours. "What are you doing?" I asked frantically but quietly. "You're going to get us caught!" "I can't stand it anymore," she whispered back, "We're getting out of here." She shot the hook and tugged on the cord. It held.

Pauline handed the gun to me. I hooked the handle onto my belt loop and held onto the cord. Next, Pauline grabbed the cord. Ralph jumped onto the cord and held on as well. My other arm wrapped around Pauline's waist and tightly grasped the cord too. "Everyone ready?" I whispered loudly over the patter of rain on mud. Pauline and Ralph nodded. Just as I pushed off the limb into the air, I thought to myself, this is just like my dream! Oh no. I thought we'd actually make it. We had a meter left to go to reach the branch we aimed for. But I knew it was too good to be true. At first we were jerked down a bit, then we completely fell. It was approximately twenty feet to the ground. Panic filled me. They were going to capture us and kill us. We landed with a thump. All of the Chinese men stopped at what they were doing. Silence filled the air, confused hesitation. Suddenly, loud menacing shouts could be heard all around from the throats of the men. In a split second, we were being crowded by sweaty men. They poked and prodded us with their large, dirty hands and fingers.

Our backpacks were ripped off our shoulders and we were lifted up off of the ground. Then we were harshly slung over muscular shoulders. Pauline and I kicked, screamed, and protested, but nothing worked. These men were too strong and heartless. And in no mood to negotiate. Ralph couldn't do anything due to his extremely short arms and legs and fat body.

Despite the harsh, bumpy ride, I fell asleep on a stranger's shoulder in an unfamiliar place where I didn't belong. It was a dreamless sleep. I was so exhausted from the night before and the struggle. In a sea of blackness I thought to myself, the second day. The second day of an immensly important mission, we were captured. Already captured by the enemy! Why did I even agree to doing this in the first place? Because my life was boring before. Just status quo. I needed a change. I needed to do something different. But look where we are now. This is my fault. All my fault. We were so weak. A minute later, I became unaware of what I was thinking, and ignored everything my senses told me. My mind drifted to another dream. This time, Pauline and I were on top of a stone structure. It was very long, like a bridge. And tall too. We were led and followed by men, all wearing the same kind of uniform.

Finally, we were led through a doorway into a dark room. There was another doorway leading out the other side of the room as well. The men stopped walking. One of them lifted up four stones out of the floor. There were old wooden stairs leading down to whatever lay beyond here. It looked pitch black down there. Another man came out of line, looked at us fiercly, and rudely pointed at the hole. He wanted us to go down there. I shook my head no. The man kept pointing. We went. We looked up out of the hole. The men were out of sight, then came back and threw our backpacks down angrily as well. Then, the hole was sealed. It was pitch black down there. Finally, I woke up.

I knew something was wrong. These dreams I'd been having. They predicted the future very accurately. All three of them. I was scared now. The first dream happened right before Ralph showed up in my school's bathroom. I think they're giving me warnings about what might happen in the future. I put the thought out of my mind and looked at my surroundings. It was dark here. I put my hand on the wall to my left. Wood. I felt to my right. A body. A body?! "Aaahhh!" I shouted, thinking it was dead. It turned out to be Pauline. And she was alive. She woke up and asked what was wrong. "Oh." I replied, "I thought you were a dead person. The only way we could barely see each other was from light shining through a tiny hole in the wall. About the size of a baby's fist. "I have to go to the bathroom." I said worriedly. "Go out the hole." Pauline suggested. "No." I argued, "Why would I want to go out the hole?" "Because we wouldn't want your 'fluids' splashing around in here." It was true. I didn't really feel like getting wet right now. So, I listened to Pauline. Thankfully, she turned away during the process.

After that, Pauline said proudly, "Hey! There's another hole over here! It's bigger! I was sitting on it for the whole time!" "Hey," I said, "You could've told me before....that!" I gestured toward the tiny hole. "Sorry!" Pauline replied remorselessly. "Where are we anyway?" I asked. "In a big wooden crate." She answered. "I know that, but what's outside the crate?" Pauline made a big show of leaning her face toward her 'bigger hole.' "Looks like we're just above a body of water." I could tell we were moving slowly. I was getting claustrophobic in there. Shakily, I kneeled on the wood and started whacking the heck out of the sides. "Help!" I screamed. Pauline joined in. Soon, we stopped to catch our breath. Something hard hit the outside of the box. "Shut up!" A harsh voice shrieked at us. I was startled to hear a different voice. After a while, the waves became choppy and bumpier than they'd been a few minutes before. I got seasick and had to puke out of Pauline's 'big hole' twice, having to lean over her. Along with that, my butt was completely numb from sitting on the wood all this time. "Ugh." I moaned. "Do you need to again?" Pauline asked, "'Cause I'm ready to attempt moving again. I shook my head. "I'm just so bored and my whole body is stiff and aches." "Tell me about it," A comfortingly familiar voice said. "Ralph!" Pauline and I said simultaneously. We hadn't noticed Ralph had been there the whole time. Strangely, he'd been heavily duct taped to the ceiling. Pauline and I scrambled up to rip off the duct tape and lift him down from the ceiling.

"We're so happy to see you!" I told Ralph. "Ewww! What's that smell?" Asked Pauline disgustedly. "Horned Walapus fluids. They're clear an' dry up real fast. But the smell stays." He gave us a wink. I dropped him onto the bottom of the crate and smelled my hands. "Ugh!" I yelled. "Fluids!" Pauline laughed joyfully. I wiped my hands on my pants. "Yuck." Ralph chuckled. Our box was whacked again from the outside, and again, we were told to shut up. Pauline, Ralph and I had some interesting conversations on the ride to wherever we were going.