The Woodland Mansion (scraped)

Chapter 14: Going In

The big group of us walked around the village, it was so quite. Where were are the oagers?

"I know I'm not the smartest person ever but-" Max starts.

"Max, everybody knows that you aren't the smartest." I tease.

"Hahaha, funny." He said sarcastically. "As I was saying, this is an oager village, so where's all the oagers?"

"Sleeping." Tommy said. "They sleep during the day, hunt at night. So all of you be quite."

Tommy always delivered his lines in a rude manor, as if he hates all of us. I guess he didn't want to help us in the first place, but we are all in this together now. The least he could do is be nice to us while we worked together to get out of this nightmare.

"This village is so big, how are we going to find our friends?" Tori asks, making a pessimistic comment again. I was starting to pick up on everyone's tones and personalities. Tori was kind of a Negative Nancy, while Maddie was the exact opposite. She was always found something optimistic to say.

"Just leave it to me." Tommy says. "I've had my fair share of oager villages, I know what I'm doing so no one gets killed again."

"Again?" Payton asks. Kevin, Noah, and Oliver all try to shush her but it was too late.

What did he mean by again? Did someone knew die here? Maybe that was why he was so cold, he didn't want anybody dying again. It maybe he didn't want to get too close to people because he was afraid of losing them.

"Yes, again!" Tommy shouts at her. "People die in these woods! If you can't handle that, you shouldn't have came!"

"I'm- I-" Payton stumbled on her words. She obviously didn't mean to upset him and felt really bad for asking. She started picking at her nails nervously has she tried to find words to say.

Just then, the ground rumbles and a deep groan came from one of the houses.

"Great." Tommy sighs.

"What was that?" I ask.

"That was exactly what we didn't want to happen." Noah says. "An oager waking up."

If an oager was awake, that ment we were in trouble.

"Well that's just fantastic." Tori says. "We're all gonna die. How fun! Can't wait!"

"Would it kill you to be positive?" Maddie asks. Her and Tori bickred a lot, but I could tell they didn't hate each other like they sometimes acted. I could tell they probably knew each other for long time.

The oager comes out of his house, which is giant to us but is a small little hut compared to him. He sniffs the air and moans as if smelling the lovely aroma of cookies being baked.

"Human!" He grunts, eyes falling down onto us. "Huuuuummaaans!"

He slowly approched us, the ground shaking with each step he took. He was walking so slow he could have been a zombie, but his steps were huge so it made up for his slowness.

"Scatter!" Kevin says and we all run in different directions, me Max and Tori running in one direction.

We hide behind another oager hut to catch our breathes after sprinting for our lives.

"Well, we're all gonna die." Tori says. "It was nice meeting you."

"We're not gonna die." Max says. "Hopefully."

"Thanks for the uplifting reassurance." I say sarcastically.

"Of course, anytime." He smirks. This wasn't the time for jokes, we should probably start running again soon before the oager finds us.

"Omygosh!" Tori gasps. She was looking through a small hole in the hut.

"What is it?" I ask, peeking through the hole myself to see what she gasped about. I couldn't believe my eyes. "No way, it's them! It's Addy!" I say, happiness flooding over me like a tidal wave. She was alright, and she was here. My best friend, I couldn't believe it.

"You mean she's in there?" Max asks, trying to look through the hole himself, but I wouldn't pull myself away to give him room, I couldn't.

"Yeah!" I say excitedly, still peeking through the whole. She was in a cage with three other girls. They seemed to be trying to work together to escape.

"Sapphire too!" Tori says with a smile on her face. It was the first time I saw her so happy, and I didn't blame her. I was overjoyed myself that Addy, my best friend, was alright.

"I'm going in." I say, blocking out any fear or scared thought that popped into my brain. I start to climb through the hole, that was just big enough for a person to squeeze through, but something pulls me back.

"Are you insane?" Max asks. "You can't just walk into an oagers hut!"

"Addy's in there." I say. "I'm not leaving without her."

"I know that, but you we can't just go in there. If the oager who lives us sees us, we'll be trapped to or killed."

"So what are we supposed to do?" I ask. There was no way I was going to leave without Addy, and if he suggested anything that didn't involve saving her I'd save her myself.

"Stay here, I'll go." Max says.

"Alone?" Tori asks.

"Yeah I mean why not?" Max says. "You guys all have friends to come back to, if you die you'd be losing them. I have nothing to lose if I die."

I felt so bad as those words left his mouth. His friends back home stopped talking to him, and he hadn't made any new ones here yet. I was lucky enough to meet these girls who were now my friends. Max wasn't as lucky. "Max-" I start, but he cuts me off.

"But I'm not gonna die." Max says looking at me. "I'll be back. See you soon Tator Tot." It has been years since he's called me that nickname. I've always hated it, but this time when he used it it made me feel like crying for some reason. Why did I feel like this was goodbye and not see you soon.

As he climbed thought the hole, I couldn't shake the horrible feeling that something bad was gonna happen.

Me and Max may have bickered back and forth a lot, but he was my brother and my first friend. Before I had Addy, he was my only friend. He has always just been there. As annoying as he was, I couldn't imagine life without him teasing me.

"You too French Fry." I say through a soar throat. "I hope."