The Forgotten...? ••• 𝐂.𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐥

(12) 𝐌alicious mind tricks

Narrator's POV:

"Dolores?" Camilo whispered, he extended his arm out to grab hers when she made a move to walk away. She was mumbling words, only some were coherent others were more jumbled and confusing.

"Don't- I'm not... It's alright, I'm not scared...?" At first, Camilo thought she was nervously rembling to try and stop the constant overflow of noise but after her hums and distant words turned into long, drawn-out sentences he was beyond confused. Camilo thought she was talking to him and then to herself but then Dolores mentioned a name that neither he nor he thought anyone in the room would mention until they escaped.

"It's... No, no- Lucia... It's ok..." She murmured, her crouched position bewildering the boy as he attempted to go and comfort his sister. His thoughts were concerned rambles for himself, his sister and Mirabel, everyone. Trying to rid himself of his anxiety he made cautious steps towards his Hermana.

"Don't." A voice harshly said, intervening in his thoughts and worries, physically stopping his movement with a steady clasp on his forearm.
"...What?" Camilo nervously hummed, his wide eyes squinting into a short-lived glare as he tried to shake off her grip but she only tightened it in response.
"She's my Hermana. She-she's scared and confused... and she needs support right now."

"Camilo," Mirabel started, taking glances between him and Dolores, her gaze sympathetic as she carried on.
"We can't focus on her right now." She finalized, but the answer only seemed to enrage Camilo as he swiped her band away from him and grimaced. He scoffed and made his way to his sister.

"Camilo," Mirabel called out, roughly grabbing onto his ruana and holding him in place as he irritatedly jerked trying to get her hands off of his clothes.

"Dolores..." Mirabel began, nodding her head over towards the girl in question, pausing, trying to make sure her next words wouldn't trigger him into an angry fit. She loves her cousin and she knows he loves her just like the rest of the family, but his sister is still his sister. He'd do anything for the people he loves, including making sure they are alright.

"Dolores will be fine... what we need to do is find a way out of this room. Cause when we do she'll be safe and out of danger. Ok?" Mirabel urged, her eyes uncontrollably blinking because of the sand and wind wiping in her current direction, Camilo was unaffected because his back was turned to the force of it.

"Ok?" She repeated, tilting her head to the side and trying to persuade her cousin with one of her comforting grins, but under the intense pressure and stress of trying to get out of this trap, she failed to realise her "comforting smile" was more of an eery grimace, which only unsettled him even more.
"B-but..." Camilo stuttered, which shocked his cousin, but she soon disregarded her bewilderment when she saw Camilo's expression. One torn between guilt, sadness and fear. One she never thought would ever be shown on his face, or at least one she thought she would never see. It just made the intense atmosphere even more stressful and extreme. She let herself focus on the situation at hand, the very dangerous situation that she pushed aside to get Camilo's head back in the game. So he could help her, two brains are better than one. She would say three but Dolores is... out of it, talking to herself and making weird gestures as if she were talking to... a child or something.

"What do we do, Mirabel?" Camilo uttered, breaking me out of my caging thoughts. His head lulled forward as he looked at the ground, stifling his breathe as he saw the water rising faster, soaking the cuffs of his trousers. His face seemingly dropped and Mirabel quickly followed his gaze, her eyes widened, her eyelashes brushing against her raised eyebrows.
"... O-ok... I-oh god, oh god... We-we need to leave. Now- r-right now." She murmured, swallowing down her tears and the growing lump in the back of her throat. Her hands scrunching up her skirt as she took in sharp inhales, her throat going dry as she tore her eyes away from the rising water and to her cousin.

"What can we even do?" Camilo urged, steading his ragged breaths and mind. Wiping his sweaty palms on his ruana and then onto his trousers, shaking his palms out afterwards, walking away from Mirabel as she went to answer his question.
"Not much... We can't do much...
So, maybe, we need to find a way to-"

"To get out of here alive? Yeah, figured." Camilo interrupted, smiling grimly, almost laughing at what he assumed she was going to say. This only cause Mirabel to send a harsh glare to her prima, shutting his worriedly smug and yet accurate words.
"What I was going to say was, we need to find a way to get through the water. Either stop the water from moving long enough so we can run through or something like..."

"Like...?" Camilo urged, trying to push Mirabel into wording her thoughts, which seemed about almost as jumbled as he were. His eyes almost pleaded with Mirabel to think of an escape, to get him and his sister out of this mess that she got them into.

"I don't know, ok, I don't know. Something that can get us all out of here and quick. Real quick. Cause this water doesn't look like it's gonna let up anytime soon." Mirbake explained, Camilo nodding in agreement as he turned his back to her and look at the water around them once again, trying to disregard the look warm water starting to seep into the bottom of his ruana.

"No shit, Mirabel. I could've told you that with my eyes closed." He sarcastically remarked, lifting his head so his lidded eyes could meet her wavering ones. He tried to lighten the mood with some form of humour but Mirabel didn't seem exactly appreciative of it. So he spun on his heel and began trudging through the hip height water, towards the tornado of water around the trio and the book.

"Thanks for the comment, Camilo. It's greatly appreciated under this immense, crushing pressure of us possibly dying!" Mirabel yelled, her fists gripping onto her skirt and waving it around, her mouth agape as she watched him place his hand near the rapid water flow.
"Camilo! What are you doing!?" She screamed, dropping her skirt and running towards him. Or more like running and swimming towards him. Once she realized that running wasn't as fast as she first thought it'd be, she concluded on using her arms to push her body towards her cousin whilst her legs pushed against the ground as fast as they could underwater. She shrieked multiple warnings and questions, trying to stop him with her words. But before she could do anymore she headed a deafening screech. Mirabel's mouth fell agape as her eyes bulged and her movement stilled, frozen in the sound.

She didn't know if it had stopped and she was just being haunted by the noise still, but she kept hearing the repeated yells and screams of someone. Someone she knew...

She looked up, her body becoming numb along with her limps that seemed to hang like dead weight on the girl. But when her eyes connected with the sight of her prima on the ground seemingly calling out in agony, she didn't know what to do she just stood there frozen. Watching.

"AHHHHHH!"

She covered her ears as the sounds became gurgled and muffled as if they were being drowned out by something.

Or being drowned...

----------------------------------------
Word count: 1299