The Death Sentence

Chapter Three

When the shot sounded, Ryan, Kat, and I took off running. Our first obstacle was to jump over three four foot high barbed wire fences. As I easily cleared the fences, I was thinking “this is too easy, if all we had to do was jump, no one would lose.” There has to be something more challenging than this. All of us cleared the fences easily although I had lost my footing slightly as I was jumping on the last fence, so my leg was lightly bleeding. We rounded the next bend, easily in first, and stopped in a moment of surprise. In front of us flowed a wide river.

I heard Ryan mutter

“It’s about eight feet across, there’s a tree there……” and a few other mathematical calculations that I didn’t quite catch. Quickly, I spied a few pieces of rope ‘hidden’ under some shrubs. Kat suddenly jumped into action as soon as she spotted the rope. She grabbed the few pieces, tied them together, and without saying a word, sprinted to the tree and climbed up. A few seconds later we saw her scooting herself a branch that grew to about halfway across the river. Suddenly, I picked up on her plan. I wish I had thought of that!

She tied the rope, so that it was hanging down and as best as she could, tossed it to me. I easily caught it but before I could do anything, Ryan was behind me and snatched the rope out of my hands. He gave it a sharp tug and nodded at Kat as she climbed down from the tree.

“I’ll go first” I told them, “and then, I’ll throw it back to you.” I knew that I was being slightly harsh, but what else am I supposed to do when all of our lives were on the line??

Kat and Ryan nodded their heads as I grabbed the rope and ran as far away from the bank as I could, and then ran as quickly as I could back towards the river. At the last possible second, I jumped up and brought my feet to the knot that had been tied to the bottom of the rope. As I began to sail over the river with my heart in my throat, a million and one thoughts ran through my head. The main one being, I am going to die!!

As I reached about half way over the river, I heard a loud SNAP from right below my feet. And of course I did the worst thing possible, I looked down. What I saw nearly made me meet it face to face. It was an alligator. Of course it was! UGH! My luck just gets better and better. NOT

 From the far side of the beach I heard Kat scream as she realized what was going on. I couldn’t worry about that right now. I was almost there... Three……Two……..One.

I jumped, and hit the ground rolling. Somehow I had managed to hold on to the rope and as I stood up, I threw it to Ryan who was talking to Kat. Probably trying to calm her down. He kept a firm grip on the rope and ran back, all the while, Kat watching with wide, frightened eyes. When he jumped over to where I was waiting, he couldn’t hold on to the rope and I had to jump into the water to retrieve it. As I heard the steady sound of swishing water coming quickly to where I stood, I jumped out of the water. Just as giant jaws snapped the water that I had just been standing in.

“Thank heavens” I whispered not thinking that Ryan was right next to me. I threw the rope back to Kat and was immediately embraced from behind. Ryan’s arms were wrapped around my waist and he spinned us so that he was hugging me and I was looking over his shoulder at Kat.

“You’re so brave” he whispered in my ear.

I felt my face go red but I don’t know why. I have absolutely no feelings for Ryan! I screamed and pushed away from him as I heard a splash and then I saw Kat sputtering and struggling in the water. I remembered that she had no idea how to swim. And there are alligators in that river. I dived in, keeping my legs straight out behind me and swam as quickly and quietly to where I saw Kat’s struggling form and to my horror, a circle of the predators beginning to surround her. I grabbed her and heard her give a weak but frightening scream and I felt her body almost dragged away from me. I held on tightly and swam as hard as I could towards the beach. She began to beg me to leave her where she was.

“Just leave me here, Cora! I’m useless anyways! Just let me go and forget about me.”

Out of anger I practically yelled at her, “SHUT UP KAT!!! YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND AND I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU BEHIND!!!!!!!!”

I didn’t hear anything else from her. I dragged her rag doll like body onto the beach and saw a large gash across her leg. I yelped and when Ryan saw all the blood, he pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around her leg. Then he looked at my tear stained face, reached up and wiped as many tears off my face with his thumb as he could before I pulled away. I gave him a confused look, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze as he picked Kat up bridal style and began to jog towards what we all hoped was the finish line.

We ran for what seemed like forever until we rounded one last bend, and saw, forest. I almost yelled out in frustration but instead walked up to a tree and punched it, letting out all my anger. I punched and punched and punched until my hand felt raw but I couldn’t stop. I hated it all. My mother was killed because of this stupid race. My best friend may very well die from it too. This stupid damn race was killing everything important to me. Why?  Why everything and everyone I care about?!?!?!? I hate the people who came up with this idea!

Angry tears poured down my face as I took everything out on the tree. So many angry thoughts were running through my head and all I wanted to do was make it all stop. I honestly thought about going and jumping back into that river and just stay there until I became a distant memory in everyone’s mind. I just wanted someone that I could turn to and cry into their shoulder. But the only person I knew was a few miles from here and at least a day’s walk. I needed him right now though. And when I felt a soft hand firmly grab my wrist preventing me from punching the crap out of the tree, I thought it was him and turned around, about to spill everything I was thinking and let him comfort me and talk me out of all the bad ideas that where tempting me, but it wasn’t him.  It was Ryan.

“I’ll carry Kat for a while, let’s just finish this thing.” I told him.

His only response was a nod.

God he can be so annoying! One second he’s trying to comfort me and the next he’s acting like he can control me!! What the hell??? I will never understand guys. That river is less bipolar then them! If I weren’t carrying Kat, I would run away from him and just stay out here for forever. It’s not like anyone would really miss me anyways. Never mind, for now, I needed to worry about Kat and only Kat. She’s the one who matters the most right now anyways.