PANIC ROOM • KENJI KON

LXIV. Let's Go, Pretty Boy

Chapter Sixty Four:  Let's Go, Pretty Boy

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In the morning, the campers trudged forward through the cave in hopes it opened up out on the new island they were now on. There was a light, far at the end of the tunnel that they eagerly followed, praying they were somewhere safe.

"Okay, so..." Eva emerged last from the cave, only to come face to face with an expansive desert. "Definitely not Costa Rica," Brooklynn said.

Eva sighed.

"It looks more like... Australia? No way we went that far, though. Right?" Darius questioned. Kenji slapped his hand on the side of his face. "Kenji? What are you doing?"

"Making sure we're not dead."

"We're not," Eva mumbled.

"Cause if we're dead, we'd be ghosts," he continued. "And if we're ghosts, I'd be able to like, ooh— go through you."

Darius slapped his hand away. "We're not dead!"

"Well, now you know. You're welcome."

"So, we know where we aren't," Brooklynn said. "Any idea where we are?"

"Nope." Yaz was sitting on a ledge, shuffling a rock in between her hands. She threw it off the cliff. Eva watched intently as it thumped quietly on the ground thirty feet down. "Just that we're stranded. And alone. Again."

"We just g-gotta, assess the situation," Darius suggested.

"H-hey, guys! Look at that! Over there in the distance! Something shiny!" Ben shouted as he slid down the hillside and cupped his hands together over his eyes.

Eva gazed into the distance, but saw nothing.

"I see it!" Yaz agreed.

"Looks like the sun is glinting off of some sort of... metal thingy?" Sammy guessed.

"Something metal means someone had to have made it," Ben said. "We have to go check it out!"

"Hang on. You wanna go walking across a blazing hot desert just because you saw something shiny?" Kenji said.

"Crow behavior," Eva commented.

"We have no idea what's out there," Darius continued.

"What, we collecting buttons and quarters now, too?"

Ben grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh, my sweet, frightened children."

"Ooh, a pretty seashell!" She mocked, taking a seat on the ground.

"So we're not in 'Costa Rica', and we don't know 'where we are'," Ben continued, using finger quotes. "And we have 'no hope'. We didn't know how we were gonna survive on Nublar, and yet, we did! By sheer will, determination, and teamwork. There aren't even dinosaurs here, so logically, this should be easier. So, let's go out there, and, y'know, survive!"

Eva slowly clapped, an inkling of a smile on her face. "Good speech, Benny," she said but didn't move from her spot. The idea of getting up and walking across a blazing hot desert didn't exactly sit right in her mind.

"Sure, why not?" Yaz said, leading the path down the hillside.

"We can at least try," Sammy agreed, following after her.