The Best Of Both: Camp Cretaceous OC

Batten Down the Hatches

Max's eyes opened to a bright light shining down on him. His vision was blurry and he felt dizzy, but he could feel himself laying down on something, like a table. Wincing from the light, he tried to move his arm to cover his face, but found he couldn't move it, actually, he couldn't even feel it.

That's when his hearing came back, and he could hear voices talking, all around him. His vision cleared and the intensity of the light dimmed.

Faces stared down at him.

Max's eyes widened as a startled gasp escaped his mouth, people were standing over him, staring down at him with blank expressions. One by one, he recognised each of them. 

Daniel Kon, Eli Mills, Benjamin Lockwood, Henry Wu, and a shadowy figure that he still couldn't recognise, but even then, his brain put a name on his tongue; Lewis Dodgson.

Max's instincts kicked in and he tried to sit up, but he couldn't move, not a single inch. He looked down at his body and cried in fright.

Long tubes were sticking into every inch of his skin, like a million knives. Flowing out of his body and through the tubes was a bright red liquid. Blood. His blood. Panic took over and Max tried desperately to move at all, but he wasn't successful.

His vision started to blur again and his struggling slowed but the panic only continued to rise. "No. This is happening. I'm dying. I'm dying. Please, no!" Max tried to shout, but he couldn't speak. "Please help me!"

As Max's vision darkened, one more face came into view, a blank stare with short hair, followed by the sound of a whistle.

0O0

The horn of the cargo ship blared, and Max woke with a start, sitting up from his makeshift bed. His panicked breathing slowed as he remembered where he was. He was on a cargo ship, hiding out in a shipping container with his friends.

His friends. Max's head turned and saw all of them staring at him. Darius and Ben were sitting back on either corner of one side. Sammy was leaning back on the wall, and Yasmina was sitting up in the small hammock we had made.

"Did the horn wake you?" Sammy asked in her usual caring tone.

Max didn't speak, instead only nodded and turned away again, wiping the sweat from his neck, hoping nobody would notice.

"You were asleep for a while," Darius commented, his hands behind his head. "I hope you feel better, you've had to go non stop for who knows how long with almost no sleep at all".

Max sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know. I still feel exhausted".

"Maybe you should try to sleep again," Ben suggested.

Max's mind flashed back to that dream he had. The faces, the pipes sticking into him. "I think I'm good," Max tried to sound confident, but it came out far meeker than he meant to. Somehow, his eyes unconsciously steered over to the girl on the hammock, and he immediately wished he hadn't.

She was staring at him, with the same look she had been giving him for the past week they had been on this ship, like she very much wanted to say something, but wasn't. Max forced himself to look away, ignoring the ache in his chest.

Luckily, everybody was distracted when loud footsteps came from above. Their eyes turned upward, looking at the ceiling, listening to the sounds.