Hunt of the Night

c h a p t e r t h r e e ( a m b e r )

6:45 pm on Friday

The girl in the jersey, Charlie, spoke up as soon as the whistle blew, "Hurry up!" I tried to unfold the paper quicker than I could text just to please her.

The boy in the dark clothes, John, looked at her, "Hey, don't talk to her that way. She's going as fast as she can."

Charlie looked at him, but didn't say anything because I finally opened the paper. All of our eyes skimmed the neatly printed words on the paper.

"What can unlock your dream can be found near the stream."

John's brows furrowed in confusion before he inquired, "What the hell does that mean?"

Charlie was the quick to respond with, "It obviously means that the clue is near a stream, so we should head into the woods to try and find some water."

We all nodded our heads before Charlie took off in a sprint. I took a deep breath, and wondered why we couldn't just walk. John was jogging behind me with a frustrated look on his face, probably wondering why we were running as well.

We continued through the lightly forested terrain before John panted out,"How much longer are we going to run?"

Charlie craned her neck to look back at us. She must have seen how out of breath we were because she soon slowed down to a walk.

We all glanced at each other before I questioned, "Do you know what way we should go?"

"Not exactly, but I heard some noise coming from that direction," she lifted her arm up and pointed to the right, "So, I figured that would be where the water would be found."

"That's a really smart idea. I knew I should have chosen your group," John wittily remarked, trudging the toe of his thick, black boot across the rough terrain.

Charlie laughed, "You didn't even choose, dumb ass. She told you to join."

I watched John run his long fingers through his blue and black hair as he licked his lip piercing, eyeing her with a strange look. He shrugged, but didn't fight her. I looked around, adjusting my glasses on my face.

"If you were a strange woman holding a scavenger hunt, where would you hide the clue?" I spoke up, looking around. These things weren't exactly my forte. I was more of a "stay indoors and read" type.

Charlie shrugged, "I don't know. We should just keep trying to find the stream," She began to walk in the direction the birds were headed. She then explained they would either be heading to a dead animal or water. I just hoped it was the latter.

We trudged on, pushing branches out of our way, and stepping over rocks. Just before I was going to suggest going another way, the sound of running water and the sight of a stream bank was laid out in front of us.

"There it is guys!" Charlie announced enthusiastically. She sped up her walk to a light jog, if you could call it that, until we reached the water.

Charlie began to quickly fire off orders at us, "Amber, you check closer to the water and under the brush." She then looked at John, "And you, look in the dirt and near the big rocks."

We all quickly scattered without another word because, really, there was no point in arguing with the girl. We searched for about six minutes before John had announced, "I think I found it!"

Charlie and I quickly ran over to John who shoved his black boots into the dirt to reveal what seemed to be a key.

Charlie's face lit up in excitement as she reached down to pick up the key which had a small plastic bag attached to it. I reached forward first and open the bag up. Inside was another piece of folded paper.