To Find A Shelter

•10•

Justin's POV:
Day 2

   "What do you mean?" She asks, her eyes full of concern. She walks to my side and peers into the freezer: spotting what I saw.
"Oh my God.." She mumbles, her voice quivering.
"Who did this? Who would.. Who would want to?" She asked, looking up at me, her eyes watering within seconds. I shake my head, my heart growing heavy.
Paul and Shaylee are dead...

I looked back down at Paul's dismembered body and I felt a couple of tears roll down my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away, not wanting Isabella to see me upset in any type of way- thinking it might trigger more sadness than necessary. She stared for a little while before frowning and turning away, incapable of looking at her dead sister anymore. I reached down and picked up Paul's head, seeing a letter carved into his forehead. A large, bold C. I dropped his head back into the freezer and grabbed Shay's. She to had a letter in her forehead. O. I turned to Izzy, she had her back turned to the freezer and she kept clearing her face of tears.
"Izzy... You need to see this.." She wiped again before turning around and looking at the letters. She touched her sisters forehead, tracing over the O with her fingers.

   "What does this mean?" She asked, looking at me.
"I'm not sure." I state, my voice cracking, "but, I know we need to find Ralph and tell him that we don't need to look for them anymore.."
Izzy looks down, into the freezer.
"Because we've already found them..." She finishes, her eyes watering all over again. We turn away and hesitantly walk from the small hut, not wanting to leave our younger siblings in their depressing state. We walk towards what we knew was the trail in a painful silence. Shaylee and Paul were dead and we couldn't do anything about it.

Izzy's POV:

   I emerged from the forest, Justin right behind me. Ahead Michal and Maggie are sitting down next to each other, talking. Michal looks up at us and waves Justin and I over. I trudge over to them, dropping my bag and sitting next to Maggie. Justin sets his down next to mine before sitting beside Michal.
"Why are your faces so red?" He asks us, talking mostly about our eyes. I was about to tell them about our siblings when Justin spoke up.
"Some tree branches fell down while we were walking back, some of the bark fell into our eyes." The two nod.
"You should be more careful next time." Maggie tells us.
"You know when I was younger something like that-" She starts telling us her story and my mind begins to wander.

   How am I supposed to tell my mom and dad about this? That some lunatic killed their daughter? My thoughts change to Shaylee all of a sudden. I'll never wake up to her shaking me because she was scared of a noise the house made... I'll never get to see her step up to bat at her softball games again... Realization strikes. I'll never get to see my sister again... My best friend... Tears start rolling down my cheeks, I quickly wipe them away with my sweater sleeve. Maggie stops talking, placing her hand on my shoulder.
"Are you okay?" She asks me, looking me in my eyes. I nod quickly before grabbing my bag and standing up.
"We should probably find Ralph.. He'll help us out." Michal nods in agreement. We all gather up what was laying on the ground and start trekking up hill.

   She'll never see another sunrise. Another sunset.. She'll never see our niece again... She'll never see her friends... She'll never graduate high school... She'll never go to college.. She'll never have a husband; or kids... She'll never get her happily ever after...

Michal's POV:

Maggie, Justin, Isabella, and I walk through the woods rather quietly, heading back to our camp. When they came over to Maggie and me they had red eyes which to me looked like they had been crying, they told us they had gotten bark in their eyes but I didn't believe them. I figured they had just been upset over their missing siblings and needed time to calm down, so I let them be, I've never had anyone close to me die before so I couldn't pretend I knew what they were going through. I figured they would've said at least something by now though, I started to get worried.

I was currently leading the group but started to slow down.
"Hurry up slow-poke!" Maggie teasingly yells, I let her pass me and lead the way.
"I'll lead, I am the oldest anyways. This way!" Maggie energetically leads us towards camp, proudly marching her way ahead of Justin, Isabella, and me.

"Hey, what's wrong? I can tell you're upset you haven't talked to us at all, since we started heading for the camp." I ask not specifying who I am talking to, just hoping either would respond. Neither do how ever, they stay silent and stare ahead of them.
"Guys?" I ask once more, to which I get a shrug from Justin accompanied by a single syllable mumble I can only guess was dunno.
"Look both of you," I step in front of them stopping them from continuing, "we will find them, both of them, Paul and Shaylee, and we will bring them back to camp. They will be fine, and so will we, okay? We'll make it through this."

I look at them, Isabella looks up and starts crying immediately, she collapses to the ground and covers her face in her hands. Justin looks at me and pauses, then he looks at Isabella. They make eye contact and hesitate, Justin looks back at me,
"W-we, w-we," his voice wavers with pain, I wait for him to continue, "Isabella and I,-"

"Hey! What are you guys doing, you left me up there! You know I'm half blind!" Maggie's shouts at us, half jokingly. She waits a couple seconds for a response but grows impatient, "C'mon lets go! This way we're getting close." She starts off again towards the camp, we follow close behind.

I look at Justin waiting for him to continue.
"Later." he manages to choke out. He looks at me nods and then stares at the ground again. We walk on for a little bit except for Maggie humming a song, while skipping to its beat. I look over at Justin again still worried about him and Izzy, what was he going to say? What is it that's bugging them so much? While I look over there something catches my eye.

"Hey, look over there. What is that?"

"I don't see anything. Where is it?" Maggie asks, squinting into the distance trying to find the bright red that I can spot easily.

"Follow me." I know it's be easier to actually lead them to it than try to point it out. They all follow Maggie first close behind me, Izzy and Justin straggling behind. As I get closer it looks like a shirt, then I realize it is a shirt. I sprint towards it, it's a males shirt, I can tell that, maybe it's Paul! "Paul? Paul is that you?" I yell out towards the shirt. I expect Justin to be right at my side when I yelled Paul and when he wasn't I turned to look. I saw him and Isabella just standing there, they looked confused.
"What's wron-" I start to ask, but trip over a branch, landing on something soft. I first I think I've landed on Paul an crushed him, and jump up immediately. I look down at him and realize it's not Paul. I'm looking at Ralph, who seems to be lying in the middle of the woods.

Maggie catches up to me, out of breath, she looks at the body and shares the confusion I have as to why Ralph is out here.
"Ralph?!" She exclaims, surprised thinking she was going to see Paul. The other two arrive a few seconds later, looking at Ralph.

I lean down and shake Ralph a little bit hoping to wake him,
"Maybe he hit his head and passed out?" Izzy asks, a sound of desperation in her voice. He doesn't move. I look at Maggie, who's eyes have opened as wide as they could, she was turning pale. I rest my fingers on Ralph's neck, as I fear the worst, and to my dismay, it was cold and stiff. I leaned up and looked at Maggie, there were no need for words, she knew.

I turned to look at the other two, Izzy is covering her face again, and Justin is frozen. He stares at Ralph not moving. Maggie hugs Izzy as she starts to hyperventilate, and Justin continues to stare.
"No, no, no. This- this can't be- no, it- it can't. Not Ralph, not him too."

He stops and looks up, and we all look at him, there's an awkward silence.
"T-too?" Maggie stutters, "TOO?" She is turning even more pale if that's even possible, she looks petrified.

Izzy looks at Justin and nods, he looks to me then Maggie, "Yeah, too."

~~~

hi guys, this is izzy here. della and i hope you like this chapter, most of it was written by our good friend Michal (Meat974 ). so thank you for that. anyways, do not forget to vote, comment and share. bye now. (: