When Forever Ends (Part 1: A Game of Chess)

VI

~{§}~

S i x

"Woohoo!" Will yells, as a wave crashes into him and knocks him over, then plows over Maya and I. "I'm glad we live so close to the ocean!" he calls. "We can do this all summer!"

"Hey!" Sofie shouts as she rides a huge, flat piece of wood in on the next wave. The wave carries her right over Will, who is still struggling to get up and is forced back down by the rushing water. Then, it recedes and deposits her right on top of Will.

"Hey to you too!" Will doesn't sound particularly angry. "Get offa me!"

Sofie slithers off the piece of wood seconds before the board flies into the air and Will explodes from underneath it.

"Grrr!" he yells. "Ah'm gonna eat ya!" He is covered in sand from head to toe so it creates quite a funny spectacle as Sofie crawls backwards away from him, laughing like crazy.

Another wave smashes into Will, washing away the sand and revealing his extremely loud flower print shirt.

"Stop it!" he commands the ocean, and is rewarded with another wall of water which slams into his face.

"It's so fun just watching them," I hand a small, flat stone to Maya, who puts the rock in her pocket.

"Mm-hm," Maya picks up another smooth, rounded stone and puts it with the first. "Maybe we should find a calmer spot. There are too many waves here to skip these stones."

"Yeah," I nod. "I wish we could just sit here and do this forever."

"Forever is a long time. And don't forget that we have school starting soon."

"I didn't think of that."

"Well now you did. Did you even hear what I said?"

"Yeah. Find a calmer spot to skip the stones." I glance at her. It suddenly occurs to me that Maya is the one person I trust most. Even more than I trust Sofie and Will. And she is, now that I think about it, really pretty.

Wow, I think. Then I smile.

"Helloo," Maya waves her hand in front of my face. "Are you in there?"

"Sure! Why?" I ask.

"Well you were just sitting there staring at me."

"I was?" How embarrassing, I think.

"Yes, silly. Now come on!" She grins and pulls me to my feet.

━━━

The dream shattered and I woke with a start.

I glanced up at the millions of stars blanketing the sky and sighed. For the first time in a while, I had had a more "normal" dream. It was a memory from this summer. I had gone to the beach for a picnic with my friends and we had had a great time.

I sighed again, savoring the happy memory. Too bad we were nowhere near the beach now. We were even having a hard time finding water.

I looked around at our makeshift camp. We had found a tall red rock jutting out from the sand and decided to camp on the top. It probably wasn't the best idea. The wind was so wild, we were lucky we hadn't been blown off the edge by now.

To keep the sack and canteens from blowing away, Sofie had volunteered to use the sack as a makeshift sleeping bag. I looked over there now, to make sure it was still there. Sofie had fallen asleep in it listening to music on her iPod, and I leaned over and turned it off for her.

Then, I slept dreamlessly.

━━━

Bong! Bong! Bong!

"Rise and shine, sleepyheads!" I opened my eyes to find Will banging two canteens together, standing at the highest point on the rock with one leg slightly bent in a heroic pose. He clambered down from his perch and banged the canteens together again. "Come on! Rub that sleep out of those eyes!"

I groaned and sat up.

"Shut up already!" Sofie sounded annoyed.

"Or what?" Will put on his innocent face.

"Or I'll grab those canteens and bonk you on the head with them!"

"Oh, no! I'm so terrified!" Will mocked.

Sofie smacked him on the head with the canteens.

"Ow!" he covered his head with his hands.

"Told ya so!"

"Give it a rest you two," I stood. "We still need to find food."

"Guys, you might want to look at this," Maya was looking at the base of the rock. "I think we've been followed."

The rest of us hurried to join her at the edge. Once again, huge paw prints led up to the rock from the direction we'd come and circled the base. And once again, they didn't lead away.

"Hmm," I muttered. "That's interesting."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about that now," Will was eager to move on. "Let's get going!"

"Mm, hmm," I said. I grabbed the canteens from Sofie, depositing them in the sack. It seemed as if I had become the unofficial sack-and-canteen carrier. One by one, we slid down the smooth face of the rock, then dropped the last few meters to the soft sand below.

"Uhng!" I sank into the sand and grunted with the effort of pulling my feet free.

"Now, which way should we go?" I asked no one in particular.

Will scanned the horizon for a moment before pointing into the distance. "That way!" he declared.

"Any particular reason?" I wondered.

"Well, that way looks a little different than the rest if you squint."

"Really?!"

We all squinted to see what he meant. Sure enough, in the direction he had indicated, the ground had a slightly darker tinge than every other direction.

"That way it is, I guess!" I said. "Lead the way!" I gestured for Will to go first.

"Sure!" He headed off towards the dark splotch in the distance, followed shortly by the rest of us.