Trapped

8.

I was woken up when I heard someone yelling my name repeatedly. At first, it was like a dream, but then it became clearer and clearer until I woke up. I sat up and looked around trying to get my tired eyes to focus so that I could see who was calling me. As my vision became clearer I realized it was Jason. He was still stuck in the mud.

"Well," he said when I looked at him "aren't you going to help me?"

"What?" I asked in a sleepy tone.

"I said I can't get hold of a branch, so will you help me to get out of the mud?" He stated with frustration.

"What's the Magic word?" I teased but only ended up irritating him even more.

"Come on there isn't any time for games just help me," he said.

"Well, you just wasted your breath, instead of saying a whole sentence you just had to say please," I said whilst getting up and looking around for a branch I could use to pull him out with. I found one long branch and stuck it out towards Jason. He reached for it but he couldn't get a hold of the branch. I then moved a bit closer to the edge of the mud pool and tried again. This time his fingers touched the branch and he stretched as far as he could and then he dropped his arm. He sighed and said, "You're gonna have to get a longer branch, I can't reach it."

This annoyed me because he was so close, he just wasn't willing to try. I threw the branch down in frustration and looked around. Then I saw a wooden plank lying a few meters away from where I was and I went to go get it. It was quite long and Jason would have been able to reach it.

"Seriously, a plank?" He said it in a way that made me feel like I was stupid. But it made me ponder for a moment at how a plank came to be in the middle of this place.

"Excuse me, you are the one in need of my help so I suggest you keep quiet and take what you get!" I snapped at him.

He seemed surprised at my sudden outburst and then he was quiet. I pointed the plank at him and luckily he could reach with both hands. I pulled him while I walked backwards until he was close to the edge of the quicksand and he was able to pull himself out from where he was.

Then I remembered about the bananas in my backpack, I quickly dropped the plank and opened the backpack and found three totally destroyed bananas. I took them out of the backpack and threw them on the ground, then I returned the backpack to my back. "Nice going, you ruined the only food we have!" Jason shouted at me.

"You know, you can be really rude sometimes" I replied.

"Oh wow, that must be the insult of the year, ouch." He said sarcastically. I just rolled my eyes and walked towards the grass where I found the plank. However, on the inside, I was really mad at Jason for treating me so poorly after I saved his life, twice!

For the first time I looked around at the world around me, it was a muddy and wet mess everywhere I looked. There were dark clouds cluttering the sky and the only trees I could see were dead ones. The grass grew in untamed patches was very high, some of it even came up to my hips. I stopped and scanned the area ahead of me for something that would lead me to any of my other friends when I noticed a sharp pain coming from my wounded thigh. I looked down and found that there was a giant beetle sticking his tongue into my wounds, it was so painful it felt like my leg was on fire. I screamed and tried to get the beetle off of my leg, but it was stuck there. "Jason, help!" I turned around only to see that Jason wasn't there, he didn't follow me? I thought. Why does he keep disappearing when I need him the most. Then after some time the bug detached itself, I looked at my thigh but I could not see what damage the bug did because of all the mud on my body. Shortly afterwards another beetle came and rested on my scraped arms, I screamed again when it started sucking on my bleeding arm. After an eternal period, the bug flew away and I sighed in relief when the pain subsided.

I wondered what I should do, go back to find Jason or go ahead without him.I also didn't know if he left because he was annoyed by my presence or if he had been taken. Or maybe he found a clue and just forgot to tell me about it. I really didn't know what to do or what to think so I just walked ahead and called for Jason, that way if Jason wanted to find me, he could. After walking for a while I saw the beetle that sucked my leg again, he was on a rock slurping up what looked like blood. I avoided the beetle and kept walking, on a tree not far from the beetle I saw another beetle, his legs were stuck in something that looked like hair, long brown hair...

Then I remembered something from the letter I found when I woke up here, use the knowledge you have of your friends to find them. Angela hates beetles, so I thought that she must have been there. Since I found Jason in the woods, which was his biggest fear. It made sense, each person would be trapped in a place with something they feared. That's why I woke up in a small dark room because I'm claustrophobic and afraid of the dark! I ran ahead and found two more beetles on a piece of cloth which must have been from Angela's T-shirt.

I scanned all around me but I couldn't see anything else ahead of me, I had no idea where to go next so I leaned on the large dead tree next to me to think. That's when I heard a sudden shuffling noise coming from above me. I looked up and saw brown locks hanging down from the tree and assumed that it was Angela. I took hold of the nearest branch and started climbing the tree. When I came to the top I saw my best friend Angela sleeping on a large branch about twice her size. Her long brown hair was hanging off the side of the branch. She had a cut on her shoulder and there was a beetle sucking at it. I tried to shoo it away but it would not move.

"Angela" I whispered. She slowly opened her eyes and turned her head in my direction. When she saw me she smiled. She was very calm for someone who had a beetle sitting on her arm, that or she hasn't seen the beetle yet. Her eyes were bloodshot and her body was bruised. "Hey," she said very slowly and quietly. "Are you okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I'm just a little hurt but I'll be fine" she smiled at me, "I'm so glad you found me, I was starting to worry that the beetles were going to eat me alive before you got here," she laughed.

I told her that I was glad I found her too and that I had lost Jason. We got down from the tree and then she said that she would help me find him. We searched through the grass and called after Jason but we didn't find anything.

We were running out of time since it was getting dark and that meant that this day was over and I've only managed to find two of my friends over the time of two days and I then lost Jason again. I had no map or indication of where to find any of my friends so this was not going to be easy. It would have been fine if I didn't lose Jason, I would have at least felt a bit relieved that my time here wasn't completely wasted.

Angela seemed really tired so we decided that it would be best if we found a good place to hide and get a good night's sleep, then we would be ready for anything in the morning, hopefully.

We found a cave nearby with a banana tree near the entrance of the cave, we broke off the leaves of the banana tree and laid them down on the ground to sleep on. Then we went to find sticks and rocks and after quite a struggle we finally made a fire and went to sleep.