Kidnapped

Welcome to Africa

   It was kind of strange that Kayla and Jean were having a conversation while we were fighting. I ended up with Gage, but I really was tired and didn’t feel like fighting so I kind of just ran around and dodged and grabbed onto his legs (again) and stuff like that.

          “Ug, you are so annoying!” He said.

          “You were the pirate that took us from the island and tried to hit on me,” I replied.

          It didn’t really surprise me that much when I found out that Jean liked Kayla. I mean, it was a little obvious. He wanted to kill her, which is a total sign.

          Finally, we really couldn’t fight any longer and they threw us in a truck. Now I liked these things. They held memories.

          “I can’t believe him!” Kayla said, red faced.

          “Yeah, I can’t either,” Harry said, looking a little mad.

          “We are a truck,” I said. “I wonder we are going now!” I was trying to lighten the mood.

          None of us really looked that bloody or anything, and Kayla didn’t even fight. I don’t think they were really trying to fight us, but we knew that they were going to take us again.

          I fell asleep multiple times, my stomach rumbling, each time waking up, looking around, and scooting closer to Liam. We were in there for a really long time.

          When the doors opened, I guessed it was the next day. I was so hungry I was eying Liam. Jean smiled.

          “Hey, Kayla’s taken,” I said. “So back off.”

          He rolled his eyes and lead us into a run-down airport. We got on a huge plane.

          “Where are we going?” Liam asked.

          “You’ll see,” Jean replied, and the plane took off.

          The whole plane ride to wherever we were going, I just stared out the window. Soon, we were over the ocean.

          “Okay, so we are going to a different continent,” Kayla said.

          “Yeah,” Jean replied. “Now shut up.”

          We were quiet for the rest of the way. I looked out the window as we were landing and raised my eyebrow. We were in a desert. There was cracked, yellow ground, a few dead trees, and a small little village with probably starving children.

          “Whoa!” I said as a herd of zebras ran past us. I had never even seen a wild horse before.

          “You realize they are probably running away from a cheetah,” Harry said.

          “Shut up,” I said, pouting.

          “So…. We are in Africa?” I asked.

          “Yup,” Raven replied. “Welcome!”

          We jumped out of the plane and landed onto hard, dry, gross ground. “I always imagined Africa a little more…green,” Liam said, looking around.

          “It is,” Jean said, taking a step closer to us. “But this is the part of Africa where the people live.”

          “Awwwh,” Marisa said, “Like starving children?”

          “Like dead children, now. They have a very small population.”

          Marisa almost started to cry.

          “On that happy note,” Harry said, clapping his hands together, “Where are you taking us?”

          “Well since the challenges you guys had to do earlier obviously failed and caused us to lose one of our friends,” Jean said, looking at me, “We have new ones, that are much more difficult here.”

          “As fun as that sounds,” I said, backing up, “I don’t think we want to.”

          “I don’t think that we have a choice,” Marisa whispered.

          “She’s right, ya’ll don’t,” Raven said. “And it’s not going to be like last time, where you all had your own thing. This time it’s kind of just us…making your lives..”

          “A living hell?” I asked.

          “Perty much.”

          “But first,” Jean said, “We have to get to camp. So we have to walk through the village.” Marisa choked.   “Is that necessary?” Liam asked.

          “Yeah, it’s the only way there.”

          Raven and Gage started to walk and Jean made an arm motion for us to walk too, most likely not wanting us to try to run away. “I don’t like it here,” Marisa murmured.

          “Me either,” I said, “It’s so hot.”

          “Yes it is,” Jean murmured and I sighed and rolled my eyes.

          We got to the village about ten minutes later. There were a few small straw huts but mainly all of the people were just sitting on the ground. Marisa made a weird sound and buried her head in Liam’s shoulder, and he put his arm around her.

          It was horrible. Some people were walking around carrying buckets of filthy water, but most of them were lying on the ground, unable to move. You could clearly see all of their ribs and their stomachs were concave. They had signs of starvation, with yellow teeth and lose hair that was falling out and some knelt down to throw up but ended up just making gagging sounds because there was nothing in their stomachs.

          Marisa refused to look up.

          Liam tightened his grip on her when a small boy began to scream. It was a really, really bad sound and I found myself taking deep breaths so that I didn’t run up to him. His sister, or who I guessed was his sister, collapsed to the ground and the boy began to shake her but nothing happened.       

          “Oh my god,” Harry said softly and I tried to say something back but my voice got stuck. I wished that I had hidden my eyes like Marisa.

          “How big is this village?” Marisa asked.

          “It’s pretty small,” Jean responded.

          We kept walking. I saw a lot of things but I don’t really feel like describing them because they were just too bad. By the time we got out I was crying, Marisa had covered her ears so that she couldn’t see or hear the people, Harry was shaking, and Liam even seemed to be crying.

          “Marisa,” Liam said, shaking her, “It’s over.”

          She slowly unwrapped herself from him, tears on her face. “That was depressing,” Raven said, “And to make your days even worse, welcome to your new home.”

          “THIS thing?” I asked.

          In front of us was a house about the size of a work office. It had no roof, the walls were made out of tree bark, and as we walked inside I saw that there was only one bed.

          “This is disgusting,” Marisa screamed as a rat flew by her.

          “Yep. Well have a nice night. Oh, and by the way? I think it’s supposed to rain,” Jean said and then he shut the door.