Elemental Wolves

Chapter 13- Lost and Found

"Um so, clearly this unbelievably cute little guy is who we have to find but that was only half the riddle. What now?" Mack asked shifting from foot to foot as we all crowded around the little guy.

"I've seen this guy before. I was sitting in the clearing playing and digging in the grass when he came out of the bushes. He was healthy then. What happened?" Jackie said as she ran her fingers through the pup's fur.

We all looked around trying to figure out a plan. We'd all been to this clearing before, but halfway through camp it simply disappeared. So we had no way of knowing what was on the other side of those trees in front of us.

"He looks a little parched and hungry. Maybe we should get him something to eat and set up camp somewhere safe while we figure it out." Taylor asked as she started rifling through the bags piled by our feet.

"Yeah, to the trees again? It's kind of unnerving begin out here in the open knowing there is a knife throwing  crazy lurking around." Mack started. Grabbing stuff out of the bags and heading to the trees.

"Oh shit the knife. Well fudge." I murmured as I sat down with a groan. Grumbles of agreement and shock over forgetting that near miss echoed my statement. None of us had the energy to climb the trees, but we all knew staying out here in the open was dangerous.

"Jackie, Amaya and I will stay with the pup. How about you two go help Mack with the hammocks and hopefully by that time we will have gained some strength and joined you." Amber looked up at Taylor and Vanessa.

Nodding their assent they grabbed the remaining bags and followed Mack into the tree line behind us. After a while Taylor came back to tell us camp was ready and that we would need to get our sorry butts of the grass if we wanted to survive the night. Groaning, we all trudged back to the tree line with Jackie carrying the little guy. To our surprise they had a rope ladder hanging down the side and we made it up top with less strain. We each settles in and called it a night just as the sun set and weather chilled.

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Saturday Morning

I woke up to the buzz of my phone against my chest. Shuffling around I pulled my phone out and checked the message. Realizing the others were awake and had pulled theirs out as well.

It hurts, but it must heal. Find it before it becomes to much to deal.
It's small, but you will fall. Find it behind a wall.
It's cute, but unfortunately mute. Find it before we steal your loot.
It's a hunt you're on. Let's hope you find it before it's gone.

It's was the riddle again. We'd clearly found it, bur why the reminder. When we all looked up from our phones we saw the pup curled up in Jackie's arms, but stared in shock when we realized that all our packs were missing. We had none of our weapons. No food. No water.

"Shit, did they seriously steal our stuff?" Vanessa grouched looking back at her phone with and incredulous look. "We found it already. God dammit why did they steal our stuff."

" Well maybe if you had tied it up last night like I suggested it wouldn't be gone."
"Tied it up. With what rope. Taylor here creates a fancy rope ladder out of all of it."
"At least I didn't drop it to the floor. Who did that huh?"
"Uh well if someone hadn't made us do all the work maybe we wouldn't have need the ladder to climb up?"
"The flip. You offered Amaya."

"SHUT UP YOU IDIOTS!!" Jackie's screamed causing the wolf pup to flinch in her arms. "Did you think that maybe we might not have actually found the real it yet? Like maybe we should climb down and check what's going on instead of arguing with each other like always. Because we have only a couple more hours before we have to be back and we still have no idea how or where we even are in camp."