Gaea [ON HOLD]

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Brook goes to sleep. She must be really tired, because she just looked at me one second, and the next, she dropped onto the bed. I stand up and pick up my swords. I take one last look at her, then leave.

The cold air stings my skin. I shiver, then put my hands on my arms. Okay, something's definitely not right here. One minute it's warm and the sun's out, and then a few minutes later, the sun's hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds and it's freezing. I look over a hill and see Eddie. I run over to him. "Eddie! Eddie!" I shout, now out of breath. He looks at me.

"Yeah, what?" He asks, looking worried.

"What happened? Did any of the search parties come back?"

"No, actually, it was on the contrary. More searchers left."

"What?!" I shriek. "They were supposed to stay here! Oh well, I guess we can't do anything about it." I shrug, then sit down. Eddie sits down beside me.

“Isn’t it good here, Lance? With the green hills and blue sky? It- it seems like everybody is trying to leave, but… what if we just stayed here? Forever? How would we get off this island anyways?”

“I don’t know… but yeah. This place… it’s just all nice here. Everything’s perfect. But something’s wrong. Two things repeated themselves, and now Leo’s gone. So I guess it’s an imperfection of a perfect place.”

“What do you guys do out here every day? Don’t you just, like, doze off just sitting in these hills? Not much happens here, so it gets kind of boring, you know?”

I'm about to answer him when I hear shouts from down the hill. I stand up and jog down the hill. “Hey! What’s happening?” I ask.

“We found him. But he’s not in a good condition. We found him bloodied up and he had three stab marks on his chest.” It’s Jack, one of our Crop Gatherers. I see Ian come up behind him with two other people helping him carry something. When they come closer, I realize that that something is Leo.

I take a look at him. Red stains his white shirt and brown and green marks cover his pants- probably from dirt and grass. But how did this happen? We were talking to him just right before he disappeared, and then he just vanished. “We got to take him inside.” Ian says. Well wasn’t that obvious, Ian?

I walk over to the Wall and place my hand on the pad. The barrier slides over, and we get inside. I lead the way towards the infirmary (I’m starting to feel that infirmary is an overused term…) and when I turn around, I see that Ian and the others are having a hard time with carrying Leo. I run back and help them by placing my hand under him and I think the others slack, because I’m left with a dead weight. I try my best to stay on my feet, and I don’t have to for long, because the others pick him up again.

Once we get inside, we drop him onto the bed. He’s sweating, but how should that be possible? “Oh, come on, stay with us… buddy, come on…” Ian’s chanting to himself. I can’t feel that about him because I’ve known him for only a few days- I don’t even know how long Ian’s known him.

Everybody’s asked to leave because the medical people (what should I call them anyways?) need to treat him. I see Jack, the friendly, kind person I’ve come to know over the past few days. I realize I haven’t been thinking about him lately. That’s weird.

“Hey Lance,” he says. “How’re you feeling?” Something about his tone unnerves me because I shiver.

“Fine, I guess, considering what happened today.” I register in my mind that it’s getting dark, the sun is setting.