8:30 a.m. Next Day. 2 Days since the split.
Alice Boe
The sky outside was gloomy, even though the rains had stopped for a while. Emily was in her capsule, resting ever since AnnSophia wrapped a bandage around her ankle the previous day. Emily didn't sprain her ankle because of the fall from her capsule, during the Earthquake. She survived that fall unharmed. Where she got that sprain was when she got up after the fall and tried to walk down the aisle during the earthquake. Thinking she could easily walk down the aisle towards us, she took a few steps until she fell once again. That was when she sprained her ankle. It was in the second fall. I haven't sprained my ankle, but while I was on the volleyball team in Wolfgang, I've seen a lot of my teammates sprain their ankles. I know that it's a quite painful experience.
We just had a day of food left for us in the camp. Kirt looked through the canned food and saw that the expiry date of those foods was a year away. So, he reasoned that it was better for us to use those canned items in an emergency situation. Until then, he suggested that we hunt and eat from the jungle. But his suggestion was easier said than done.
"Without guns, how are we going to hunt in the jungle?" I asked after he suggested that. We couldn't find Sergio's guns when we all searched the camp for them, during those 10 days when all of us waited for Sergio before the split. Without guns, we couldn't simply kill an animal with our bare hands, unless we chose to eat insects. I'd rather eat a monkey than eat an insect. I hate insects just like how Kirt hates them. That's one of the many similarities that we share.
Just when I asked that Timothy said, "Oh don't worry about that, Alice."
When I looked in his direction I saw Rhett, Tom and Timothy hold fishing rods in their hands as they entered the bus.
"Found them in Sergio's cabin," said Rhett.
"After a long search," added Tom.
"And uncovering debris," said Rhett.
"And uncovering debris," parroted Tom.
"Lots of them actually, it took a lot of time to uncover these since morning when we and Kirt discovered these under some debris," added Rhett.
"See I told you, it's not difficult finding food in the jungle," Kirt said.
"So we fish?" I asked.
"Yeah," said Kirt.
All the boys were up since dawn that day, scouring through the debris of the camp. They were initially searching for firearms but couldn't find where Sergio stored them. However, their search helped them find another tool which would help all of us find food to eat: fishing rods.
When the boys had gone outside of the bus after talking with me for a while, I took up Leo, my teddy bear, and observed him with a smile on my face. I love teddy bears. There's no age for one to stop loving teddy bears.
Kirt Heinrich
While I got out of the bus with the other boys, Rhett asked, "Kirt, we have everything we need for fishing, but where are we going to fish?"
"Yeah Kirt, where are we going to fish?" Tom parroted.
At first, I was puzzled at their question, but then I realized that none of us had actually told anyone about the existence of La Muchachita.
I looked and Timothy and then told the twins, "Guys there's a river downstream that Sergio showed us. We can perhaps try fishing there."
"Do you know how to go there?" Tom asked.
"Yeah Kirt, do you know how to go there?" parroted Rhett.
"But it's not gonna be that easy fishing there coz the river is kind of swollen and raging. We've gotta try our best bet," said Timothy.
"Yeah," I said.
"We can try," said Rhett.
"Yeah, we can try," parroted Tom.
"So why don't we leave now?" Rhett asked, without Tom parroting what he said.
"There's one problem…going there without getting lost," I said.
"Don't worry about that Kirt," Tom said with a smile as he flourished a machete that he discovered underneath some debris during the search that day.
"We can use this to mark Xs on every tree that we cross while going to the river. These marks will serve as milestones for us to refer to on our way back," said Rhett.
"Yeah, they can serve as milestones for us to refer to on our way back," parroted Tom as he tossed the machete to Timothy who caught it without getting his arm getting cut.
"Guys that's a wonderful idea!" I remarked.
"I think we better take Alice with us. She managed to get directly to the river the night before the split without getting lost. She only had an issue getting back, but still, she managed to reach there first without getting lost," suggested Timothy.
"I'll call her and the others," I said.
"We'll plan some stuff out then," Timothy said.
I nodded and went into the bus.
Alice Boe
Kirt came in and told me that the boys decided to go as soon as possible to the river to fish. He also brought to my notice that we hadn't told anyone about the river, and told me that he told the boys about its existence.
"We need you to come with us," he requested.
"Why me?" I asked.
"Well Alice you know how to get there," he answered.
"Me? Kirt that was just an attempt," I said.
"Trust me, Just try and I'm sure you'll be able to get us there," he said.
"But how will we get back? I think I can get you there, but I really don't know to get y'all back," I said.
"Don't worry Alice. Tom's got a plan. He found a machete and his plan is to mark the trees with cuts as we go to the river so that when we return, we won't get lost," he answered.
"Hmmm. If that's in place, I'll come," I said.
"I'll then go talk with the others," Kirt said with a smile.
Timothy McAllister
While Kirt was on the bus, I told Tom and Rhett, "I think we're missing one thing."
"What?" Rhett and Tom asked (in unison).
"Worms or some kind of bait," I answered.
"Don't worry about that Timmie," Tom said.
"Yeah, Timmie," said Rhett moving one of the large logs that we used to sit on during campfires.
There were thousands of worms under that log. The sight disgusted me.
"How do you know these worms existed?" I asked the duo.
They didn't hear the question. They said (referring to the worms), "If we don't find anything to eat, we at least have some form of nutrition".
I almost vomited when I considered the prospect of feasting on worms. I'd rather starve and die of starvation than put one of those little, smelly, dirty, crawly things into my mouth.
Rhett and Tom pulled out some plastic hand gloves from the pockets of their hoodies, put them on, and began putting those worms into a can. I looked into the can where they were putting worms into. There were thousands of worms that looked like living noodles in that can. I love noodles but even if those worms looked like muddied noodles, I resolved to never eat one of them even if I was starving to death.
By the time they had finished collecting worms, Kirt, Hernanda, and Alice had come outside, dressed for the task.
Alice Boe
It was quite chilly outside when I got out of the bus. I put Leo in one of the large pockets on my hoodie. I always take Leo with me wherever I go. I could hear the sound of birds chirping and the branches gently swaying with the wind.
I saw Rhett hold a can overflowing with worms, with plastic gloves. AnnSophia didn't come with us. She wanted to stay and attend to Emily, who was resting in one of the capsules. Timothy was carrying the fishing rods with him.
After Hernanda came down the bus, we began our journey towards the river.
Kirt was with me during the walk. We were talking about school and other stuff as we walked. Kirt and I share a lot of similarities although we have our differences. So we had plenty of common ground to talk with each other.
We both love music. He plays the guitar while I play the keyboard. We both sing at a choir every Friday along with some Chinese folk. The difference between us in music is that Kirt is the type of musicians who likes to use notes. He cannot play or sing without notes. I, on the other hand, am a musician who prefers to use my ear. Also, as much as we both love music, we have quite different tastes. The artists I listen to are Yungblud, Big Sean, and 'Tyler, the Creator'. He, on the other hand, is someone who listens to country music and a lot of exotic music. He doesn't have a favorite artist per se, but he has favorite songs. Some of the English music he listens to are songs of Martin Garrix, Marshmello, 5 Seconds of Summer, Olly Murs, Chris Brown, James Arthur, Passenger, Faraway Martin, and Maurice West. The Spanish artists he listens to (some of them were introduced to him by Miss Cobb: our school's Spanish instructor) are Logarto Amarillo, Álvaro Soler, Morat, and Maldita Narea. Kirt also listens to a lot of patriotic, American country music: his favorite patriotic song is Made in America by Toby Keith.
Also, Kirt and I love the same genre of movies. We both love horror and thriller movies. Again, even in movies, we have differences. Kirt likes horror movies with serial killers, people lost in the jungle or monsters in them. However, he doesn't like movies with ghosts. On the other hand, I like all the types of movies that he likes, but I do watch horror films with ghosts in them. I've been trying to get him to watch The Curse Of La Llorona but he was afraid to watch it, after looking at the trailer. He told me that he'd prefer to watch IT where the horrifying thing was a monster over watching a movie with a ghost in it. He hates ghosts and for that reason doesn't watch horror movies with ghosts.
As we walked towards the forest, I kept talking with him, while Rhett and Tom were making marks on the trees with a machete. It was a long walk to the river because the river was quite far from the camp.
Timothy McAllister
45 minutes had passed since we left the camp. I thought of talking with Kirt, but he was in a long conversation with Alice, so I decided not to disturb him. At one point Rhett nearly struck Hernanda Wilkinson who was standing next to a tree, when he was marking it with the machete. Rhett and Tom marked the trees by cutting an X mark into them. Rhett would have almost killed Hernanda when he struck a tree with such force that the blade swung backward after he slit through the tree's bark. Fortunately, Rhett stopped the blade short of killing Hernanda.
I was speaking with Hernanda for the duration of the walk. It was quite heavy holding the fishing rods in my hand. Noticing that the load I was carrying was heavy, Hernanda agreed to carry some rods.
Tom and Rhett shared the responsibility for holding the can of worms. I definitely never wanted to get my hands, even if wore gloves, on that can.
Alice Boe
After a while of talking, Kirt walked away to stay alone for a while. I, on the other hand, began thinking about my parents when I looked at the trees. They lost their lives when they were stranded just like how we were in the forest. My parents were an adventurous lot. They always loved to travel the world. It was that love that got them killed. I was six then. They wanted to visit the Grand Canyon, so they left me with Gramps and Granny before going on their adventure. That would be the 100th adventure they embarked on since they married each other. Little did they know that the Grand Canyon trip would be their last adventure. Turned out that they were deceived for their money by the guide who left them in the middle of the Canyon. They starved to death being stranded there. I lost both of my parents to that fateful trip. As much as I love going to jungles and staying away from civilization, I like it when I have control over whether I stay away from civilization or not. I hate it when I'm stranded with nature in control of how long I stay away from civilization.
Kirt Heinrich
Seeing Alice drowning in thought, Timothy and I went to her and made an attempt to distract her. We could see the bank of the river in the distance. Thinking of an idea, we nudged her.
"What do you think of a race, Alice?" we asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me and with a smile said, "Yeah!"
"Run!" I said. She took off like how she used to take off during school races.
Timothy took off too.
I ran for a while until while I was running, a cockroach flew and landed in my collar. Boy, I hate cockroaches! I began hollering and screaming. Alice turned behind and laughed as I tried to get that giant, wild cockroach off my body. Timothy stopped and began laughing too.
"Don't worry Kirt, we got it," said Rhett swinging his machete, with Tom and Timothy laughing, as he came running towards me. He was teasing me.
"Don't you bring that machete near me!" I yelled as that cockroach made its way into my clothes. I hated it when that happened. I couldn't just throw off my clothes and get it off. I hit myself on different parts of my body until that little fellow flew out of my collar, touching my ear. I hate cockroaches!
By the time the cockroach left me alone, Rhett and Tom began shouting, "There's the river!"
Alice had already reached the bank. I lost the race. With Timothy and Hernanda, I walked to the bank. We all beheld the sight of a furious Muchachita when we reached the banks.
Looking at the fury of the river, we were quite unsure of whether we could catch a fish in that current. Nevertheless, we decided to try. Hernanda was helping Rhett put the bait on the fishing rods. We could only hope that we could catch some good fish. One couldn't be certain of catching one when the river had a current with that kind of strength.
We spent some time getting ready to fish.
We were all jovial, speaking of the funny things that happened during the trip and the months before, as we worked. Speaking about those things really helped us take our worries away from the anxiety of being stranded in the jungle.
I was checking the strength of a fishing rod's string when I saw Hernanda who was beside me get up. Her eyes were narrowed, as if she was looking at something far in the distance. She was trying to look far upstream. "Hernanda?" She didn't respond. She was still observing something. Everybody else fell silent and looked at Hernanda, who was behaving strangely.
"Hernanda?" said Alice. Hernanda was still occupied with something, she didn't respond.
"Guys look there", Hernanda finally said pointing upstream. We all looked in the direction that she was pointing. We saw a boat being carried along with some logs by the furious water.
"Oh boy!" Alice exclaimed.
I could see a person on the boat. For a while I thought it was some fisherman sleeping on his boat but then I realized fishermen don't sleep when they're the only one on their boats and especially when the waters are tempestuous. It was a castaway. Looking at the long hair of the castaway, I recognized that she was a girl. The boat banged on a few rocks as it came downstream, the body of the girl being tossed left and right. Is she alive? I didn't know if she was dead or alive. She didn't move. Nevertheless she had to be brought to shore. If she stayed in the boat she could drown any moment. All that was needed for her to drown was for the boat to bang harder against a rock and capsize. I didn't want to be a bystander to that. I wanted to rescue this castaway. I began thinking about a plan to get the boat and rescue the person inside it, on the spot.
"Gimme the rope," I told Rhett.
"What are you going to do?" asked Timothy.
"Just tie the rope around my waist tightly and don't let go of that end of the rope," I told Rhett pointing to one end of the rope.
"When I shout pull, pull! Also, if I don't surface, I want you to pull," I told them.
My plan was to enter the river and jump onto the boat. Once I'm on the boat, I wanted to tie the rope onto the boat's stern so that my classmates could pull the boat towards the bank. It was a suicidal idea. However it is worthy to die saving someone's life, so I didn't hesitate to go ahead with my suicidal idea.
The rope was quite long. After the rope was tied around me, I ran upstream trying to catch up with the boat.
The boat was furiously brought downstream.
For a while, the boat was being carried in the middle of the river.
After a while, it began being carried near the bank, by the river.
That was when I began to chase it, by running parallel to it. Alice followed me, as I ran downstream on the bank, parallel to the boat
When the boat came closer to the bank and I thought I could jump into it, I took a deep breath and jumped, landing on the boat with a thud after almost sliding off to the other side, about to fall into the water.
Once on the boat, I saw an injured girl lying there amid some vomit. I was determined to help her. That was when Alice began yelling, "Hurry! Kirt"
Following her instruction, I immediately began removing the rope from my waist and tying it to the boat.
The boat was coming close to where the others were holding the rope. I had very little time to act. Acting quickly, I managed to tie the rope to the boat in time and yell "Pull!" after falling on the boat with a sigh.
Alice joined the others as they pulled the boat towards the bank. It wasn't easy because of the force of the current. However, with a great struggle, they brought the boat to the bank. I was panting and exhausted after the chase that I almost collapsed onto the bank when I got out of the boat.
"Well done, Kirt. We thought you'd be dead meat but you made it, rescuing the girl," congratulated Rhett and Tom.
After the congratulations, we all looked at the girl on the boat who was alive but seemed tired and injured. She was in an unconscious state.