A short Story by Lily J. Troutman
Part 1: In The Battlefield…
I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but I knew that whatever it was I was soon to be screamed at by my commander, also known as my kidnapper. I had been part of the army for six years now, and I was fighting for the wrong one.
Why? Because I had out-of-the-ordinary eyesight and that was a huge gainer for the armies who needed snipers. I may have signed up for the army once I was of age, but I would never have joined the Pakistans for the life of me.
Now, I laid here stomach down in the mud not much older than 15, a sniper Azb MK1 in my hands, and my chin resting on the but of the gun that went through my armpit. It didn’t weigh much more than 12 pounds, but since I’d been carrying it all day my arms and shoulders ached. Hakin lay in the mud his yellowy camo outfit covered in mud. However, his helmet was still maroon. I always find myself snickering at how silly they look, almost like painter hats, though I wasn’t quite sure what they were called. I also wore an outfit rather than one of those dresses the girls in town wore, almost like colorful Muslim outfits. My uniform didn’t fit me very well though…
As I shuffled around in the mud, I brought my knees to my chest and pushed myself up. A bullet hotly spun in my direction as I stared at the small whirling and whirling getting closer to me. As I had said before, I had weird eyesight. I could see better than a hawk and my eyes and brain allowed me to see small, fast-moving objects, such as a bullet, in slow motion. I was able to dodge the bullet, but that would be the only one. I prayed a bullet would hit me and end my life. I was tired of serving against my will in the wrong army.
Another bullet shot and nailed me in the shoulder. I had told myself I wasn’t going to scream when I got hit but it just happened anyway. Another one seized my collar bone, but I only screamed as a body tackled me down into the mud. I glared up at Hakim, he glared back at me and swung his fist in my jaw like a sledgehammer. I gasped and rolled over onto my side. I was surprised he wasn’t strapping my body down with his. He just let me, which was a bummer on his side of the deal. I grabbed his knife that was on his side belt and speared it into his gut. Grabbing my neck now, he rolled off of me, his breath hot in my face, and squeezed as hard as I felt he could, but I knew it was harder than I could endure.
I could hear myself choking and I could also smell Hakin’s blood dripping onto my shoulder mixing with my own before I passed out.
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I woke up the next night in the same camp that I woke up this morning, I was hoping it was heaven… then I gulped… or possibly hell. But I wasn’t quite sure this place could get much worse. I was a white bed roll laying on the floor, I looked down at myself and saw my shoulder had been worked on and now had tape and gaze rappings around it. Then the wound in my collar bone stung.
I sat up, or the best I could attempt, and saw five other men in their beds. I recognized Hakim also sitting up sipping a drink of water from a ladle. He caught my eye and brought the ladle away from his lips and back into the bucket, “I see your awake.” He growled.
“No duh!” I wrapped my arms around myself trying to hide from the cold where the camp tent flag hung open and the wind barged in. The movement of my arms burned and I winced. Hakim raised an eyebrow and layed back down, I noticed he was shirtless and he had wrappings around his abdomen from where I stabbed him. I had forgotten I had also been hit in the face by him and reached up to find my cheek and jaw swollen. Dried blood also flaked away as I brought my hand back down. I bit my lip.
The first day I was brought here was right after my father’s funeral. I remembered it was a cloudy droopy day and I kept on pinching myself to see if I was dreaming but sadly I wasn’t. There wouldn’t have been any way I was dreaming because I had witnessed my father’s murder. I stared at the pattern in the woven bandage that a man by the name of Zia had wrapped around his head. My eyes swallowed in and It was like I was looking at his bandages with a magnifying glass. I smacked my head and groaned throwing myself back down on the hard bed, I was so weird!
It was a short 15 minutes after the burial occurred, they picked me up. They knew my secret, which my father didn’t even know… the secret I could see a million times greater than any better-than-average-sniper.
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That night was cold and I knew I had to get out of here. It took all of my self-motivation just to get out of the hard bed I slept on because I felt as if I was frozen to it. Once I got outside there was another thing that bothered me, where I lived we could see the stars in the sky, here everything was so polluted.
I was able to sneak into the weapon storage and grabbed a shotgun and a couple of shells before I made it out of camp. The two late-night guards Nadeem and Adeel lay passed out with their backs together. I rolled my eyes and stepped over them. I could have gone around but what fun was that?
As I walked through the night I realized I couldn’t see as good as I could have during the day, which was the normal situation for most humans I knew or heard about. But it was odd for me to know anytime someone or something could sneak up on me.
But it was something that snuck up on me rather than someone. As I trudged along I stomped into something squishy and when I realized I couldn’t bring my feet back up. Struggling I fell over, my hands sinking deeper and deeper along with my knees into the gritty substance until I couldn’t move and the last thing I could remember was my head going under, I was in quicksand!
Part 2: Stalking like a Cat in the Jungle:
I had always thought of myself to be tough. I lived with four older brothers, two older sisters, and eight younger brothers and sisters. Whenever you come from a huge family like mine, especially with 14 children you tend to have a patience level and you are stronger than an ox.
The sun peeked through the deep green leaves of the plants that sprouted all around me as I trudged through the forest. I was wanting to get to the ocean because after all, it was mating season for the fish. I was planning to get enough fish for three whole weeks.
The boots I wore sank deep into the mud as I trudged along. A gun sat propped up on my shoulder and my pack contained a foldable fishing pole, a few nets, water, food, and leftover biscuits from last night’s meal mom had made.
Back to being tough, here I was trudging along when I snagged my pant leg on a branch that was sticking out, and before I knew it I had taken a chunk out of my leg and I howled like a rabid wolf in agony. Truth was that it didn’t hurt very much and I found myself laughing at how pathetic I had just sounded. I had let up such a fuss even the mockingbirds shut their beaks.
Something moved around in one of the bushes to the side of me. I peered over and saw a gun laying on the ground. Attempting to pick it up, I suddenly realized it was in the arms of a person. A person! I gasped and knelt beside the person and realized it was a girl. She was covered in sand and I frowned. That was how my family got to this mysterious island. They were traveling in a horse carriage when they suddenly entered a large sandpit. At the time I was 16, the age I am now. But since that was many, many, years ago I would be 41, but I am stuck in this body forever.
In this place you don’t grow older, you always stay the same. Almost like the book I had been reading on the ride over here, Tuck Everlasting. However, my family didn’t drink any special water, we drowned in sinking sand! Many people wonder where each other go when they get swallowed into sinking sand, now I had my answer. You get sucked into Hell. Well, my brothers and sisters tend to call it Heaven, after all, we are on a beautiful island, but I wanted to do something with my life.
I drew out of feeling sorry for myself and dusted the sand off the girl lying on the ground in the forest. I also saw she had bullet wounds and was wearing some sort of army uniform. I put my arms under her head and legs as I knelt down and carefully picked her up. Looking around I scanned a safer place where I could put her.
The sand and beach weren’t very far away and I made it there before I set her down into the sand. The weight of her body was almost nothing and as I sat on the beach waiting for her to wake up I got the odd feeling I was watching a mermaid. I wasn’t quite sure why I was thinking this. After all, she had legs rather than a tail, she was wearing clothes and she wasn’t in the water. The only thing that made sense was how beautiful she was. Digging into my bag, I sat on a rock merely 4 feet away from where the girl lay and bobbed the fishing line and bait into the water.
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I hated waking up in places I wasn’t supposed to be in. For example, when I was first kidnapped I woke up bound in ropes and duct tape around my mouth, now I woke up in the sand. The last place I remembered dying in. I screamed and sat up quickly. I didn’t want to be in the sand! I looked around to see a boy around my age staring at me with his head cocked. He looked ridiculous sitting on a rock fishing in the shallowest waterfront and looked not much deeper than a puddle. I pushed myslef up, wincing from the weight I put onto my shoulders. “Where am I?” I panicked and glared down at the boy.
He shrugged, his patience bothering me, “We call this Neverland.”
I looked at him suspiciously and looked around for my gun. I saw it was in a pile on the other side of the boy along with his own. I frowned. “Neverland?”
“I’m just kidding.” The boy chuckled, still staring at me. Just like what the Armies did when they found out I was a girl, a girl who could shoot, kill and destroy. I came closer to him.
“So what’s this place actually called?”
He shrugged and stood up. I eyed him and noticed he had light sandy blonde hair, that looked nicely cut and stunning blue eyes. Sort of like mine. I also observed the slight barely noticeable cuts on his forearms. I also had a feeling he didn’t even know they were there. “We don’t know what this place is called. I’ve been here for 25 years and I still look the same as if it was only yesterday I came.”
“You particularly never grow old?” I asked.
He jumped down from the rock and landed perfectly and came over to me. I backed up not trusting how close he was getting. “No,” He shook his head, “We never die”
“So it’s just this place?” I rolled my eyes, I didn’t need any more weird things about me. I could already see abnormally, watch things move in slow motion, and now never grow old? I groaned.
“Exactly.”
I rubbed my aching shoulder and slowly peeled back the binding which was covered in sand. The guy continued staring. “What’s your problem, stop staring.”
He slowly started untying his shoe, “Do you have a name?”
I shook my head, “Not really. Back in the Army called me S-13.”
He raised an eyebrow, “In the Army? Man, what year is it? Back where I came from they didn’t hire 15-year-old girls to be in the army.”
“They still don’t.” I ducked my head. He looked at me sympathetically.
“So what do you want to be called?”
I shrugged, “My father used to call me Crayola.”
The guy laughed a little bit, “After the crayon?”
“Some may say so.”
“Well, I”m Jasper!” He held out his hand. I stared down at it, not bothering to shake hands with so-said-Jasper. “How did you get your wounds?” He noticed my hesitation and changed the subject.
“Nothing too bad.” I shrugged and swiped my blonde hair over my shoulder.
Jasper raised an eyebrow and sat beside me in the sand where I decided to lower myself, “They look like bullet wounds.”
“That’s because they are.” I glanced at him and saw the interesting blue specks in his eyes as they widened. He reached down and picked up my rifle.
“How come you had this when I found you?”
“You found me?”
“No, I was just sitting here when you woke up.” He said sarcastically. I reached for the gun and he eventually gave it up and picked up his own.
“Wanna go hunting?” the edge of my mouth perked up into a smile.
“I’m hunting right now, at this very exact moment.” Jasper stuck his hands in his pocket and looked around. I noticed the day was hot and honestly I wanted to go into the forest and look around.
“With a stick!” I shook my head and grabbed his arm. Eventually, he followed me and looked around carefully after us. My rifle was slung over my shoulder and Jasper’s was as well. My stomach growled, “Do you hunt much?” I looked up at him.
“With a stick.” He nodded, “Most people call it fishing though.”
I shrugged my shoulders. Cocking the gun I inspected the trigger and saw it was rusted like all the rest of the guns back in the camps. These guns sadly got used a lot. I shuddered.
I saw the tail of a squirrel quite far away and when I grew closer I was able to see the glimmer of excitement in his eyes as he climbed across the branch towards an acorn. I lifted my gun aiming for the cute creature but couldn't’ bring myself to shoot it.
Jasper gaped at me, “How on earth could you even see that chipmunk?”
“It’s a squirrel.” I glanced up at the trees above me and I suddenly had a feeling something was watching me. I got a lot when I was on the battlefield, probably because normally I didn’t just have normal eyes, I also had a series of barrels of guns pointed at me. Jasper's eyebrows knitted together,
“Do you feel that?”
I nodded and scanned above me. In the corner of one of the branches directly above me, I saw the ear of some sort of large cat. I lifted my gun once again and shot at the ear. I grinned at myself as I indented the cat’s ear with a perfect circle. The cat howled like a wolf and jumped down onto the ground in front of Jasper. The cat cocked his head. I saw the cat was a Linx.
“Nice shot, girl.” It hissed at me like a snake.
“Why thank you!” I walked up to the cat and stared into its eyes.
“I didn’t even tell you that animals talked!” Jasper came up beside me. Eyes sparkled with interest.
“Must you?” I turned on him.
“Have you always been able to talk to animals?”
“ I have.”
The cat licked a large tongue over its hairy lips while watching how this was going to turn out. “That’s incredible.”
“I’d better be on my way.” The cat purred and flicked its wounded ear. As it stalked off into the woods, I allowed myself to lose track of it.
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I kept on learning more and more new things about Crayola. She had an odd ability to talk to animals and I knew something was also weird about her eyesight. The fact she could see the little squirrel from so far away was not normal for the average human being. Crayola sat leaning her back against a tree as she carved a stick into a spear with one of my fishing knives. They had caught a couple of fish that night after I had checked my lines.
I winced as I saw her slash over and over slightly worried she would ruin my knife, eventually I cleared my throat, “Take it easy on that thing.”
Crayola looked up at me and glared. “You're the one who gave it to me.”
I shook my head, “No, I let you BORROW it.”
Crayola shrugged and I could feel my patience starting to run out. She sensed to have felt this and chucked the knife at my feet. I would have doubted her aim if I knew she wasn’t trying to hit me but I hardly flinched as she threw the knife directly in between my feet. Crayola after all had excellent aiming skills.
“So what other interesting things can you do.”
“Not much.” she quickly glanced in my direction. I lowered my head looking at my hands as I sat on a log.
“But what are some of the others.” I knew she probably didn’t want to share very much but as far as I knew there wasn’t any way to get off this awful island, and we never grew old, so after all, she would have to share some time. If she was interested in staying with me I had planned on taking her to meet my family. My parents were also doctors and I knew she could get some help with the wound in her shoulder and collar bone. She had ended up telling me what happened earlier this day. I felt bad for her, truly I did.
Though I also felt bad for myself. I hated being here, it was awful! Though my family thought they were in heaven I was convinced I was in hell. My mom kept on telling me since we had been Christians we had died and we were granted Eternal life, but she was missing the fact we were supposed to have eternal life with God.
My hands squeezed into fists as I thought about all I was going to do back in my old life. I had planned on going to school to become a teacher and marry a young girl I had been friends with ever since I’d been bored and so much more! Now I was stuck here.
“I can see things in slow motion,” Crayola spoke up, interrupting me from the thoughts I had pretty often.
I looked up at her and awe had crept onto my face, “You can see things in slow motion?”
She nodded and rested the back of her head against the tree trunk. She folded her arms over her knees and brought them up to her chest. “I’ve always been able to do weird things. However, my siblings weren’t as lucky as I was. I can talk to animals, see things in slow motion, I can see about 100 times better than an Eagle or a Hawk.” She tilted her chin towards me and stared at me. “I can see so well that I can see the texture of your skin like it was under a magnifying glass right in front of my face.”
My skin crawled thinking about how she was surveying every inch of me, “I can even see the small scars you have on your thumb.” She stared at my fingers.
“How can you?” I inspected my hand, “They aren’t even there anymore.” Awe transformed across my face when she raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you were pretty good at hiding and seek, then.”
The corner of her mouth crept up into a lopsided grin. “Sensationally.” Then she stopped, thinking about something else, “You know it sorta feels nice being able to FINALLY share this with someone. I’ve always wanted to reveal the TRUE truth about me but I was told by the men in the Army and even my parents that they’ll leave me or harass me and publically excoriate me.”
“Common sense always tells me to give up on my dreams and forget all about them because I'm stuck here.” I cleared my throat wanting to share something private about my feelings as well. I knew that to get this girl to like me she would have to trust and know more about me. “But I don’t want to.”
“Are you talking about your dreams that you had back home before you came here?”
I nodded, “I dreamed of getting married, starting a family, and being a school teacher.”
“How old did you say you were again?” She asked and put her hands out towards the fire. The flames still burn even though I hadn’t stoked it all at all. Here nothing dies, nothing grows old. This fire might be here when the world is destroyed. The only thing that died here was the fish and the sea creatures. Some of the trees did as well, it was such a weird environment.
I noticed a gentle breeze blow through and then it was suddenly gone.
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When I woke up the next morning I noticed Crayola was gone. I sat up quickly when I looked over to where she had laid down for the night. How had I not been woken up when she moved around? I, after all, was an insanely light sleeper and laid awake most of the night because of a nearby owl busily moving about in the trees. I must have been so tired I finally passed out and she had managed to sneak away.
“Crayola!” I hollered, hoping she wasn’t too far away. I waited a few moments and heard an eerie amount of silence. “Crayola?”
“Are you looking for the girl?” A small voice near my left ear. I spun around and saw a Green tree snake snapping its tongue in and out of its mouth in my direction as it spoke.
“I am, did you see where she went?”
The snake narrowed its eyes and extended its neck out longer. “I saw her head up towards the waterfall.”
“Honest?” I stared into its eyes.
“Why would I lie?”
I raised an eyebrow thinking about how naturally snakes weren’t very trustworthy. The first example of this would be Satan in the Garden of Eden tricking Eve to do something wrong.
The snake had seen where Crayola went and I found her sitting on one of the large rocks overlooking the waterfall. She looked up, not startled when I came up to her and sat down beside her.
“I see that you spoke with the snake?” She guessed. I nodded my head, “I asked him to tell you where I was going if you cared to look for me.”
“Of course I cared to look for you.” I faced her. “Anyone would be stupid not to.”
Crayola began to say something when she frowned and jumped off the rock pulling me behind her. In the corner of my eye, I saw something move. I recognized a Pakastani army coat like the one Crayola wore traveling through the trees beside us. Crayola propped her gun onto the rock and aimed at the man. At that moment I had just realized it was a man. He didn’t wear a shirt and had his abdomen wrapped in white cloth like he was hurt. Crayola looked as if she was going to pull the trigger when I put a hand on her arm and hissed in her ear. “You can’t shoot him!” She glared at me.
“I can do whatever I’d like!” She whispered back and aimed again.
“No Crayola I won’t let you. Besides, you can’t kill him anyway. Once you get here you are immune to dying.”
“This Jack-Platipus could use a favor and die.” She looked at me, her eyes softening and I saw the aching in her eyes. She knew the man.
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Rage flowed through my veins like lava as I glared all the murder and hate into the guy who stood before me. I had instantly recognized him to be Hakin. It was just yesterday I ran off and they had already sent someone after me? Why did they send Hakin? After all, he was wounded when I stabbed him.
Hakin looked lost and I could see the particles of sand sprinkled on his skin and uniform. He must have fallen into the sinking sand as well. Clearing my throat I stood up. Hakin wheeled on me like I had expected him too. Now he raised his gun and aimed it at me. “Why should you give yourself up to me?” He smirked and looked around the gun at me. My anger sparked.
“Haven’t you noticed anything weird around this place?”
“Many things.” He nodded and lowered his gun. Walking in my direction, it took all I could not to run away from him. But I knew from Jasper’s explaining there was no way he could take me back to the camp. “But do you care to explain what this place is?”
Hakim had the excuse every time he saw me he had to at least punch me in the face or the stomach. But at this moment I had forgotten about the agreement he had made with himself.
If there would have been a cartoon illustration made out of the punch that Hakin had given me, it would have been hung up in every fight bar around.
Before I knew I was on the ground having Hakim and EVEN Jasper came out of the hiding place I had picked for him and stared down at me. “That was DRAMATIC!” I had never heard Hakim laugh. I had always thought him to be dirty and always down to business.
I stood up coughing, I might have seen some blood from where Hakim may have knocked out a tooth, but I probably imagined it. The process of standing up took a lot longer than I thought it would have been. “I hate you,” I mumbled at him. Jasper’s eyes were open extremely wide, he was the only one concerned about my well-being.
“Are you okay?”
I hardly caught my breath before barreling into Jasper and knocked him onto the ground. I hated him for not letting me shoot the snot out of Hakin even though it wouldn’t have killed the awful man. Just wounded him, which was all I needed.
Hakim yawned from above us as I realized I had knocked Jasper onto the ground and was awkwardly laying on top of him. I frowned and dug my elbows into his chest as I began to get up. “Are you two done yet?”
“Shut up!” I yelled at Hakim and stormed into the section of the woods without looking back. All I had wanted was to be alone and think about my options for a little while but I had been interrupted… twice! I was not a happy camper.
Part 3: Will Things Ever Be Normal?
I didn’t know why I said I was a happy camper, after all, I was not camping. Instead, I was stuck in a world where I had no clue where I was traveling, and everyone I knew now had been told about the weird things-
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed as my feet slipped out from underneath me and I found myself sliding on my rear end towards an end of a cliff nearby. I probably would have died if I couldn’t see in slow motion and notice I could reach out and grab a branch I was about to conk my head on. My palms slapped it and the pressure I used to stop myself erupted painfully into my shoulders and I found myself yelling. I didn’t know if I still had the bullets in my arm but I could feel them embed even deeper from the moment. The pain was too much and I felt something slip in my arm socket.
The next thing I saw was blood and after, pure blackness…
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I heard a scream nearby as I brought my fishing pole out of the water. The scream was more of a shrill that caused me to drop what was in my hands and run towards the noise. Halfway across the sandy beach, the scream stopped and I found myself turned around, now knowing where to go. A Mockingbird near my ear repeated the same noise and I glared at the ugly bird. Another one by my right ear screamed, then all around me, birds screamed. I covered my hands over my ears trying to block out the piercing noise… then suddenly it stopped. I had tripped and layed face first in the dirt waiting for my ears to stop ringing from the silence I had not been used to then I saw her--
When I suddenly awoke I noticed a waterfall of sweat was raining down my back. Even though I had been dreaming those screams still reminded me of the one my sister Megan had shrieked when she had fallen into the sinking sand. That one day had haunted me for years and years and honestly still did. I, really, really hated it here. I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest like I had seen my sisters do on many occasions and also Crayola, surprisingly it calmed me down.
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The pain in my arm ramped up from stiffness to searing, blinding agony faster than I could blink. But it wasn’t my arm that was hurting, instead, it was in what was left of my shoulder. My eyes widened as I saw a bloody stump to my left, and my arm lay lifelessly dispatched from me up against my knee. I panicked and kicked it off of me, wincing and just about passing out again from the pain. Reaching across with my right hand, I grabbed at the wound, covering as much of the flesh as I could. I felt the broken nub of bone sticking into my palm. I shut my eyes and screamed as I stood up in shock, I knew everything was wrong and I could hardly balance. Though at the moment one of the only things I was really worried about was how I was supposed to shoot, ugh, what’s his name…. I couldn’t think, my brain was wonky and I felt an uneasy amount of nausea. Ahh, that’s right, no- not yet… Hakim… The fabric on my uniform’s stitching waved in the slight wind causing me to look too closely into the yarns and got myself even dizzier. I saw Jasper in the corner of my eye coming closer and closer, however, I wished he came quicker before I dropped back on my knees overwhelmed with my eyesight going weird. Everything was zooming in and out like someone was messing with the button on an electronic magnifying glass. Jasper hardly stopped and stared before dropping down on his knees beside me. “I’m going to kill him!” I whisper-yelled as I buried my face into his chest.
I didn’t know if I passed out again or if I just fell asleep.
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When I awoke the two of us were still sitting there. The pain was no longer worse than child-birth instead it was more of a severe rope burn that could cut into the bone.
I had seen many dispatched arms on the battlefield but I would have never imagined it felt like this, other than feeling like a rope burn, it also felt like a nest of hornets landed on it. “I’m going to kill him.” I sobbed.
I could feel Jasper move slightly and run his thumb over my eyebrow wiping away a loose strand of hair that was attacking my eyeball. I twitched not used to being touched but once I realized he wasn’t trying to hurt me, I relaxed a little.
“Woah, Woah.” He said. Even though I felt like he was supposed to be yelling this at me he went on with a strange smoothness in his voice, “Let’s try to be rational about this.”
“About what?” I turned my head and stared at him. I saw his Adam's apple bob up and down.
“Killing the guy.”
“But I can’t.” I pouted. “I can’t shoot him, because of my stupid, STUPID decapitation.”
Jasper nodded, “It bothers me how patient you are.”
“We’ll tie a heavy rock to the bottom of his feet and throw him in the ocean.” Jasper looked into the distance and spoke slowly, then he shook away the thought and looked down back at me, “I mean… why thanks?”
I couldn’t help but smile up into his eyes. “I was thinking.” I cleared my throat, “what’s going to happen after this, I mean there isn’t any way off this island.”
Jasper thought for a while, “You know we might be able to get back into our world if we step back into the sinking sand.”
I shuddered attempting to sit up, Jasper pushed me up by my back and I leaned against him rather than having my head in his lap. “Why don’t we find my family and talk to them about it.”
“There are other people here?”
“My parents and all of my siblings.”
I gulped, “And Hakim.”
Jasper shrugged, “Like I said we can put him at the bottom of the ocean, and my mom's a doctor. She can help you with your arm.”
“But do they have to know about all the weird things with me?”
Jasper looked around, “Why don’t you think of them of advantages rather than disabilities.”
“Interesting thought.”
Part 4: It may finally end.
I found myself nervous a little when Crayola and I walked up the steps to the house my family had lived in ever since we were sucked into this world. I had tried to warn her of the drama of what might happen when we got there. My family hadn’t seen any other people ever since. I on the other hand had met two since my trip.
I saw little Agness sneak through the back of the house and eventually she tackled me with a series of giggles. I laughed and hugged her. Agness looked up at Crayola in awe.
“Who’s this?” She asked, “There are more people on this island?” I was used to her little state but since she was actually 30 not the five year old she appeared to be. Mother was next to meet me, she embraced me with a series of hugs and kisses then turned to Crayola. She smiled.
“You’ve joined our world too?” Crayola nodded, then mother saw her missing arm and frowned. Hurting Crayola inside, she did her best to help her the pain and make her stub not get infected. The entire time I could feel Crayola glare at the back of my head.
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It took me a while before I got used to looking at my missing arm stub. Eventually, once the wound healed and I had to share my story with all of Jasper’s siblings until it suddenly didn’t hurt to say anymore I finally felt secure about myself. Jasper was right, I did need to stop seeing my abilities as a weakness and instead view them as something I could use as an advantage.
I stood at the edge of the sandpit, my hand locked in Jasper’s as the two of us stared into the sinking sand. I could feel my heart racing as we both stepped in afraid we wouldn’t enter back into the world we first belonged to.
No one would have known if we resurfaced or not, in fact, I don’t even know if I will or not. But obviously, I did because here I am writing this to you.
The end!
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