Chapter 221: Trapped
The trek through the mountains after crossing the suspension bridge to the flower fields didn't take long. After walking about three minutes, we made it to the small clearing where the glowing flowers were located. The flower field was extremely beautiful, filled with a wide collection of flowers glowing different hues and shades of azure. Small particles, maybe pollen? floated about the buds of the beautiful flowers. In all honesty, this was an extremely beautiful scene, one that justified the long hike here.
"It's so beautiful," Irina exclaimed.
"It's beautiful and all," Zaksus shivered as he commented. "Can we head back now? It's getting quite cold."
"It sure is," Mura frowned as she felt the air with her hands. "Everyone ready to go back?"
"Wait a minute," Luna said as she took out her phone. "Let me take a picture first."
"Send it to me," Irina asked of her.
"Of course," Luna nodded. However, a frown soon appeared on her face. "No service here as well..."
"We're in the middle of the mountains," Noah said with his hands clasped behind his head.
"Let's head back," Mura then announced.
Without any further objections, the entire group started moving in the direction we had walked here from. As we walked back, I noticed that the others had also started shivering somewhat. In addition, when I breathed with my mouth, I could see a white cloud forming.
"It's getting quite cold," Erith said as she hugged her arms and shivered.
"The weather on the mountain changes without warning," Loyd frowned. "We need to head back fast."
Loyd was right. The temperature change is surprisingly fast, one that will surely endanger us. The air around us seemed to be getting colder every second with no signs of stopping. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the drop in temperature will continue. We must head back to our tents fast to escape the cold.
"The bridge is just ahead!" Zaksus announced with a joyful expression on his face as he rushed out ahead of us, making his way past the covers of the trees. However, he soon stopped dead in his tracks and dropped to his knees. On his face, there was a look of despair. "T-the bridge..."
"The bridge collapsed..." Irina covered her mouth with both hands and muttered.
"Wait wait wait..." Noah shook his head in disbelief as he stared at the dark chasm before us with wide eyes. "What? This gotta be a joke!"
Without saying anything, I looked around the two wooden post that had supported the suspension bridge on this end of the mountain. I walked over, squatted down, and peered at the broken rope. I squinted my eyes to see past the obscuring darkness and at the broken edge of the rope. The break was rather clean, almost as if it had been cut with something sharp...
"What do we do now?" Zaksus cried in despair.
"It's getting cold," Luna frowned and muttered. She leaned against Erith as the two bunched together for warmth.
Alvelyn approached me and also huddled close to me. With her hood on, she kept her head down, resting it on my chest and kept her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. She seemed to be wanting to escape the cold wind, so who's better than the male version of yourself?
I glanced around at everyone to see their reaction, wondering if this gesture of ours would be considered weird. However, it would appear that everyone else was too distraught to even care about us. The only person who paid attention was Loyd, but it would appear that he was quite accepting of it, probably because I'm technically her "twin brother".
"Everyone calm down," Mura forced out in a calm voice as she tried to tranquilize the situation. However, I can tell by the subtle expressions on her face as well as the tone of her voice that she was also worried and was simply faking it. "There must be another way across. We just have to find it."
"I wouldn't recommend looking for it now," I said as I rose to my full height. "It's dark out. Plus it's getting colder. It'll be extremely dangerous."
"Then we find someplace we can stay for the night," Muria calmly announced.
"Noah," Alvelyn called over to Noah. "You still have the lighter on you?"
"Yeah," Noah reached into his pant pocket and pulled out the lighter.
"Then we can start a fire," I nodded and observed. "We need to gather some firewood fast. We also need to stay in a group to not get lost."
"Someone take the flashlight and go look for firewood," Loyd suggested. "I'll go look for a place to stay for the night."
"Someone go with him," Mura added. "It's too dangerous."
"Preferably it's a cave," I sighed. "But if not, a clearing surrounded by trees will have to do. I'll go with you."
"Take the flashlight with you," Mura insisted. "You're gonna be walking around the forest. We can just use the flashlight on our phones."
"Alright then," Loyd nodded. On his face was an expression of a calm uncertainty. He seemed to be worried but still able to retain most of his composure.
Loyd and I then set out on our own, making our way away from the group in search of shelter. We walked in silence as we trod through the cold forest with the circular light from the flashlight illuminating the path ahead of us. The moon overhead has been covered by the clouds, so we were left with basically only the flashlight.
I rubbed my hands together to generate heat and brought them close to my mouth. I huffed a breath of warm air into them and wasn't surprised when another white cloud appeared and faded away.
"Temperature's dropping fast," Loyd muttered to me as we continued. He too was breathing hot air into his cold hands. In addition to that, whenever he would stop, the hand holding the flashlight would shiver, causing the light source to tremble and be unsteady in its illumination. "What the hell happened?"
I didn't tell him about what I had discovered about the ropes. Telling him or anyone else wouldn't help. Instead, it would make things worse. Having everyone be in anymore panic would just prove detrimental. It would lower morale and make them harder to mobilize.
"You see anywhere we can use as shelter?" Loyd asked me.
"No," I muttered. "If we want a cave, we have to get closer to that cliff."
I looked up and at the tall wall of rocks that served as a cliff to a mountain of some sort.
"If there's gonna be a cave, then it's gotta be there..." I frowned as I thought about the bridge.
We're not alone on this mountain.
After walking up to the face of the cliff, we searched around for a cave of some sort that we could use to escape from the cold temperature outside. As we searched, the temperature dropped even further. We shivered due to the cold as we searched, and the cold hindered our motion as it numbed our limbs. However, we continued to push on, knowing that surviving the night out without cover in this temperature would be extremely difficult.
After a minute or two, I realized something cold touch the back of my neck. This caused me to pause in my steps and look up at the sky. I reached a hand out, and sure enough, I felt something cold make contact with my naked hand. White particles were now floating down from the heavens above.
"It's snowing," I apathetically commented.
"Yeah," Loyd sighed. "We have to find someplace fast."
"Loyd," I called his name, stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to look over his shoulders ta me.
"Yeah?"
"What if we can't find a cave?"
"Well," Loyd sighed. "Then I don't know. I'm betting it all on us finding a cave, but if we don't I guess we'll have to settle underneath a tree with a wide canopy to escape the snow."
"With all the other dangers?" I added.
"What other dangers?" Loyd seemed confused by my words.
"Wild animals...that sort of thing," I continued to omit the fact about other people on this mountain that wanted to do us harm.
"We'll just have to risk it," Loyd sighed as he continued with the search. "Hopefully the fire would scare them away."
"Yeah," I nodded. "Hopefully it doesn't draw them to us..."
"What're you talking about?" Loyd looked over his shoulders once again and at me with a confused look on his face. He must think that I am delirious right now, struck dumb by the shocking fact that we are trapped on this mountain for the night.
"Nothing," I chuckled as I tried to subtly create an atmosphere of caution for him without telling him about our real dangers. "It's just that I just wondered about things like that..."
He stared at me for a bit longer, gazing into my eyes while he frowned. After a half minute of eye contact, he sighed and looked away, continuing with the search. He appears to be quite determined to find a cave for shelter, somewhere that everyone can stay and be protected from the cold. However, I suspect the driving force of his actions is Alvelyn.
"We need to find somewhere fast," he muttered. "We can't keep the others waiting forever."
I don't know if it was predetermined or if it was just luck, but we did succeed in finding a cave in the face of the cliff. It was a rather shallow one as well. In addition, it does not seem to be claimed by any animal as there lacked the stench of wild creatures as well as any signs of life in the cave. There were no dead carcasses here or any animal feces clinging to the ground. Looking up, there weren't any bats as well.
"This place is perfect," Loyd said with great pride and enthusiasm on his face. "Let's get the others here."
"You still remember the way?" I asked him.
"Somewhat," Loyd said. "It'll have to work."
After making a mental note of where the cave was in my mind, I exited and followed Loyd as we tried to make our way back to the crowd through the forest. In the dark forest, it was basically impossible for us to tell exactly where we came from. The small clusters of fresh snow that had just fallen from the sky also changed the scenery of the forest. Even that subtle difference made navigating even more difficult. However, based on my observations, we did go in the right direction and was able to meet up with the others who did not stray far from their original location.
"Thank God you guys didn't go far," Loyd let out a sigh of relief when he saw Alvelyn.
"It was Alvelyn's idea," Irina credited my female form.
"How did it go?" Mura asked as she held onto a medium sized bundle of firewood in her arms.
"We found a cave," Loyd reported. "I'll lead the way back."
As they talked, I went around to each girl, asking for some of the firewood from their arms. I took some from each girl, alleviating the load from each. Before long, I had a large stack in my arms as well. That was one of the things that I did before we started making our way to the cave. The other thing is that I talked to Zaksus.
"Zaksus," I called to him.
"Yeah?"
"You take the back," I said to him without explaining why despite his numerous attempts at inquiring. "Just do as I say."
I then upped my walking pace, making it so that I was walking near the middle of the pack. As I walked, I kept my eye on look out, scanning our surroundings for any possible threat that would attack. My thinking is this: Zaksus is the strongest and most athletic out of all of us with the best reaction time. So if someone were to attack us from behind, he would be able to react and buy us enough time to help out if necessary. This situation we're in...it's not a joke anymore. I have to treat it seriously.
After walking for ten minutes, the entire group finally made it to the cave. We were quite lucky that the cave seemed to be just right for the ten of us, with enough depth so that we did not have to huddle around the mouth of the cave where the cold wind blew in. With a shelter now discovered, we started building the fire. Zaksus laid the firewood in the necessary arrangement with the easier to light and more flammable twigs in the very center to burn the other wood.
As Noah was on the ground, bent over and doing his best to start the fire, the rest of us gathered around him, shivering. The others seemed to be praying, praying that this fire would light up and that we would be safe. I don't blame them for praying. If I did not know God and his angels, I would probably be praying as well. However, I don't think it would work since we have an angel here that had lost his powers trying to start the fire.
"Yes!" I heard people call out as the small fire started crackling to life.
With great patience, Noah fed the young flame some more firewood, but stopping at just the right amount so that the flame wouldn't suffocate.
"Ahh, warmth," I heard Zaksus let out as he warmed his hands around the fire.
"We'll have to keep the fire going for the night," Alvelyn pointed out. "Or else we'll just freeze to death while sleeping."
"She's right, sis," Muria nodded and said to Mura.
"I suggest we take turns watching the flame," I said out loud so that the others would all hear me. "It's currently 12:28 AM. The sun should rise somewhere around 6 AM, so about five and a half more hours. I'll watch it for the first hour."
"I'll take the next hour then," Loyd said.
"I got the next," Noah raised his hand.
"I'll take the next hour then," Zaksus said.
"That means we still have an hour and a half left..." I concluded.
"The girls shouldn't have to do as long of a shift as us," Loyd said. "They don't have the same physical endurance."
"Half hour shifts?" Zaksus suggested.
"I'll do an hour," Mura said.
"No," I shook my head. "It's pointless if our teacher is too tired in the morning. Half an hour max."
"I'll do the next thirty-minutes," Luna raised her hand.
"I'll do the last half hour," Alvelyn concluded.
"Alright then," Mura announced to the rest of us. "Everybody, go to sleep. We'll need to conserve as much energy as possible. Alevian," she paused and looked over at me. "Keep the fire going."
"I will."
I nodded as I peered out the mouth of the cave. The snow outside had picked up quite a bit, creating a snow storm that muffled all the sound outside and reduced visibility. However, I swear that I saw something staring at me, staring at us. It must've been a wild animal of some sort as I saw a thin object with a round end that might've been a tail flapping about.
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