The Fallen Villiage (update!) by Diane Rainey

(2 ratings) Rate this Story (5 best) 1 2 3 4 5

I might have been a horrible person for staring, but the thing that kept me from being truly horrible was the fact that I didn't want to stare. So, I did the only thing I thought logical at the time; I closed my eyes and tried to have a thoughtful look on my face. As if I was considering a plan. It must have worked, because he didn't yell at me.
While sitting on the rock, doing nothing at all seemed to make time go by so slowly. Mere seconds took years, and minutes took eternities.
My eyelids slid apart, and I saw the stream in front of me. Nothing much had changed since I closed my eyes; Ryan still sat at his spot with a look of complete concentration on his face, we were still in the forest, and we were still lost. I couldn't decide which was worse: Being lost, or being lost with Ryan.
"How'd they trick you into this?" Ryan asked out of the blue. I almost jumped at the sound of his voice, I hadn't been expecting it. My face felt hot when he asked the question, I didn't want him to know how stupid I was. But, then again, it might have just been the sun against my skin that made my cheeks feel warm.
After I told him how I ended up there, I focused my attention on a squirrel near-by, climbing up a tree trunk. He didn't laugh, but I would have preferred that over what he ended up doing.
"You're stupid," he said matter-of-factly. It hurt; I hated to be called stupid more than I hated to be called ugly. I could fix ugly, but stupid would stick to a person like white on egg shells and I didn't like thinking that I was stupid. I nearly jumped off my rock, and started yelling at him.
"Well you're obviously not smarter than me! You're out here too, you know!" I shouted. After that I cursed, and I stormed away from him like a spoiled little kid having a fit. I slammed myself down on a tree stump that was a good distance from him, and crossed my arms. He made no effort to apologize to me; it was almost like adding salt to the wound. I couldn't imagine why he would be so mean to someone he was stuck in the middle of nowhere with. At first I thought the rumors of his attitude weren't true, that they were just stories made up by people who judged him unfairly, but I was wrong. He was just as mean and nasty as they said, and I had the misfortune to be stuck with him.
I had my gaze sitting upon the ground with my mind playing through possible ideas for getting us out. I was so deep in thought that I hadn't noticed the pathway on the ground until several minutes had gone by. But when I saw it, I felt a smile unfold on my face.
"A path!" I shouted, hardly taking any time to see if Ryan had heard me. Without any thought to where the path would lead, I took off running. Behind me, I could hear Ryan calling my name.
"Ash! Wait!" and his voice was soon accompanied by the sound of him running behind me. I hardly paid him any attention at all, my heart was soaring with the idea that we were almost out. I was so sure of it that I began to plot a way to get back at those horrible girls and their cruel joke. "Ash!"
My excitement must have given me abnormal gracefulness, because I didn't fall once while I ran.