Chapter 4 – Chap 4

“Hey, you’d never guess what happened tonight!” said Chris as she ran towards us when we had just come out of our room.

“So I share my bungalow with another girl, I think she’s Brazilian. Anyway, two masked men broke in and took her! We didn’t speak the same language, but I perfectly understood what she was feeling when we both stared at each other as she was being dragged away. It was horrifying!”

“Yeah, I think we saw that. They also took a bunch of other kids.” Jack replied

“Where do you think they’re taking them to? The temple at the mountain?”

“Or the cave I found yesterday…” I suggested

” Maybe, aren’t we suposed to go there today? It’s what we said yesterday,remember?” Chris said

“Wow guys, I knew they bullied you, but I didn’t know it was so bad you’re SUICIDAL!”

“Come on,mate! If it really is the place where they take the kids, I’m pretty sure you’re gonna end up there anyways!” Chris replied

“Yeah,Jack! Plus,you’re the one that encouraged me to go outside and explore when we arrived here,remember?” I added

“Yeah, but that was before I knew what this shithole was! Okay,fine! My fishbar’s expired anyway…”

“Pretty sure all of them are.”

“I’m gonna regret this…”

So we started our journey to the cave. While we were making our way through the forest, we heard someone behind us.

“Oh,shit! The men,we’re dead!” Jack said

“Relax! It’s just those Italian kids that live close to the picnic tables!”

Chris was about to put her hand on his shoulder to calm him down, but Jack jumped back.

“NO,DON’T TOUCH ME!”

“Okay…” Chris responded in confusion

Jack and I looked at each other, we both knew why he hadn’t let Chris touch him.

It was common for kids to gather in small groups,Jack,Chris and I weren’t the only ones investigating the place. Who you’d hang out with mainly depended on your nationality and/or the language you spoke. For example, even though Jack and I were American and Chris was Australian, we all spoke english, so my point still stands. Well, except for a trio of Spanish girls that hanged out with a Polish toddler, treating him as a little brother of sorts because he shared his bread with them, but that case was an exception.

The Italian kids waved at us, as if they wanted to show us or tell us something. We approached them and saw one of them was holding something on his hand. After saying hello, we found out what that object was…a skull,they had found a skull! We couldn’t speak Italian and they only knew a few very basic words in english, but after trying for a little while, I managed to ask them if I could hold the skull myself, and they said yes. It was clear that skull had belonged to a little kid, it also had horns,of course.

“Do you guys want to hold it as well?” I asked Jack and Chris

“Ew,no thanks!” Chris replied with disgust

“I want to!” Jack said

But before I could gave him the skull, we all heard what sounded like a loud horn. Had we been found? It sounded like it was coming from the beach. We got closer to the beach and saw a large ship on the shore.

“Look, there’s something inside! Cars?” Jack said

“No…buses, there are buses inside! ” Chris corrected him.

So that explained how we all managed to get to that island by bus coming from different countries.

The Italian kids were also speaking between each other, I’m positive they were also talking about the boat.

Suddenly, our conversations were interrupted by loud voices coming from the ship. The masked men…we had been spotted. At first we all ran as one pack of six, until it was time to make a split-second decision and pick a hiding spot. Jack,Chris and I decided to enter the forest and hide within the foliage, our Italian friends, on the other hand, chose to stay on the beach, hiding behind a large rock, a decision I’m sure they’d come to regret.

Our masked persecutors were getting close to the Italian kids’ position, it was only a matter of time before they’d find them. We tried to warn them from inside the woods, not sure if they heard us though, as by the time they finally noticed, it was too late. They tried to run away, but the men quickly surrounded and caught them.

We wanted to help, but there was nothing we could do, we would’ve been caught too if we had tried, so we just watched horrified as the men took them…took them to the cave.

“I knew it…” I whispered

We waited behind our bush for a while to ensure the coast was clear, no pun intended. The kids didn’t come out of the cave, no one did.

“Please don’t tell me you still wanna go in there after this…” Jack said

“Okay, I’m not telling you, I still want to, though!” Chris joked

” You’ve literally just told me!”

Chris cukcled

“Look Jack, if you want to go back to the bungalows, we understand. Not sure if it’s a good idea, though… It’s late, they should’ve rounded up all the kids by now, and they’ve probably already noticed we aren’t there,so…” I replied

“Ah,shit…My gramps always tells me I have the strange habit of always making the worst decisions, and it took me all of this to realise he’s right… I’m positive I’m gonna die here no matter what, so I suppose I prefer doing so alongside you, guys.”

“Is that a yes?” I asked genuienly confused

“Afirmative, and if you wanna do it, do it now, I think I hear men coming. Let’s just get over this…”

So Jack, Chris and I finally entered the darkness of the cave, anxious (and a bit scared) to discover what awaited us inside.

“You’ve…you’ve at least brought a flashlight or something,right? It’s pitch black in here!” Jack asked

“I haven’t!”

“Not me! All of our belongings were confiscated,remember?”

“And we’re gonna die in 3,2,1…”

“I don’t think we’ll need a flashlight, look! I see light over there! ” Chris said

“But we’re in a cave, and it’s nightime! So the light must be artificial!” Jack added

And he was right, we continued walking until we reached the source of the light, a pathway iluminated by lightbulbs, that allowed us to have a clearer view of the environment .

“Whoa…mates, take a look at that!”

Chris pointed out strange cave paintings on the walls. My first thought was they were made by the masked men or the captured kids, but upon closer inspection, it became clear they were ancient.

They seemed to depict a conflict between two types of prehistoric people, the men on one side had no horns, and were armed with spears, bows and arrows. The men on the oposite side had horns, like us. They weren’t armed, but a wierd, colossal horned figure stood beside them. There also were a bunch of animal figures that I assumed were meant to represent dogs or something.

“That giant thing…it doesn’t look like a human!” Jack said

“Yeah,what could it be?” I added

“The cave doesn’t end here, maybe there’s more interesting stuff further ahead, shall we continue?” Chris asked

Jack and I nodded and we pressed on. We traversed a pathway that was relatively narrow compared to the cave’s entrance, it was dimly iluminated by a string of old-looking lightbulbs, it then opened to a wider chamber, what we found in there horrified us .

“Are…are those prison cells?”

“Yep, and it looks like they aren’t empty…”