Stranger Spirits

Blackout [Chapter Two Part Nine]

I opened my eyes to see that I was back inside of the tent. Scratching my head I yawned. "Wasn't I outside with Atticus? Why am I in here?" I bolted upright. "What if that was a dream and I'm just now waking up?!"

"No, it wasn't." I screeched to see Atticus lying beside me. "You fell asleep yesterday afternoon while I was doing what you told me to do."

"Wait, YESTERDAY?" I fully turned towards him.

"Yeah, it's almost morning time. Do you usually sleep for half a day?"

"Well," I puffed out my chest. "On some rare occasions, sleep doesn't elude me and I take full advantage of it."

"I wasn't sure if you fell asleep or if you became possessed so I watched you while you were asleep just in case."

I pursed my lips. "That's not creepy at all."

"Says the one who lifted my blanket while I was asleep." He winked while my face reddened and gave him a nudge.

"I told you that there was nothing to it!"

"Sure..." He laughed and I just stared at him in awe. His eyes made crow's feet when he smiled wide like that. "What?" He gave me a questioning look and I snapped into attention.

"I've just never seen you laugh."

He retracted his smile and covered his mouth. "Is it a bad laugh?"

"No," I placed my hand on his shoulder. "It's a great laugh. You should do it more often."

"I'll try." His eyebrows furrowed. "We need to continue moving. It's crucial that we find a good source of water since we ran out yesterday."

"That's true, and since the sun isn't out we can cover more distance before it gets hot."

"Sounds like a logical plan." We got our things together and by the time the sun rose to greet us with morning we were already well off.

By midday, we found some shelter. We looked around but couldn't find any shade so we opted for pitching up the tent and just holding out till later in the day.

We both sat huddled in the warm tent. Without natural shade, the tent felt considerably warmer. "I can't believe we haven't found another river or lake. We are in some serious trouble if we don't find any." Atticus sighed as I looked at his ghastly face. His face looked clammy from sweating a lot. He was in bad condition.

"Atticus," I put my hand on his forehead and wiped away some sweat. "I know." I wish I knew where it was but whining in a hot tent in the middle of nowhere was not going to help us. We needed to get moving but at the moment we were locked in place. We would need to at least wait a couple of hours before we keep moving onward so the sun wouldn't be as strong.

"I'm just stating the facts. If we don't find something within the next day we probably won't make it."

"Don't say that!" I raked my hands through my hair trying to calm myself down. "I will figure something out. Just calm down!"

"I'm calm, you're the one who's not. You should calm down."

I turned towards him and gave him an expressionless face. "See? I'm fine." I laid down on the flooring of the tent. "We just need to relax or take a nap while the sun is still bright."

He laid down beside me. "Fine." A couple hours later, even though the sun was relatively high up in the sky, we decided to continue moving. Although it would be cooler at night we didn't have any torches to guide our way in the darkness.

As we journeyed onward I could sense that Atticus' health was declining. His face looked more tired as time went on and it got so bad that his form began to break.

"Atticus, you can't keep going. We need to stop for the day."

"No, we keep on going." He continued trudging along. "There's still some more time left in the day." He tripped and I caught him before he fell face-first.

"Atticus!" When he didn't reply, I shook him and yelled at him. I tipped him back and held his head to look at him closely. His skin was getting pale and he had sweat dripping down his forehead. I tapped his cheeks and nothing. He's knocked out. I looked around us and shivered. "We can't stay here but I don't know how I'll be able to take you much further." I continued to walk while dragging him.

I don't even know how long I kept walking. I just knew that it started getting darker and darker. There weren't too many trees around us but they were starting to sway back and forth with the night breeze. I checked on Atticus but he was still unconscious.

I collapsed onto the floor and heard many footsteps by us. "No!" I croaked as I looked around to see two bear-sized figures rushing towards us. My vision was blurring and couldn't focus in the dim illumination of dusk.

"I-I" I couldn't say anything else because then everything turned black.

---------

Alrighty y'all, that's a wrap for chapter two! Thank you so much for reading my story thus far! There is plenty more to come and I'm so pumped for you all to read it!

On a side note, if you have the LineWebtoons app, we are beginning chapter one on there today! Are you curious about how Vaughn, Atticus, and other characters look? Question no further! Just copy and paste the link below or log onto the LineWebtoon app and search "Stranger Spirits" on their discover tab!

  https://goo.gl/hQrcoM  

Alex Wolfen will be bringing the story to life in this webcomic series. You've actually already seen her work up to this point since the cover art and character portraits are all made by her!

So as always, have a great weekend y'all! Like, subscribe, comment, and good luck during finals!

-Ryan