Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Trap Door

Claire Dakota

"So Timothy went his own way you say?" I asked Hernanda as we sat by the fire, the sky orange, fading into darkness. My stomach hurt but thanks to Mohamed Jackson King, who'd bandaged me with the wife-beater he'd worn underneath his shirt, I felt better once Hernanda had the fire going. 

The children had gone through hell ever since they'd been left abandoned in the jungles after Mr. Gallagher's and Ms. Seagale's death. They've lost a lot of their classmates: Emily had died whether neck had snapped while the camp had been flooded. 

Jackson had filled me on what had happened to his group when they'd split and had chosen to find their way to civilization, how Zachary White had been murdered by Michaela and Bill, and how heartless the two had been in abandoning Francisco Adelante once he'd been sick. He'd also told me of how his group which had split from the group that had split left him once they thought he'd died. 

Both Jackson and Hernanda had talked about the box Kirt had discovered: the one that helped him find the way to the house where the castaway Shifaly had been murdered and Alice and Kirt taken captive all by "it."

Hernanda had told me about the thing that had been holding Alice and Kirt captive inside that house they were trying to find the way to. She'd told me about the raft and the collision that had splintered what they thought had been their only hope to get out of the forest. 

AnnSophia's, Rhett's, and Tom's fates were ambiguous, based on what they'd told me. Both Jackson and Hernanda told me that they knew they were somewhere, fighting like them to get out, somewhere down the river where the raft had been splintered. 

Looking at the trees around me, I wondered if the jungle itself had a will of its own. It seemed like the forest was watching the children like a hungry monster, taking them out one by one. Like the vines in the novel The Ruins by Scott Smith. That cold pressure of some presence watching me that I'd felt when I'd seen the heads of the Commies that had pursued me after I'd stumbled into their camp filled that place. 

The fire tried to hide; Hernanda and Jackson were feeding it with as much as they could with the twigs and dry branches — something that was rare here — they could gather. No matter how much they fed it, it seemed like the flames didn't want to be seen by the forest, it went out quickly. 

"Yeah. We had an argument last night — between Jackie, I, and Timothy — and I guess Timothy gave up on going with us. He just walked out while we were asleep. When we woke up this morning, he was gone."

"Wait, let me get this clear. How can you be sure that Timothy left and was not eaten by this thing?"

"Miss. Dakota, we found a note he'd carved onto the mud near the place where we had slept," Jackson answered. "Plus, he'd been grumbling about leaving us the moment we started following this piece of paper Hernanda told you about." 

"Can I see it?"

Hernanda looked at Jackson who pulled it out from his pocket. 

"There are instructions on the back. But they were in Spanish and none of us could read Spanish. I guess you could. " Hernanda said.

I nodded as I felt the surface of the piece of parchment before turning it over. There it was in Spanish. 

Before I began reading through it, I asked, "Did you make any attempts finding Timothy?"

"We did," Hernanda said, "We spent about three hours searching for him. But we eventually gave up coz we've got to find Alice and Kirt."

I nodded.

"He was a lost cause," Jackson chipped in, "He was always impatient with us and wanted to go find Alice as fast as possible. We tried making him understand that's what we wanted to do, but he didn't believe us."

"Well, you can't blame him either. He cares about his friends just as much as you both," I said.

"No-No! I don't blame him. It's just that it was hard to make him understand us." 

"Guys, we've got to get up those trees. It's getting dark," Hernanda said as she doused the fire by kicking mud over it as she looked at the sky. 

"Miss. Dakota. Do you think you can climb?" Jackson asked.

"I guess so." 

The Narrator

"Hernanda wake up!" Miss. Dakota whispered into Hernanda's ear while she'd been having nightmares. It was a bizarre one about goats being shot dead by a hunter. The dream had then faded into a scene of a warzone razed down by a nuclear bomb. She'd been squirming and twisting on that branch when Claire came to wake her up.

"Huh?" She woke up blinked and saw that it was Miss Dakota. "Miss Dakota?"

"I found something! Here!" she pointed to a spot on the map.

"What do you mean?"

"Remember you and Jack were fighting over what the X meant? You were telling me that the X here was supposed to be the house and you thought you had followed the map upside down?"

"Yeah?"

"This map was not for the house but for a tunnel built for someone who sought to leave the house in times of war."

"Are you serious?"

"Do you see this line on the back?" Miss. Dakota pointed a few words in the instructions.  "It reads 'The Builders commissioned by Their Majesties The King and Queen of Spain seek to inform you that a tunnel has been built from the house to a spot in the forest. In case of war, you must use this tunnel to leave as soon as possible.'"

"Wow!"

"So the trap door to this tunnel must be —"

"Somewhere around here."

"Precisely."

"Shouldn't we wake Jackson up?"

"I guess we'll let him rest until we find the trap door."

"Yeah."

Both Hernanda and Miss Dakota climbed down the trees and began searching for the trap door in the area around.  Jackson King was snoring away.