18~Chapter 5

by Steven in Illinois

I woke up in a hopitality room: the general's. I already knew I was in big trouble. More thoughts flooded me. Nobody was in the room. I got on my jeans, and walked through the door, looking for anyone. Finally, I located most of the people on the training grounds. Erica rushed over to me. "Finally you got up, idiot." she said. Then, she suprised me by hugging me. "You could have gotten yourself killed." she said. I had to agree. Twice, somebody had shot me. But who? Then, the thought of the person I saw shoot me flooded back into my mind. Wait, what was going on? I looked around, and then, I saw something that made me flinch. When I had saw the man who shot me, he was wearing sunglasses. And, on the grass, perched against a fence, were the exact same sunglasses. I walked over, Erica following me. I picked up the sunglasses, staring at them. Orange lens, and the ends had tiny mirrors. That really left me clueless. Who had done it? Things were getting more and more interesting. I stared into the strange glasses, twirling it at every angle, until I saw something that made my heart stop (I promise you it did!).

There were initials on the strange thing. However, there was only one initial: and E. There were so many possibilities with E. Eric, Erica, Emma, what the heck, it'd take me forever. Just the same, I put the glasses down my pocket. I turned to Erica. "Let's practice, okay?" and so, we walked off, and began exchanging wins. When I finished, I stared at the funny look on two girls' faces. "Who are those?" I asked. Erica glanced over. "Hannah and Angelina." she said. "Came two days ago." I looked at them. One was obviously one of the Spend-an-hour-dressing type. The other smelled like roses. I looked at the building. "I need to talk with you." I whispered. So, Erica followed me into the base. "What is it?" she asked. I sucked in a breath, and told her everything that had happened to me during my experience at the forest. She stared. "Let me see the glasses." she muttured. I took them out, and put them in her hands. She studied it. "Identical, definitely." she proclaimed, and then handed them back. There was only one conclusion from that fact. The personwho was after me was near here.

It isn't that easy for anybody to eat tons of food on a day were they find out that the guys who's been shooting them a lot lately is about less than 10 miles away. In fact for me, I was totally too screwed up for any of that. I played around with an omelette the next morning, and didn't eat. It was as if I was fasting. I hardly drank, and my supplyment of anything that is usually put in my mouth was not "in check".I walked outside with my armor on. The two newcomers had already started training. About an hour later, one of them, followed by the other, walked over to me. "Hi there. I'm Hannah, and she's Angelina." she said, pointing at Angelina. "We'd like some help with gunnery." she explained. I was more than happy to help these newcomers with dealing about guns and alll that. By the end, I was confident they would do fine. So, then, I turned to ERica, and we continued practicing, with me beating her 5 times before she told me it was lunch time.

I walked into the cafeteria, taking some food off of the fronts. Hannah and Angelina, who were about 2 people away, smiled at me. I continued getting my food scooped up, and grabbed a milk carton before sitting right down. When I began eating, I saw anothere strange thing on a lid of a plastic box. I reached out, and easily grabbed it. I looked at the thing, which was concealed behind something. I opened it, and I saw something strange. A pocketknife. Huh? A POCKETKNIFE? Seriously? I looked around, trying to look for something else to do, but I couldn't help noticing there was something on it. It was so strange, the pocketknife. Its handle was blue, and the blade had another E engraved on it. Things were getting stranger and stranger. Finally, I managed to set down the metal blade, and began actually gobbling some spaghetti.

I showed the pocketknife to Erica, who upon seeing it, was very amused by it. She was a little scared that the blade would somehow hurt her, but she grabbed it. She looked around, twisting it. I looked at her gentle brown eyes. "That's it, Erica." I decided. "I am going back into that forest." Erica stared at me as if I had gone mad. No way, Jose. You've already been shot twice. Somethign worse might happen in the time in that forest. I smiled, but it was sort of a mischevious one. It was already dawn. "I'm going in that forest, and you can't stop me." I proclaimed stubbornly. She tried to stop me, but Erica could only stand and watch as I trotted down the field, vanishing behind the scary twisted trees for the third time, and maybe, my last.

I entered easily, and kept glancing for anything that was another clue. Abotu 10 minutes later, I heard the snap of twigs: again. That was really bad. THis person liked using this concept to freak me out of my guts. Obviously, something was going on again. The snap of branches were louder each time, and I could make out a human form. I couldn't figure out the age or anything like that though. Suddenly, I felt something collide against my back, and I flew. I landed flat against a tree. When I slid to the floor, I stared, ready to see who had done all this, but what was in front of me was much, much worse.

It was a mountain lion.