Land of the Wanted: Journey to Mt. Kestler

You made it out of my fiery realm of death I see. Good progress. Get off your butts and keep moving. To retrieve the next key, you must cross the river, and hike up Mt Kestler. Use your knives.

I placed the instructions back into my pack and took out my knife. I slung my bag over my shoulders.

“Ready Seth?” I asked, gesturing him to hop on my back.

“I sure am!” He replied, grinning even bigger. Jessica helped him stand, and helped him onto my back. We started walking, but I stopped in my tracks.

“How are we gonna get across the river?” I asked, confused. We walked down the edge of the river, looking for something to use as a raft or boat. We walked for a good twenty minutes. When we stopped to rest for a while, I spotted a big log, that was hollowed out down the middle! It was sitting there by a tree. 

“With some work, we could make that into a decent boat!” I said, excitedly. I set Seth down and walked over to the log, and dragged it over to Jes and Seth.

“That’s a real good boat idea!” Jessica uttered excitedly.

“With our luck to land in this forest, we could find some good sticks for oars!” I replied happily. We got to work. Jessica went to go collect sticks, and I and Seth chipped away at the middle of the log to make the seats a little bigger. We then found some flat rocks sitting by the pond to use as paddles for the oars. After about 10 minutes, Jessica came back with three big 4 foot long sticks.

“Great work Jes!” Seth answered with a grin. Jes set the sticks down next to the log.

“Seth and I found these flat rocks for the paddle part,” I said, handing them to her.

“Another great idea! Good work guys!” she said with a proud look on her face. We used some vines from the trees to secure the rocks to the sticks. Our boat was now ready.

“And we’re off!” I said, pulling the boat into the water. Seth stood up and used Jes as a support. He lifted his bad leg up to walk towards the boat. When I steadied the boat, I carefully slid into the front seat. Seth got into the seat behind me, and Jes got the back. We placed our paddles into the water and started rowing. I winced at the blisters on my hands, but I ignored them.

“This is actually holding up!” Seth said smiling.

“I actually made something! I’m not even creative!” I said with a laugh. We all rowed across the river, being careful not to rock the boat doing so. After about twenty minutes, we placed our paddles into the boat to give our arms a break.

“Man! Rowing really gives your arms a workout.” I said, massaging my burning biceps. As we sat there, catching our breath, I stopped short at a loud sound coming from behind us.

SNAPSNAP. 

“Did you hear that?” I said, looking at my friends, who were both snacking on a piece of jerky.

“If you’re talking about my stomach, then yes, I did hear it.” He said, chuckling,

“No. It was a snapping sound.” I said, still listening to try and hear it again.

SNAPSNAP

“That time, I did hear it,” Jessica said, finishing off her snack. I looked around the whole lake to try and locate the thing that was making the sound, but I got distracted by the fish jumping out of the water.

“Guys, look there are fish in this lake!” I said, pointing far out. We rowed further across the lake, to get a closer look at them. When they jumped out again, I regretted going out there. The little fish were red and blue bony fish, with long sharp teeth, and glowing green eyes.

“PIRANHAS! RUN-I MEAN ROW!” I said loudly, picking up my paddle. We rowed to a clear part of the lake where I thought we were safe, but boy was I wrong. The piranhas came right back to our boat, and started gnawing at the edges! I tried shoving them off the edge with my oar, but they just came right back. 

“These things sure are desperate!” Jessica said, stabbing at the fish with her oar. The fish eventually gave up and swam away.

“I think they’ve had enough of us,” I said, watching them swim away. We kept on going across the river. Only five minutes passed until I heard a flapping sound. I looked behind us to find the source of the noise. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The piranhas had WINGS

“AW COME ON! The piranha's can FLY?!” I uttered, with a nervous, but an annoyed tone of voice. “Get your knives out, guys! The fish are coming for us!” I said as I pulled my blade from my bag. The fish were flying at us fast. Then one flew by my nose and just about bit it off with a snap of its jaw.  “WOAH!” I yelled, slashing my knife around like a madman.

“DUDE what are you doing?!” Seth yelled in my ear. “You almost hit me in the face!” 

“Well EXCUSE me for trying to save my OWN face!” I said, staring him down. He sighed and rolled his eyes,

“Think about MY face that YOU almost destroyed with your crazy knife!” He said. I ignored him, and put both my thumb and index finger on my chin.

“I mean, who wouldn’t want to save a face as beautiful as this!” I said,  pushing my messy blonde hair out of my eyes. Seth groaned.

“This is not the time to be a moron!” He said, slashing his knife at the flying carnivorous fish. I snapped back into focus and started to help my friends fight off the fish. I slashed my knife in every direction, slicing those fish into bits, leaving behind slimy translucent yellow goo. It smelled of rotting flesh. My gag reflex kicked in, and I felt my lunch rising in my throat. I swallowed and tried to ignore it by taking deep breaths through my mouth, but that didn’t help at all. 

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” I groaned, clutching my uneasy stomach. My heart started to race and i got a twinge of fear in my chest. Then I gagged and leaned over the boat. I had a very sensitive stomach. There wasn’t much to lose in my empty stomach, but what I did lose was all of it. When I sat up, the world was spinning a bit. My mouth tasted awful and my stomach felt terrible. I was shaking. I'm emetophobic, which meant I was afraid of anything vomiting related. Whenever I or someone else throws up, i start to shake and sometimes it gets so bad I start sobbing. So that experience was traumatizing for me. Seth stared at me.

“Nice time to lose your lunch there pal.” He said, laughing.

“Hey, I have a super sensitive stomach.” I said, still shaking a bit, and wiping off my mouth. “These fish guts smell like flesh that’s been sitting in the sun for DAYS!” I said

“We’ve gotta finish them off! There’s just a few left!” Seth said, still slicing the fish that were flying around his face. 

I then heard Jessica scream. I jerked my head back to see what was wrong. 

“THIS STUPID THING JUST BIT ME!” She screamed, grasping her hand in pain. 

“I and Seth will fight the rest of these for ya. Don’t worry about a thing.” I said proudly, willing to do anything for her. Seth and I sliced and diced those stupid fish for another five minutes until they stopped coming. By the end, we were coated with the sickening yellow slime. My arms were killing me and the bites from the fish left painful cuts and scratches all over my face and arms.

“I’m BEAT!” I said, throwing my knife back into my bag while taking huge breaths. 

“Same!” Seth replied, showing me his scratched up hands. I then looked back at Jessica, who was still grasping her hand in pain.

“Let me see your hand Jes.” I said, holding out my hand. 

“Okay.” She replied, slowly giving her hand to me. I took it, and examined it carefully. There were four deep cuts directly on the side of her hand, blood pouring out. There were purple bruises from all of the rowing, and from slashing the piranhas.

“We’ve got to cover this or it will get infected.” I said, looking around for a cloth. I had to use my whole shirt for previous injuries of theirs, so I had nothing left. I looked at Seth, and i saw his jeans, ripped and torn from the fireball shower.

“Seth, I’m gonna need some of your jeans.” I said, reaching for his leg.

“Wait...no...But I-”  I ripped a chunk of the denim off of the bottom of his leg. Seth’s mouth hung open.

“DUDE! These were my DAD’S!” He yelled at me angrily.

“Well, sorry dude they were ripped up anyway.” I said casually.

Seth stared at me with an annoyed expression. Then after about a minute, he smiled. He could never stay mad at anyone for long. He’s just not that type of person. I turned to Jessica again, took her hand, and wrapped the denim around it to stop the bleeding. I looked at her face. She smiled at me, braces and all. A jittery feeling ran up my spine, making me shiver. I tried to smile back at her, but my smile felt stupid to me, so I stopped. 

“Uh, thanks for being sweet and helping me with everything.” She said. I chuckled nervously.

“Uh you’re… You’re welcome Jes! Anytime! I love helping ya out!” I said, fumbling with my hands. I picked my oar up, and looked back and my friends.

“Ready to go?” I said.

“We sure are!” Jes said.

“Let’s get a move on!” I said,