Dudes, first frikken chapter. I decided to redo this chapter, since we wrote it in grade 8, and now we is in grade 10. Enjoy and read up.
Time for Me to Take a Chance
CHAPTER 1: SIGHTING
As we drive down the bumpy road of a small town one of the fishing poles we had stuffed in the back seat pokes me in the eye.
"Ow!" I yell. I'm sitting in the back surrounded by the camping equipment stuffed around me.
"What happened back there, X?" one of my best friends Lucas yells, smirking in the rearview mirror.
"Oh nothing, the knife I'm going to kill you with just poked me. I'm not bleeding." I taunt, smile in my voice as I send a vengeful glare towards the front seat.
"Good I wouldn't want the seats of this very expensive and priceless car to be ruined." He says in a sarcastic voice, and rolls his eyes.
"My little brother could buy this car with his allowance." Nick Ayotte, another one of my good friends, jokes.
"Well I'm sorry I'm not some spoiled brat spoiled brat, Mr. Ayotte." I sneer. He glares at me, and I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs at me.
I smile and look out the window at the dull green trees. The clouds in the sky are still dark grey, and it's been raining for the past four hours. Why am I even here? I ask myself. Right now I should be at school studying hard to graduate. But no, I had to quit high school after only two months and go on a road trip.
Of course Nick Ayotte got whatever he wanted, his parents spoiled him rotten. All the rest of us had to beg our parents to let us go. Well to be honest only I had to beg.
Cameron Johnson didn't have any trouble; he could have passed the 12th grade and been done law school by the time all the rest of us passed middle school. He easily persuaded them.
Lucas Czaja was already set for college. Almost all the major colleges were begging him to even consider going to theirs. Lucas was the star of every sports team. Basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, hockey, badminton... You name it and he was the star of that team. He didn't even go to any practices at all but he still beat everyone at anything. He barely passed high school but there were still millions of colleges begging for him, and a million girls at his doorstep.
Even Greg Sein didn't have any trouble, even if he thought he would; he was such a pessimist. His parents are probably sniffing some weird stuff, so they let him go easy. "Go explore the world Gregory. Experience the world's wonders!" I think they're two crackpots and they couldn't even remember they had a son, but he still could go.
I ended up the only one that had to sneak out. And it didn't help that my birthday was in December. My friends thought that it would be easier if I were at least a legal adult. So I waited. Now it was the beginning of October and we were thousands of miles away from home and I have no idea what my parents thought happened to me. Nick bought us all new cell phones and we ditched our old ones so that my parents could ruin this.
Life couldn't be better.
We started in Las Vegas, our home town, and have been to about half of the states along the Pacific coast. We drove as far west as possible. Now we're just past the middle of Washington, we are determined to stay on this road trip for at least a year. And we have been for at least a month, stopping in every city and town.
Cameron lost the coin toss so he had to drive through Washington. He was probably the only one that could drive, without police thinking he was drunk.
Currently we were busy arguing about where on the map we should head. Left or right?
Suddenly a large red-brown blur darted across the highway.
"Ah!" Cameron yelled.
He slammed on the brakes but our tires swerved on the slick roads. We fishtailed and crashed into the forest beside the road.
All the equipment fell on top of me as we lightly hit a nearby tree.
We were all panting, not sure what just happened, but we were sure we were all fine, not too beat up.
"What was th-" Cameron started, only to be cut off by the sound of a tree cracking from a hit by what seemed to be a huge red-brown animal.
The tree toppled over and crushed the front seat. My friends barely had time to scream before the tree hit them. I yelled. The engine exploded on impact and the tree and the van caught on fire.
I watched in horror as the fire quickly burned through my friends in front of me. I was too shocked to move. The fire ravaged my dead friend's bodies and the van, and the smell was terrible.
In the back of my head I was aware of my common sense screaming, Get out of the van! If the fire gets to close you'll die too! But I couldn't move. The only friends I ever had were just killed before my eyes. I was shocked. I was frozen.
As the fire was about to reach the point were it would burn me, I pushed myself out of under all the tents and sleeping bags and darted out of the van.
The red-brown animal leaped towards me, almost immediately after I got out, and bit down on the collar of my shirt. Its razor sharp teeth grazed the skin on my neck and I tried pulling away. But it growled and tugged at my shirt back sharply. It was bad enough to die in a fire, but a wild animal! Man was supposed to be the dominant species! But that's how I am going to die. A wolf or bear or whatever it is, is going to kill me. It let go and stepped back. Ready to spring as soon as I moved.
I stared into the dark eyes and somehow I knew that this animal knew what it was doing, it was intelligent. It knew something about me that I didn't. It wasn't going to kill me just to kill me. It had a purpose.
Somehow, my body still reacted. I took one look at my now dead friends. I gave them a silent farewell, and I tried to escape.
I ran in spite of the fact that it was probably going to catch me. The wolf – for it was clearly canine, after looking at it's teeth – chased after me slowly.
My death on its mind.
