A/N: I am not dead! It's just taken me forever to update because it's summer and I've been VERY uninspired...it's sad...but anyways, I'm here now, so thanks to my wonderful reviewers and I'm so sorry for the extremely long wait!
TriGemini-I'm glad you liked those two parts, they were fun to write. I enjoy writing humor, even though I am better at angst. Yeah, the locals are hiding something and Elli and Ari, being the curious people that they are, want to find out. Let's hope nothing bad happens to them...thanks for reviewing!
Blossomlite-Thanks for reviewing!
Jinx-Thanks! I did work hard on that last chapter, I think I worked even harder on this one though, since I've been really uninspired lately. Lol--yep, they're going to find out what's in that cave, even though they really shouldn't, but they're pirates! XD Thanks for reviewing!
The White Masque-You'll see! It's rather predictable...but well...I dunno, just read. Lol. Thanks for reviewing and you need to update soon!
Incubus2704-Yes, the island people are hiding something! And you do need to update your story soon! But I understand, Summer is boring after awhile. Anyways, thanks for reviewing!
Windvuur–Pillows of doom! That's great! XD Thank you for the review–I try hard to develop my characters and I'm glad you noticed that. Thanks for reviewing!
Mouse10–Yeah, all caves are kinda odd...good for hiding things though...as for the villagers, well–you'll see in this chapter! Thanks for your review!
Chicky Poo-Thanks for your kind review. Hearing people say things like that make me feel really good about my writing. I hope you continue to read and sorry for the long wait!
Katweenathesmiley- Thanks! I'm proud of me too! XD
Chapter Twelve-Deeper
After apologizing to Will for chucking the pillows at him...(Well, I apologized. Elli and Jack didn't...they were laughing too hard) I told him of our decision to go back into the cave and figure out what the villagers were hiding in it
Being the nice, good person he is, he tried to discourage us from going–telling us that it was probably something unimportant anyways, but then Jack asked him why it would be hidden if it wasn't important and that seemed to spark his curiosity as well.
"So...when are we going to go look for it? At night?" Elli asked after we had managed to convince Will to come with us.
"Well, that seems like the most obvious choice, but how do we know that someone doesn't guard the cave at night?" Will asked.
"It wasn't guarded during the day." I pointed out and Elli nodded in agreement.
"I say we go at night anyways. That way no one will miss us if we're gone and if indeed the cave is guarded, then we'll just admit defeat and come back here." Jack put in.
"Admit defeat? You?" Elli asked Jack, raising an eyebrow.
"I can admit defeat when I have to." He replied. "Besides, I'm pretty certain it won't be guarded at night if it's not guarded during the day."
"What if you're wrong?" Elli demanded.
"It was your idea to go at night!" Jack countered.
"I was just making a suggestion!" Elli protested.
"Unless you want the entire village to hear our plans, I suggest you shut up!" I cried, interrupting the two of them. Honestly, one would've thought they'd get along better now that they were 'together' but then that just wouldn't be 'normal' for them. At any rate, they both listened to me, but not without shooting each other dark looks. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
"I agree with Jack and say we go at night. It's less obvious, besides–we'll probably have more chores to do today and how would we get away then?" I asked, looking around at everyone.
"Alright. We'll go about an hour after dinner–give everyone a chance to get into their homes and go to sleep." Jack said. We nodded in agreement and left the hut, making our way to the village.
xXx
As we walked through the village, looking for Mara, Kenan or someone else we knew-- we noticed that everyone paused what they were doing as we passed them, looking up at us with expressionless faces. We looked back at them, our faces puzzled, wondering why they were staring at us in the first place, but as soon as we looked at them, they bent over their work again.
"That's odd..." I murmured under my breath.
"Yeah...why are they staring at us? Have we done something?" Elli asked.
"I bet they know you two went to the cave." Jack muttered.
"So there must be something really important in there to them–maybe we shouldn't go." I noted.
"What! No! You agreed to with us!" Elli cried, trying to keep her voice down.
"Yeah, well now I'm starting to have second thoughts." I whispered.
"So have I." Will interjected.
"You didn't want to go to begin with." Elli pointed out.
"Look, we already agreed to go–we're not going to change our minds about this." Jack said, ending the conversation.
We walked on for awhile longer, still not seeing any sign of Mara, Kenan or anyone else we knew.
"I wonder where they are." Elli whispered, looking around, but seeing no one other than the villagers.
"Guarding the cave." I muttered darkly.
"How would you know?" Elli said.
"I don't, but where else could they be? We've searched the entire village." I noted.
"Well, we'll find out tonight." Will muttered.
"Why don't we go now?" Jack proposed and we all stopped to look at him. "This would be our opportune moment, no one is around to assign us any chores and those three might be somewhere else in the woods." He continued.
"We could give it a try." Elli agreed, looking at Will and I. We looked at each other and I shrugged my shoulders.
"Why not? Better than wandering around the woods at night." I noted. Will just nodded and Elli set off in the direction of the cave, as she remembered where it was. We followed her slowly, looking over our shoulders, but no one called after us or stopped us.
xXx
"You said you remembered where it was." Jack groaned, rubbing his face tiredly.
"I do!" Elli protested.
"Even I agree with Jack. I think you got us lost." I cut in.
We had been wandering around for about an hour and we still hadn't found the cave. Elli was getting very frustrated because she had sworn to us over and over again that she knew where it was, but yet we hadn't seen any sign of the cave.
"It wasn't that far from the village, I remember that and I could've sworn it was right here." Elli said, gesturing to a large cliff wall, crawling with vines and other creeping plants. We all turned to look at the cliff wall, examining it closely for the twentieth time, but not spotting our now hidden cave...wait a minute...
I reached out a hand and laid it on the cliff wall, brushing away a large clump of vines and plants. Behind this green, living veil was our cave.
"Well, those weren't there before." Elli muttered darkly.
"No, they weren't." I agreed.
"But how did they get there?" Elli asked.
"Maybe you just never noticed them before?" Will suggested.
"I don't think so." Elli protested.
"Says the one who swore she knew where the cave was." Jack pointed out.
"I did know!" Elli cried.
"Some one must've put them here to hide the cave." I suggested. "Some plants like that can grow quickly."
"At any rate, we found the cave." Jack said, making his way towards it. He leaned close and peered inside. "Damn, it's dark. Why didn't we bring a light?"
"Hold on." I muttered, looking all around us on the ground until I found a large, thick branch. "You three stay here, I'm going back to the village. Someone was cooking a lunch and I'll get it from them." With that I quickly ran off to the village, hoping that whoever was cooking wasn't done yet.
Once I arrived back at the village, it seemed everyone sitting outside turned and looked at me. I gave a weak smile, but paid no more attention to them once I spotted the person cooking. It was the girl who had instructed me on sewing a couple days ago. Smiling to myself, I made my way over to her and knelt down beside her.
"Hello." I said pleasantly. She looked up at me and then looked away quickly. I ignored that and continued on. "I was wondering, could I take some of your fire?" I asked, holding up the branch and motioning to the fire incase she didn't understand. She said nothing, she didn't even nod or make a motion, so I cautiously stuck the end of the branch into the heart of the fire until it caught onto the branch and then took it out, walking away. I could feel her eyes on me as I walked off, but I didn't look back and continued on to where Elli, Jack and Will were waiting for me.
"Good, you got it." Elli said, touching the end of her own branch to mine and taking it away. Jack and Will did the same until we each had our own torch, if you will.
"Now, let's go." Jack said, leading the way into the cave. The three of us followed him, holding our torches high and looking around. We couldn't help feeling a little uneasy as we walked through the winding passageways, into the heart of the cave. Something didn't feel right. It hung in the air and clenched around your heart, making it hard to breath and be at ease.
At last we came to a large, wide chamber with three different passageways.
"How typical." I muttered, holding my torch higher and moving it around, looking carefully at the passageways.
"Well, which one do we chose?" Elli asked. "There's four of us, so we can't really split up." She was looking at Jack as she said this, but he was going to each of the passageways, shining his torch in them, trying to see what was in each one.
"I don't know." He said at last, still gazing at the three passageways. "I think we should go for the one on the right."
"Why?" Elli asked, always being the one to question him.
"I don't know." He said again. "I just think that one leads to something more. I may be wrong of course and if I am, we can always backtrack and chose a different one."
"Process of elimination." I muttered and Jack nodded in agreement.
"Alright, sounds good to me." Elli said and Will nodded as well.
With Jack leading us once more, we made our way to the passageway on the far right and ventured into it, being sure to keep our torches high and our eyes alert. The deeper we walked into the passageway, the colder the air became, so that after ten minutes, I could feel my skin prickle and tingle from the chill.
"How far underground do you think we are?" I asked no one in particular.
"Pretty far." Will replied, putting an arm around my shoulder.
"I wonder what's down here?" Elli whispered.
"As do the rest of us." Jack muttered and Elli slapped the back of his head.
"Look!" Will exclaimed suddenly, pointing to the ground. Scattered on the ground were various bones and even full skeletons.
"Jeez...what happened here?" I whispered, gazing down at the skeletons and bones.
"Some kind of battle." Jack murmured.
"How do you know?" Elli demanded.
"Well for one thing, all the skeletons have swords next to or in them and for another, why else would there be so many skeletons down here?" He replied.
"Let's just keep going." I replied. I had already felt uneasy just coming in here and seeing a load of skeletons wasn't helping me feel any better.
"Agreed." Jack said and sauntered off.
xXx
It seemed as if we had been walking for hours on end since we first came in here. No one was complaining, but I could see how tense and tired everyone was in the flickering light of our torches. Jack had lead us on rather determinedly, but I could see a slight slump to his shoulders and I knew he was tiring as well. Right now I wanted nothing more to be back on the Pearl and asleep in my cabin, listening to the waves slap against the side of the ship.
But the Pearl was gone, lost to the bottom of the ocean and we were here in this dank cave littered with more skeletons. It also seemed that the farther we ventured, the more we came across.
My paranoia had kicked in fully by now and I was worrying one of the rings on my forefinger of my free hand. Will noticed me doing this and took my hand in his. I looked up at him and gave him a weak smile.
"Are you tired?" He asked me.
"Some what." I replied.
"I'm starving." Elli muttered, laying a hand on her stomach.
"Yeah...that too..." I murmured.
"We should've just stayed in the village." Elli noted.
"It's too late to turn back now." Will said in a soft voice.
"Yeah, yeah...I know." Elli muttered tiredly.
"I see something up ahead." Jack suddenly interrupted our complaints.
"What is it?" Elli whispered, coming up behind him.
"A light." Jack replied, not looking at us, but straight ahead. I peered over his shoulder and saw the light as well.
At this we all looked at each other, wondering whether to go ahead or turn back.
"We can't turn back." Elli whispered.
"But we have no idea what's up ahead." I pointed out.
"Well, we're armed...we can defend ourselves from whatever is there." Elli reminded me, laying a hand on her sword hilt. Before I could respond though, Jack started walking forward.
"What are you doing?" Elli hissed.
"Just come on." Jack replied shortly.
"Jack, we shouldn't." Will began. "We don't know what that could be." Jack turned around at that and looked Will straight in the eyes.
"You were the one who said it was too late to turn back." He reminded him.
"Yes, but that could be dangerous. Do you really want to endanger yourself or Elli?" Will asked, his voice calm and even.
"Well, like she said–we can defend ourselves." He replied simply and continued on, not waiting for us to follow. We looked at one another, wondering what to do, but then we realized that we had to follow Jack...what if he got himself hurt...or lost?
We jogged after him and found ourselves in a large cavern with a couple lit torches on the walls. I realized those must've been the light we had seen, but soon my attention was turned away from them and to four people standing in the cavern.
Mara, Kenan, Abasi and Lutalo (the man who had lead us to the village) stood in front of us, each of them holding some kind of weapon in one hand.
"We knew you would return here. We knew, even though I warned you not to come–we know how curious you were. You are not the only ones though, many people that have come to our island have lost their lives because they simply did not listen to us. We welcomed them and gave them a place to stay on our island, in our village...and yet they cannot obey a simple wish, such as staying away from this cave." Kenan said in a clear voice.
"Well, you shouldn't have told us not to come here." Elli replied, her voice tinged with anger. Kenan smiled at her, but said nothing.
"What are you trying to hide from us? What's in here?" I demanded. Kenan turned to me, the smile on his face growing.
"That, we cannot let you know. We can't let you go any farther than this cavern, so if you would turn back now..." He said, but Elli cut him off.
"No way! We spent all this time finding our way down here, we're not turning back."
"Elli, maybe we should." I said, eyeing the weapons in their hands.
"I agree." Jack cut in suddenly and we turned to him.
"But...why...?" She demanded. I was about to demand the same thing, but Will laid a hand on my shoulder and Jack spoke.
"Come on, let's go." He said, looking at us firmly and turning back to the entrance. Elli sighed and we all turned to follow him.
"You have made a good decision." Kenan called after us. "A most unfortunate thing would've happened, if you had not listened."
But none of us were listening now, all we could think of was this–'What was so important that it was hidden down in this cave? And why were those four trying so hard to keep it hidden?'
I didn't know about the rest of my friends, but I wanted to find out and I would, one way or another. What I didn't know was that Elli, Will and Jack were thinking the same things.
A/N: Short chapter, I know–but the next one should be longer. And I won't take forever to update again, I promise...really...what? I don't lie...