Chapter 6: The River
I had a hard time getting to sleep that night. I felt so alone in this camp. 3 of my friends, another camper, along with a camp counselor had all gone missing in this short time I had been in this camp. What the heck was going on?
I was totally alone in this cabin. I did have Sho and Negi in the room, but I felt so strange that two complete strangers were now laying in my friends bunks.
I tossed and turned most of the night. During that time, I heard howls echoing throughout the camp. They must have come from the Forbidden Bunk. The howls chilled my bones and reminded me of that night I spent outside in the tents.
In the morning, I changed into my swim trunks and a t-shirt. I then headed to the lodge to see if I could catch up with Ichigo to see if he knew what had happened to Naruto and Ryoma. He wasn't there though; he didn't even show up during the entire time breakfast was served. Jimmy wasn't there either.
I later found Ichigo at the waterfront where everyone was setting up for the canoe trip. I was setting the paddles up with the canoes. "There you are!" I said to him, "Where are they?"
"Negi and Sho should be arriving any minute," he said to me looking at his clipboard he also had, "We can't start unless everyone is here and it's getting annoying waiting for them."
"Not them!" I shouted at him, "Where are Ryoma and Naruto?"
"I don't know," he said simply and pushed me away, "You know what? I'll go talk to Takahata about this after the canoe ride. He should know something about Jimmy and your previous campers." I wasn't sure if he was being sincere or not, he had a face I couldn't read.
"Alright," he said handing me a life preserver, "Get ready for the trip. Strap this on really tight and get in." I did what he said, but I was unsure if he really was going to talk to Takahata or not.
A few minutes later, Sho and Negi came trotting up. Ichigo explained a few things about the trip we were taking and a few rules. They put on their life preservers and got in with Negi in front of me and Sho behind me. Ichigo pushed us off and got in right in front of Negi.
Soon, we were all drifting and paddling down the river. I looked up into the sky to see how the weather was looking for our trip. It was rather cloudy and sun was hidden behind the dark clouds.
The canoe bobbled a bit as the river currents picked up. After a while, I soon realized that it was getting harder to paddle as the current became stronger. Trees and srubs on the shoreline quickly vanished past us as we picked up speed.
"This is a lot harder than I thought this would be," Negi said trying to keep paddling and struggling with the current.
Ichigo tried to teach us to paddle with the river current, but it was no use. We were going way too fast and he was beginning to struggle as well. Water smashed hard against the prow of the canoe, sending waves up into the canoe.
Then we saw a fork in the river. We struggled as hard as we could to keep away from crashing into the rocks near the fork. We ended up taking the left branch, but the current only got worse. We bobbed up and down as waves kept hitting us.
I looked up and saw that the sky was growing darker and looked like it was about to pour down on our heads. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that we couldn't even control the canoe anymore, the river was doing all the work and was making us speed up.
The river widened and then we saw ahead of us the river was now going downward. "Here comes the rapids," Ichigo said, "Once we are past this, it should be complete smooth sailing."
'Thank God!' I thought to myself, 'This is getting crazy!'
Water splashed us in all directions as we hit the rapids. Negi and Sho didn't look so worried anymore and seemed to be enjoying the thrill of the ride. As for me, I couldn't wait to get to shore and collapse.
Magikarp jumped out of the water and headed up the rapids, kind of like salmon or something. "Keep your heads down!" Ichigo said dodging one of the fish Pokémon as it sailed over our canoe, "If you get hit by one of these things, you're going to get…"
Suddenly, one of the fish hit him hard in the face knocking him overbroad into the cold rapid waters. "OH MAN!" I shouted looking over the edge of the canoe, "This isn't good! We got to stop this canoe and find him!"
"We can't!" Sho said trying to slow the canoe with his paddle, "But it's too hard!" He lost grip then the paddle slid out of his hand and into the murky water.
"I gotta save him," I said without thinking and jumped into the water myself. As soon as I hit the waters, the canoe and the others were pulled down river and out of my sight.
"Ichigo!" I shouted trying to paddle against the current and trying to keep my head above water, "Where are you?" I saw no signs of life in this river, even the Magikarp had all vanished.
Then I saw something floating towards me as I struggled for my life. At first I thought it was driftwood, but then I realized it was Ichigo. He was floating faced down in the water.
Using the current, I pushed Ichigo towards land and dragged him up onto the shore. I flipped him over, but my legs soon gave out. I collapsed onto the sand as soon as he was safely on land. I looked over at him, he looked pale, as if he was dead.
Suddenly, he started to cough up water and filth. He spit it all out and started to breath again. He looked over at me with an exhausted look and said quietly, "Ash? Are we ok?"
We rested a bit at the shore to regain our strength. I told him about everything that had happened since he fell into the water. He nodded, but he seemed really out of it. After a couple of hours, we found enough strength to be able to walk back to camp.
As we walked, I thought over everything that had happened. I was alive and safe. Negi and Sho were now missing. I had saved Ichigo's life. That seemed weird to me. To think I saved the life of a guy who wasn't nice, mean, and wasn't very helpful at all this entire camp experience since I got here.
"So," I asked him, "Do you think the other two are alright."
"I hope so," he said slowly, still trying to breath normally, "They probably rode the current until they found a time to get to shore. They're probably walking back right now or resting to get enough strength to make it to camp like us."
I asked him again about Naruto and Ryoma to see if he would tell the truth this time. I swore he didn't know and still doesn't. I was going to ask him again, but he told me to drop it. I would of pressed him for some more info, but I didn't have enough strength to do so.
"It's been a weird time since I got here," I mumbled.
"It's been one of the weirdest times for me too," he sighed, "After this; I'm never volunteering again to work at this camp anymore."
The total length of the trip we took was around 3 hours or so. I realized we didn't even go too far down the river like I thought; it was that we had to stop to take a breather a couple of times.
When we saw the camp on the horizon, we both used the rest of our strength to run to the camp. "There you guys are!" Takahata said running up to us with Uryu and Fuji and then turning to Ichigo, "Where have you guys been? Everybody else showed up hours ago!"
"We had an accident!" I said to the camp counselor.
"I fell into the river and nearly drowned," Ichigo said explaining the rest, "Ash jumped in and saved me. We walked the rest of the way, but the other two that were with us drifted off downstream with the canoe."
"Can you get someone to go after Negi and Sho?" I asked him.
"The two boys that went downstream?" Takahata asked Ichigo who nodded in reply.
"We got to save them!" I shouted.
Takahata ignored me and kept looking at Ichigo with a glare in his eyes. "You telling me that my canoe is now gone?" Takahata said angrily, "That was my best canoe! It cost me a lot of money! How am I going to get another one like it?"
Ichigo rolled his eyes and walked away, "How should I know? I don't care anymore, I just going to wait for the next bus ride out this place."
Takahata gave him a harsh look as Ichigo walked away. Takahata then said to Fuji, "Tomorrow, we are going to find that canoe. Tell the rest of the counselors that."
I couldn't believe it. He didn't care. He didn't care at all. He didn't care about the two missing boys at all!
I started back to the cabin horrified by this situation. My body trembled and my bones went cold. I was also growing angrier by the second.
I had just saved Ichigo's life, but Takahata doesn't care at all. He didn't care that two campers have disappeared downstream. He didn't care that two others, along with one of his counselors have gone missing on a hike. He didn't care that kids were getting mauled to death by my monsters. He didn't care that kids just disappear around him and are never mention again. He didn't give a crap about us, just his stupid canoe.
Then my anger turned to fear. We were all alone and slowly were disappearing off the map. No one in what seemed like a million mile radius was out there that could save us. We were isolated in the middle of nowhere.
But I didn't realize something yet. I didn't realize I had yet to have the most terrifying experience of this entire trip, maybe even my entire life and it was all going to come very early the next morning.
Author Note: And on this note, I'm back in the saddle and back to work after my long break. I had used this time to plan out more story ideas, chapters, and possible new stories for the future. Maybe some more similar stories like this story. Also, I am currently working on more chapters for my other two stories and sadly dropping another since I cannot write a good conculsion.
In the next chapter, we are about to reach the end. The next chapter concludes Ash's frightening experience at Camp Nightmoon. Will he be able to figure out what happen to everyone or will he simply vanished into the wilderness like all the others before him? Who knows… unless you have already read the story this one is based off. See you all later!
Date: 2/5/08
Next to Come: Chapter 7: Seek and Find
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