CHAPTER 3

Alicia's POV

You know the feeling of lying on your back and just floating on water. You look up at the sky and it's like all your worries go away. It's just you, the sky, and the water. How nice. Except that was the opposite feeling I was experiencing now. I was sinking into the ocean. My lungs were on fire and were desperately craving oxygen. I tried to move my arms and my legs, but they wouldn't move. This was so weird. I knew how to swim, yet it seemed like my brain and my limbs had disconnected. I'm a goner. I closed my eyes as I sank and sank into the dark abyss of the sea. What I saw, when I closed my eyes, surprised me. I saw blond hair, some strands in braids and others hung loose. This girl had tied up part of her hair only. She wore a blue jacket over a blue shirt and she had on dark blue pants and black combat boots. Her outfit seemed similar to my modern day clothes but there was a little twist of survivalist in there. Then my mind went to her face, and that was the problem. Her face was blurred in my mind. Great job imagination! The next thing I know my vision of the girl gets smaller and smaller until she's gone from my line of vision and all I see is bright light.

"ALICIA! ALICIA!" I hear my mom scream at me. I feel like I'm choking. I sit up and spit out water. I try to catch my breath.

"What happened to you, Alicia. We thought you could swim." Travis said. I started to take in my surroundings. We were definitely not on the yacht. It looked like we were on some island. There lacked any sign of civilization; there was just a bunch of trees, a whole lot of trees. We basically were sitting on top of a rock in the middle of nowhere, but hey, I didn't see any infected here.

"The yacht took on water when we went into the storm. It's a little weird because we were only in the storm for about 5 minutes and then it cleared and there weren't any infected behind us anymore. It was like they just vanished. The water, however, didn't and the yacht started to sink. We decided to swim to the closest shore. We couldn't find you at first. You wouldn't respond. You just had your eyes closed and you wouldn't move even when you started drowning. It was like you were in some kind of trance," Strand said.

"We were so scared Alicia. I thought I lost my little sister." Nick teared up a bit as he cupped my face.

"Nick I'm good. I'm fine," I reassured him.

"See," I took a deep breath and let it out.

"I'm alive." I gave him a comforting smile before I grabbed Nick and my mom into a hug. Our little moment of love and normalcy was interrupted by shouts.

"Teik au kru," I heard from a group of men. Travis and Strand stood in front of us as a means of protection for what or who was coming. I looked over my mom's shoulder as she gripped tightly at Nick and me. They made they're appearance known as they stepped out of the forest. They had they're swords out and they looked like they were about to hunt or kill us. They were dressed all in black with armor draped on their shoulders and midsection. The men all had some form of black face painting and long hair. If this was some weird form of cosplay...mmm... I honestly don't know what the world has come to be then. The men parted as a brunette girl appeared from the group. She was in the same fashion as the men and she looked angry, almost animalistic.

" Who are you? What are you doing on our land?" the brunette shouted.

"We were on a boat traveling south but we got shipwrecked. We mean no harm." Travis said.

"Please it's only us and our kids," my mom stated.

"Everyone show yourselves. Don't get off that platform. Line up now and don't try anything or we will kill you." The girl screamed. We all slowly stood up and, as I found my spot in the line, I faced the girl and her people head on for the first time. The girl looked from left to right but when her eyes fell on me she stopped. The fury and the tough girl act slipped from her face. Her mouth dropped open and she sported a confused look.

My mom started to speak, "My name is Madison. This is Travis and this is..." She was interrupted with the rumble of the men's knees hitting the ground. They lowered their heads.

"Heda. Heda. Heda." they chanted. Was this some ritual these people did before they murdered their trespassers? What kind of loony island did we land on anyways. O God!

"Mom, what's going on?" I asked.

" I don't know. I don't know," she said. The brunette took out a walkie talkie and spoke into it. She stepped back a bit so we couldn't hear her, but she kept her eyes on us, well on me, the entire time. She looked frustratedly at her walkie talkie and put it away. She must've gotten cut off. Hate to break it to ya girl but shitty signal is bound to happen during the apocalypse. I had an internal laugh and resumed my straight face.

"Teik emo!" She shouted. The men rose and started towards us. The girl got ready and whipped out her knife as if she was ready to fight me. I wasn't going to fight her though. Just examining my opponent told me I would lose.

The men got closer and I backed up a little. They took string out and tied our arms behind our backs. They whipped out brown woven bags and placed it on our heads and pulled us off the rocks to who knows where. Ughh why do I always end up kidnapped.

Translations:

Teik au kru: take out people

Teik emo: take them