Hello readers!
Thanks to everyone who is enjoying the story so far, I promise that you'll start getting some answers soon.
Huge thanks to Miznana for fav'ing, smiley3350 & jansails for following, and to escarlet 12, elliefrog and an anonymous "Guest" for their reviews. Your support means the world to me.
:-D
EPOV
While Bella might have said maybe to a date with me, sleeping bag buddies was a definite no. I was at least happy that she didn't want to sleep with anyone else though.
The couples each took one bag, as did Eric and Tyler, and with Bella choosing to sleep alone, that left me to share with Laurent.
The house, while riddled with holes and cracks, still provided us with shelter from the outside elements, which I was grateful for after removing Laurent's arm from around my waist for the third time.
Who knew that such a tough football playing jock was a cuddler?
Who knew I would have to find that information out first hand?
Regardless, I decided that perhaps having a warm sleeping bag wasn't necessary after all.
Nor was sleep apparently because after almost an hour of lying on the hard floor, listening to the sounds of nocturnal insects and animals outside, I feel more awake than ever.
Deciding to spend the few hours until dawn doing something productive, I sneak into the kitchen area with my flashlight, map and compass.
The map only really shows the area of the park that we were exploring and nowhere does it show the house that we're now in, so it's pretty much useless. I wish someone had been rebellious enough to smuggle a cell phone in their pack because Google Maps would really come in handy right now.
From what I know of the area, the road that we've been following is definitely leading us in the direction of home, and given that we had been walking for most of the afternoon, we should only be a few miles from Forks.
My chest swells with pride knowing that even if we don't encounter a rescue party, I'll be able to get everyone safely home by lunchtime.
I wait until sunrise to wake the others. No-one seems particularly eager to leave the warmth of their makeshift beds until I explain that in just a few short hours they would be back in the comfort of their own.
Thanks to our new found energy, we were packed, fed and back on the road in record time, spending the four hour walk to Forks planning what we'll do first when we reach home.
While others were talking about the parties they'd go to, I surprisingly cannot wait to see my parents again. I know that they would have been worried sick when Alice and I didn't return yesterday as planned.
Particularly my mother.
She has a tendency to get overly emotional when it comes to her children. No doubt my father would have had to sedate her when we didn't arrive on schedule.
When the Welcome to Forks sign comes into view, it's immediately obvious that something is very very wrong.
The road beyond remains damaged, the parks and lawns alongside are overgrown and disorderly and there's not a person or vehicle in sight.
But it's the sign itself that's the most disturbing.
Faded and aged, it looks nothing like the colorful metal we'd seen from the bus only two days ago, and the once cheerful greeting has now been covered by harsh red spray paint. The message it displays makes absolutely no sense to me.
It reads:
CLEARED
29/04/78
Ooohh...what could that mean? I'd love to hear your thought!
:-D