Oh, that must have hurt, I thought to myself, rushing over to Mateo, who had just taken a blow to the head by a falling branch.

"Hey!" I shout, trying to make my voice louder than the flames and screeches around me. I desperately tried to get his attention; he was looking around dazed, as blood slowly seeped from the wound on his head. Upon reaching him, I start pulling him up, and the feeling of his lean muscles makes my heart skip a beat. I was shaken out of my thoughts when all of a sudden, he became fully conscious, and he looked terrified and angry at the same time. I followed his gaze, he pointed at the leader of the wendigos from a hillside, who was watching from a distance, screeching blood-curdling laughter at his victims.

It’s then that the smell hits me; it starts off with the smell of roasted pork at first, but then quickly changes to that of rotten and sour flesh. We have to move and leave this place behind before it's too late.

What starts as a wobbly, weak walk turns into a jog. The fire is moving, eating everything faster than we can jog, so I help him. Together, Mateo and I are catching up with everyone else, but burning boughs and branches are slamming into the surrounding ground making it hard to stay on my feet.

"Are you alright, Mateo?" Alex yells at him after slowing down to our pace and patting him on the back. The hit was a bit hard and Mateo stumbled out of my grasp and fell. However, he rolls on his shoulder and smoothly gets back up, and continues to run.

"My head's throbbing!" he shouted back, which couldn't have helped his head that much.

He leans closer to me and I grasp him tighter to make sure if he falls I'll fall too. I know it's a sick thought, but we have been running for what feels like hours, and it feels like we’re just prolonging our death. I wanted to let the fire consume me and bring me closer to those that I know i have just lost.

Mateo leans in close to my ear, knocking me out of my thoughts. "Tell everyone that in about ten minutes, we will be in the yard with all the statues." He looks at me and I know what he wants us to do.

"What about the lampresa?" I ask, choking on smoke.

"It's the only water source that won't be surrounded by smoke. We have to try it," he says, his voice getting weaker with every word.

I mustered all of my strength and put more than I thought was possible into each of my following words. "Everyone, get to the large lake at the end of the sculpture yard!"

"That's dangerous and risky, but I like it," Alex screamed.

“Come on, I trust yall but do we have a plan?” Mateo's brother, Leo asked, running full speed, and I was surprised because he was usually quiet and never very noticeable. Unless someone needed help or was hurt.

We ran in silence, trying to save our lungs from the smoke, all of us keeping the same pace as Leo. We reached the sculpture yard without any problems. We sprinted past mounds of rocks and logs with broken statues of wolves, foxes, bears, moose, and more animals. However, these statues were pretty and magnificent, while the animals we saw were hideous and dangerous. A sad feeling washes through me as I realize that this place will most likely be turned to ash.

We run across an old broken road and reach the beach. It would have been beautiful if there weren't dead trees everywhere.

"Guys, I love you," someone said. It was hard to focus, but in the distance there was a boat in the water and a person waving at us.

"Let's go to that boat," were Mateo's last words before the freezing water consumed me.

The shock of the water almost made me stop moving when something bulky moved in the water. Everyone was swimming as fast as possible to the boat. A blurry view of the shadowy boat and the cold, pitch black color of the water was all I could see, each view changing back and forth through splashing and being fully submerged in the water.

"Hel-"

Someone got pulled under the water. As much as I want to believe this isn’t real, I can't. One by one, people started to be dragged under the water and none of them came back up.

I reached the boat first and scaled up the huge net that's hanging off the side. There were nine people still alive in the water still being plucked down into the black water. I helped who I could, relieved to see that most of my friends are on board, including Mateo. Leo is the last person left in the water when a lampresa jumps twenty feet in the air, giving us a close-up look at its huge snake-like body and slimy skin with its circular mouth and a hundred sharp teeth. We watch as it grabs Leo's leg and drags him underwater. A shadow flies into the water with a sword that has a faint glow to it.

Silence. There are sounds all around me, waves crashing into the side of the boat, people crying, and moaning, but all I hear is silence. I refuse to register anything else. I looked around, thinking it was the captain of the ship, but I realized he couldn't be talking if he was diving into the water. I search for Mateo and the emotions inside me are welling up in my gut and slowly seeping from my throat to between my eyebrows. My head hurts as I try to keep myself from crying. In his condition, he couldn't jump into the water and the pain in the middle of my forehead increased.

The water starts bubbling and steam rises from underneath the boat, almost as if the water is boiling. Just then, a bright orange ball appears and then disappears like it never happened. The water is calm.

"Huh, they are alive," the man said, piercing the silence.

What started as two black dots turned into two shadows, and Mateo brought a slightly burned and bleeding Leo back to the surface. As we helped them both up, more lampresa circled the boat.

"As we won't be able to move until the lampreys have calmed down, you should get some sleep, and I'll be answering any questions in the morning," the man says as he opens a door to a room that I presume to be his, "and the beds for all of you are down those stairs."

Mateo, who required intensive aid, just sits on the edge of the boat, looking back at the burning forest.

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I walked over to Elizabeth, who was taking care of Leo's wounds. “Do you need any help?”

“No, I'm alright. You should ask him, though,” she says, pointing at Mateo.

I know it's stupid, but I walk up next to him and ask anyway, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, my head hurts, and I feel like throwing up, but I'm doing okay, I think," he answered, not entirely in the present.

So I just sat next to him in silence. The expression on his face is downhearted, and the light in his eyes is dim. His curly brown hair was tied back and his face was sooty, which made it almost impossible to see his pursed lips. He isn't terrible looking, and when he smiles, he looks like an idiot, but I think it's cute. I wanted to say something to comfort him, just something, anything, but I couldn't.

I did a quick head count. Only seven people had survived: Alex, James, Leo, Scarlet, Elizabeth, me, and Mateo. With the thought of how the colors of the fire looked, followed by how no one could've survived that, I fell asleep hoping this was all just a dream.

I woke up wrapped in a sheet weightless, and peaceful. However, I started to feel like I was suffocating, as the material I was lying on felt tighter and tighter until I rolled over. I heard a thud and a burning sensation in my face before I realized I had fallen to the ground.

“Morning, idiot,” said someone behind me.

I looked around and the events of last night came rushing back. I noticed I was in a wooden room filled with hammocks.

“Where am I?”

“The bottom of the boat, these little sheet beds are cool.” I turned around to see it was Scarlet who had answered.

“what?”

"It's like a ship's bedroom.”

“Ship? So last night actually happened?”

“Sadly, yeah,” she answered, which wasn't what I wanted to hear.

“Wait, but who brought me here?”

“I don't know. I fell asleep as soon as I had the chance.”

“Okay,” I said as I dusted myself off and left the room.

The sun was the first thing I noticed because it nearly blinded me as it flooded into the dark room when I opened the hatch of a door.

“Ahh, that's so bright,” Scarlet screams behind me, “close the door. I'm still trying to sleep!”

I hurried out the door and let it slam behind me to annoy her. That's when a pleasant smell filled my nose, and then I saw it, which made my stomach take a step back.

“What, you've never had lampresa stew?” the man asked, chuckling.

“What? No, that looks so repulsive,” I said, almost throwing up. “Is that even edible?”

“It tastes like chicken soup,” Leo says with a bowl of it, as I give him a look of disgust as he eats a chunk of slimy meat. "Seriously."

“Ugh, gross,” I replied. Then I saw Mateo, still sitting in the same place at the edge of the boat.

I sat down next to him silently when he asked, "What a birthday, huh?”

“Yeah, I'm sorry.”

He looks a bit better. Besides being exhausted, his eyes look more alive, and he has cleaned up a bit.

“It's fine, you don't have to apologize,” he looked at me and smiled a tiny bit.

“Did you get any sleep?"

“No, Mr. Boatman said I probably had a concussion and told me to stay awake for a bit, but I couldn't fall asleep if I tried. It feels like there is a hurricane in my head—all the stress, and the pain swirling around in my head. I just want it to go away.”

"I'm sorry," I muttered as he quickly wiped a tear from his eye. The forest was filled with black, charred trees and massive amounts of smoke. I cleared my throat and asked, "When did the fire stop?”

“It rained only a couple of hours ago. It was a heavy shower, but it didn't last very long,” he said. "It had only lightly sprinkled over here, though.”

“Have you had anything to eat for breakfast?”

"Yeah, it's not that terrible. I helped catch it. Mr. boatman said his name is Stephanos."

“Has he said anything helpful?”

“He said he would talk about everything once everyone was awake, so eat, and then you should wake up your sister.”

“Okay, I'll be right back once I'm done with those things,” I say, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder and then walking away.

I grabbed a funky-looking wooden bowl and ladled myself a portion of stew and dug in. The stew was surprisingly delicious, with a savory yet subtly sweet flavor. I could taste the hints of garlic and onions, and the texture of the vegetables was just perfect.

I sat in silence for a bit, waiting for my soup to cool down. I replayed the events of last night in my head over and over and over again. I get flustered and annoyed when I think about all the positive things that happened yesterday (most of them involving Mateo) and how it has all been taken away from me and thrown in a big pile of trash. I looked over at where the trees that had looked full of green but were beginning to turn red and orange were. They now looked like wisps of wood hanging off blackened, charred, and the dead trunk of a tree. I started eating when Alex started to come over to me. I didn't want to talk to anyone right now, but I didn't think I could just brush him off. He had been through the same shit as I me.

“What's up?” I asked, beating him to it.

“Not much, just trying to wrap my head around last night,” he said, crossing his legs before sitting down.

“I freaked out a bit, waking up and not knowing where I was." I chuckled, which felt comforting, as if it was medicine making its way through my veins, though I still spited myself for doing so. I think my laughter soothed him, and I decided I would try to make light of a scary situation. It was a sign that I was still in control of my emotions and could find a way to cope with the uncertainty of the moment.

He laughed a bit.

“Wow, this ship is huge now that I look at it," I say, looking around.

"I'll let you say that again. I spent an hour exploring half of the ship last night,” Alex forced a smile. It was a sad attempt by him to keep the mood light, though it is difficult to make anyone feel safe in the slightest right now.

"Why did you stop?”

“I got tired,” he said, flopping onto his back with a thump and gazing into the light blue sky. He let out an exaggerated sigh and said, "It's nearly impossible to imagine that there were forty other kids who got out of the village with us and yet we are all that is left.

My mood instantly lost all hope of trying to be anything but gloomy. A sense of hopelessness began to take hold of me, and my grip on my own emotions started to loosen. For example, I felt as though I was slowly being pulled under a heavy blanket of despair, and I was helpless to stop it. It was like being caught in a current, where I was powerless to stop the tide of negativity that was bearing down on me. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to escape its grip. Moreover, when I finished eating, I lay on my back. I noticed the faint scent of burnt skin and death that followed us to the boat. I saw the moon looking out of place in the sky. I reached up and grabbed it. I was slightly disappointed that nothing fell out of my hand when I turned my palm around and snapped me out of this horrific nightmare called life. I stayed lying down, just staring at the open sky and seeing the occasional bird here and there. Only when I remembered that I had to go and wake up my sister did I get up and go back to where I woke.