UNFINISHED (Chapter 1)

This is a story I managed to stitch together due to boredom and the failing internet. This is still in progress, so I might just post the next few chapters periodically. :) Just in case you're wondering, this story is inspired by the folkloric elements of Mindanao, thus the familiar local mythological creatures that might appear in the succeeding chapters. Enjoy. :)

Oh, and I do not have a title yet, so this shall be named UNFINISHED for the mean time, referring to the story which is, of course, still unfinished. :D

I dipped my head slightly to the side to get a better view of him. He didn't seem to notice so I slowly parted my lips and whispered, “Turn around.” He didn't. He laughed with Angela and Don who were tossing twigs to the fire which already rose waist-high. He played with an imaginary basketball and threw it over to an imaginary ring, but he didn't turn around. “Do I really even know you still?”

“What in the world are you doing, talking to yourself?” Shane asked, rubbing her hands. “Come on now. It's freezing out here!” I nodded and beckoned her to go ahead. She squinted in disapproval but when she realized what I was doing, she sighed and resigned to our tent, her long hair whipping from side to side with each step she took.

It was a beautiful night for camping, except that it gets too chilly for us to stay outside for a long time. And as if I were in the movies, I searched the evening sky for stars that might foretell my fate for the rest of the summer. Nothing. Then I felt the large trees that surrounded our camp, tracing my fingers up and down the rough little ridges and scars previous campers had carved mercilessly. Moss. Movies do make real things appear magical on screen. But in reality? There really are no birds to sympathize with you, and there really is no background music.

Papa always said he used to come here with Anton's dad. They had been best friends, and this had been their ultimate getaway place. Before it became a camping spot, of course. I tried to imagine how it was before: with my dad and Anton's dad, slapping each other's backs, repeating random jokes, living out their youth, with our moms cooking boiled bananas and sweet potatoes over the fire they had managed to make. I wondered if time didn't go so fast, Anton and I would still be as close as our dads had been.

“Zarah?”

His eyes turned crimson red, then orange, and I almost took off to our tent had I not realized they were only reflecting the fire from the camp. “Hi, Anton.”

My insides squirmed as he sat down next to me on the damp grass.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, giving me a sideway glance, before offering me an opened pack of soda crackers. 'He remembered?' I thought to myself, blinking back the shock that must've shown through my eyes.

“Still your favorite, I suppose.” he grinned and slid one cracker from the pack before shoving it into his mouth. Crumbs escaped their fate, and rolled down his gray gym shirt that I had given him last Christmas, when I drew out his name for Kris Kringle. His body at least changed a lot.

I nodded and took a cracker as well. “Thanks. Uh, it's much more peaceful over here,” I mumbled. It was, and it was much colder too.

When I realized he wasn't saying anything back, I absent-mindedly pulled with my bare hands the weeds that had stubbornly sprouted on the ground I was sitting on. I was anticipating him to open his mouth again and talk endlessly, but as seconds passed by, my heart only pumped more oxygen into my brain, and I just had to do something with my hands, thus the weed-pulling going on. Nothing came from him except his steady breathing. I waited.

“Hey,” he finally blurted out after several minutes. I sat bolt straight and a smile almost started to form on my lips.

“Yeah?” I answered quickly – too quickly, even, though that was the least that should have bothered me. Turning my head, I watched him draw a silver box from his jean's back pocket. It has red velvet detailing at the corners and was small enough to fit into his open palm. Flipping the lid open, he revealed a silver bracelet that glinted whenever he tilted it sideways. It was his mother's. “I'll give it to the girl I'd really like,” he had said when we were a lot younger. I had wished it would be me.

Mouth as dry as our deserted back yard, I only stared at it wide-eyed.

“Remember this?” He smiled before closing the box. “I think I found her already.”

My mind raced and rummaged through my mental dictionary for words that I could possibly use when he wears the jewelry over my wrist. I almost lifted my hand to him, but what he said next not only stopped me from doing so, but also made my heart sink miles below my feet.

“Could you give this to Shane for me?”

I stared in disbelief. His eyes were almost too happy, my chest hurt with each passing second I looked straight at him. I wanted to stand up and take off to the woods, but I knew better and decided to fix a smile on my face instead.

“Shane? Really? I thought you said she was too loud for you.” At least that was what he said when we were twelve, back when we were inseparable. I guess seven years is enough to make the world spin the other way. It was too late to turn back time. I looked at him finish off the last of the cracker with a nervous smile.

He chuckled and ruffled my hair as if I were a silly child, oblivious to the universal truth that things here on earth never stay the same forever. But I knew, of course, and I could testify on that.

“I know I should give this to her personally, but...” he trailed off. Something beneath us was moving, shaking the rocks beside us.

“Uh, earthquake?” I smiled, trying to convince ourselves. It stopped. But just as soon as everything around us was silent again, the trees surrounding the camp shook violently before Angela's shrilly scream cut through the air.

“Angela!” We both called out, running towards her tent. Shane, Don, and Janus also came to the rescue, but when we unzipped her tent flap open, Angela has already disappeared.

“She's playing a prank on us,” Janus informed us nonchalantly, waving his barbeque tongs above his head to swat the imaginary pesky mosquitoes he had been complaining about since late afternoon. Apparently, all the commotion had interrupted his cooking, it was clear he was getting impatient. Of course he was. It was way past dinner time. I watched Janus wipe his sweat off his invisible neck with the hem of his shirt, before leaning on a stump behind him.

“No, she isn't.”

Everyone turned to Shane, who was now crouched beside Angela's sleeping bag. Slowly she lifted her hand and something gleamed through her fingers. It was Angela's beaded necklace she says was passed on to her by her mom before she died.

“She never takes this off,” Shane whispered before pausing as if remembering something. “I knew we were being watched.”

“What do you mean, watched?” Don asked, unsure. A trickle of sweat crawled down his temple.

I didn't know what to think of it. One second Anton and I were talking a few meters from the camp, and the next second, everything went haywire. If this were a prank, it was played real better than usual. I studied the camp. Everything was still, but at the same time, suffocating. Anton,, who had gone to the boys' tent came back with his duffel bag, packed.

“C'mon,” he announced to everyone. “We're leaving this place.”

“And Angela?” I managed to ask.

“We're going to find her, wherever the lair of those who took her is.”