The Journey To An Unknown Destination - Chapter 71

Emily squeaked as the cold water touched her skin and soaked a small part of her clothes. “Ahhh! It’s so cold!” She said and started running away from them. Aiden and Cyril started running after her, trying to cup water in their hands and throwing it on her. Since they were running, hardly any water reached Emily.

Emily, too, whenever she got the chance, would throw water on the two of them and then escape from the scene. Soon enough the three of them were half drenched in water when they finally decided to stop splashing water so that they would not become sick.

Starting with a small water fight, they then started running after each other and played catch.

When they had drained their energy, they finally sat down and breathed heavily in order to catch their breaths. They were really exhausted. Plus, they did not even know what time it was as they were so busy playing, they forgot to keep track of time.

“What time is it?” Cyril asked in between his deep breathing, covered in sweat. “Dunno.” Aiden shrugged, leaning back against they trunk of the tree and closing his eyes. “Wait… I think I have a wrist watch here some where…” Emily said and started searching her backpack for the watch.

When she managed to find it and took it out, she was surprised to see the time it was showing. “It’s half past four!” She declared the time as Aiden and Cyril exchanged surprised glances. “It’s getting late, we should start heading back now. It’ll be dark by the time we reach the campsite.” Aiden said, standing up and gathering their stuff.

“Alright, wait a second.” Emily said and flashed a cheeky smile while she searched her bag for something. Cyril raised an eyebrow as he curiously lookd at her.

When Emily grabbed the thing she was searching for, her smile widened. She took out a ploaroid camera from her bag. One fancy polaroid camera indeed.

“Let’s take a selfie, shall we?” She stood up and gathered the two behind her, making sure that when she took the picture, the waterfall would also be included.

“3.. 2.. 1.. Say cheese!” Emily counted down and as soon as she said cheese, everyone striked a pose and the polaroid flashed brightly. Moments later, a freshly printed picture sliding out through the polaroid.

Quickly grabbing the picture, Emily announced, “Another one!” And they all changed their pose, the polaroid flashing brightly again. Another picture slid through the hole. Emily got hold of the picture and declared once again, “Last one!” She laughed and they all changed their pose for the third time, laughing out loud as the polaroid flashed one last time, blurring their vision.

“Ow…” Aiden whined, rubbing his eyes. “That’s really bright!”

“It’s totally worth it!” Emily chuckled as she caught the third picture sliding down smoothly like butter. Waving the three pictures she captured, the image slowly formed and the three of them appeared. She smiled at the pictures in her hand.

The trio was smiling without any care of the world, posing a peace sign or making rabbit ears behind each others heads, they looked really cheerful. She handed one picture to Aiden and one to Cyril, saying, “Here you go!”

“Aren’t you going to keep all of them?” Cyril asked, gazing at the clear picture held in his hands. “Duh! That’s why I took three, for each one of us.” Emily replied.

“Oh… Thanks, sis.” Cyril laughed. Emily laughed and threw a punch at his arm as she pouted, “Hey, are you ‘sis-zoning’ me?” Cyril averted his gaze and looked at her from the corner of his eyes and smirked.

Emily gulped internally. “Oh… You want to be something else?” He snickered. Emily started to chase him and Cyril immediately took off when he saw Emily charging at him. “Ay! Why are you running after me? What did I even say?”

Emily laughed and kept on chasing him until Aiden called out to them, “Guys, I think we should get oing or we won’t make it in time.”

Emily immediately stopped and so did Cyril. They both quickly walked back towards Aiden and wore their backpacks, ready to leave. Taking a last quick glance of the beautiful scenery behind her, Emily, Aiden and Cyril started trekking back towards the campsite.

They had barely started their journey when they felt that the winds blowing around them got a but stronger and the sky became darker. Looking up they saw that thick black clouds had covered the entire sky and the sunshine that once reached and illumiated the view around them started to dim slowly.

“This is so not good.” Aiden muttered as they all quickened their pace. “I don’t think we would be able to make it back to the campsite without soaking wet. We’ll get sick if we don’t dry up soon and I think we would have to take shelter if rain starts pouring heavily.” Aiden expressed his thoughts.

“But… Who knows when the rain would actually stop, and by the time it somehow does manages to stop, it’ll be dark outside, Madam Ellen would be really upset if we don’t return in time… We’ll get in trouble and it’ll affect our school records later on.” Cyril replied with a worried experssion on his face.

Aiden nodded, his expression darkening. “Whatever decision we make, we’ll have to suffer the consequences either way. And right now, our lives matter more than anything. We have to make it back safe and sound.”