3 shots

chapter 2: abbie

Chapter 2: Abbie
I opened my eyes and looked at my arm. It looked fine there was no blood or anything. I couldn’t see the patch anymore either. What patch? my mind asked. I sat for a second, utterly bewildered by that thought. What patch? Why would there be a patch on my arm? I don’t know I just feel like there’s supposed to be something on my...uh...arm…?
I looked around to see where I was and was surprised to see that most of my class was already wherever we were. The few people that weren’t there just randomly popped into existence within about five minutes. It was the most bizarre thing ever. They would just kind of like, appear out of nowhere. And the thing was, there was no warning, so there were a few instances where people would appear on top of other people and they would both just tumble to the ground mid-conversation.
After we knew everyone was there, we started to separate into our normal friend groups. I had no clue where I was and I don’t think anyone else did either. We were in the front yard of an old house I didn’t recognise. Some of the kids wandered inside. Others just sat in the grass and talked. We didn’t know what to do. Then something dawned on me. I had no clue how I had gotten here. I decided to go ask my friends if they knew why we were here. I started to walk over to Ripley, Ryder, Raelyn, and Kaylie. While I was still a ways away, I saw Kaylie and Raelyn scream and back away from something on the ground near an old stump. “What the heck is that?!” Raelyn screamed, her face was as white as a sheet. When I stepped closer, I saw an ugly, chubby, little man wearing nothing but a loincloth. I backed away immediately. Ew.
“Why, hello!” he said cheerily, waving at us like it was just another day in a creepy old abandoned house’s front yard. “I am Ubel. You don’t happen to have any food, do you?” I heard a pop behind me and Ripley go “SWEET!” We all turned and looked at Ripley and found that his mouthwas full of cheetos from a jumbo sized bag of Crunchy flamin’ hot white cheddar cheetos. We all glanced back at Ubel. “Do you know where we are?” Ubel asked. We all shook our heads. “I do. I can help you. I can get you back home. All I want is a cheeto.” “Rip, can we please just have one cheeto?” we begged. “No way man! These are mine!” he sprayed cheeto bits all over us when he spoke. He made a face and we knew it would be hard for him to part with even one cheeto from what had miraculously appeared in his hand. “Come on, please?” The little man pleaded. “Just give him a cheeto, what’s the worst that could happen?” Ryder said. “Fine!” Ripley sighed and gave in, he reached into his bag of cheetos and took one out. “Wait,” Kaylie said slowly, “I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that we were told not to trust anybody.” But, it was too late, the little man had already chomped down on the cheeto. “See,” I said, my back to Ubel, “ that wasn’t bad. All the little guy wanted was foo-.” I looked over at the four of them and saw that they weren’t listening. “Aw no, man!” Ryder said. He looked disgusted. Ripley dropped his bag of cheetos on the ground. “BROOO!” Some of the other kids in groups near us stopped talking and started walking away from us very slowly. “What?” I asked. “Sydney,” Kaylie said softly, her eyes wide, “Turn around. Very slowly.”
I knew it was bad as soon as I hear her use my real name. We never use them.There was a loud, low, grumble behind me. This is definitely not good. My mind screamed.
I turned around and looked at Ubel. And it looked like he had grown about six feet. He was now at least a head taller than me. I screamed and he laughed. He kept growing. I wanted to run but couldn’t I was glued to that spot on the grass. Vines sprouted out of the ground and wrapped around my ankles. I struggled as they started to pull me under the ground. I screamed some more, but nobody came. Raelyn and Kaylie tried to come to me but the vines wrapped around them too. Some girl who was a ways away ran up to me. I think her name was Abbie. She pulled me out of the vines without any trouble. For some reason she didn’t get covered in them. “ Ubel want food!” Ubel shouted and picked up a tree. He chomped down on it, then cried out in pain. “Tree too hard. UBEL WANT HOOMAN!” he reached out to try and grab us,but couldn’t. I ran around him and grabbed some vines that were lying on the ground then kept running and wrapped them around his giant feet a couple of times. He struggled to keep his balance as I wrapped the vines tighter and tighter. Then, he started to teeter. “RUN!” I screamed, waving my arms. “TIMBER!!” Kaylie screamed. Somebody else screamed behind me. I turned just in time to see Abbie, who struggling to rip the vines that were growing around her legs, get crushed by the falling Ubel. “Abbie!” someone shouted she ran up to Ubel. “ GET UP YOU BIG LUMP GET UP!” she cried while punching him in the face. He seemed to be totally out of it. Like he was on laughing gas or something because he just sat there with a big dumb grin on his face and said “i hurt.” we pushed him over so we could find Abbie’s body. We all braced ourselves to see her crushed body but found that there was nothing there for us to see. Not even a dent in the ground. Raelyn bursted into tears and so did most of the girls. I cried for a second. She had saved my life and I just left her there to die. Somehow though, I knew she was ok. I knew that she was safe. I felt like I would see her pretty soon. Not in heaven or anything, but in real life. Real life? What's that supposed to mean? I thought, I don't know. Just later, I guess.

Lydia Rose