Ficlets

Just Look

“Bernie, are you okay?” Peter asked. “You look like you’re going to throw up.”

“I’m not.” I sat down on the ground and curled my knees up to my chin, closing my eyes.

I heard some leaves crunch as he crouched down next to me. “It’s okay, Bernice. We’ll find help, and.. look, I understand it’s dark out. I know our parents are going crazy looking for us. They probably called the police.”

“I want to go back, ” I said softly.

“Bernie, I know you’re scared, but like I’ve said, we need to keep going.”

“Why not? I mean, I know it’s dark and I know it’d take a while to get back, but we just have to. Even if it takes two days to get back home, we have to leave.” Why hadn’t we turned around earlier?!

He sighed. “Bernie, the truth is, I don’t know where we are.”

“What?” I said, opening my eyes.

“I didn’t want to scare you, but about a half hour after we came into the woods.. I figured we could follow the trail back out, but then I looked behind us, and..” his voice trailed off. “Just look.”

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