Chapter Two

Jade and Asha are searching their own part of the woods thinking about their time with Drake and where he could have gone.

 

    “Alright, so we start from here then,” Jade said to the rest of the group.

    The four girls had hiked their way through the woods, stopping at what they believed to be its center. They each had their assigned areas to search; Jade to the North, Asha to the South, Rose to the East, and Tygra to the West. Since the four of them had traveled through these woods on quite a few occasions with Drake, they each had a visual map of the area carved into their minds. The search for him would be a cinch, or so they hoped.

    Jade looked to each of the girls after assigning them a direction to take. “We all will go in our directions for 10 minutes; no more, no less. When the time’s up, turn around and head back here, got it?”

 

    “Maybe this was a mistake…” Jade commented quietly to herself as she headed in her direction. She couldn’t help but have this feeling that something was unusual about Drake’s disappearance. Even though there were no physical signs leaving her to believe the opposite of what she believed to have happened, she just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with the scenario.

    Did something happen the night before after she and the others had left? Why would he go and venture off into the woods by himself? Had he seen something out here? Was he attacked? What if something had really happened to him? What if he was in the woods this very moment, hurt? Or maybe even-

    She shook her head slightly, trying to rid herself of such thoughts. There was no reason for her to believe in the worse. The only thing that had even indicated that he was in the woods was the necklace Tygra had given him. There was no evidence that he had decided to continue on further into the woods. Maybe he had just decided to go out somewhere and hadn’t realized he had lost his necklace…yeah, that has to be what happened. No one could just disappear over night.

    Jade sighed still unable to shake that feeling; the feeling that he was in trouble and needed help. That he needed her help and the help of the others. But what could have possibly happened to him that he needed their help? Drake wasn’t exactly a push over. She was sure that he could handle whatever it may have been that caused him to leave so abruptly.

    “Drake!” She called out searching the surrounding area, seeing nothing but trees and dead branches along the forest floor. All she wanted, all she needed, was to know that he was alright.

    Both Drake and Tygra were with her since she could remember, being childhood friends their whole lives. But they were more then just friends, they were each others family, and she couldn’t bear the thought of loosing either of them. Nor could she bear the thought of loosing Asha or Rose.

    She didn’t know what she would do if anything would happen to any of them. That’s why she couldn’t help but regret splitting up from the rest of the girls. Whatever happened to Drake may happen to one of them as well. What would she do then? Would she even dare to return to the others if this ordeal ever came to an end? What would she do?

    “Drake!” She called out again, feeling as though her efforts were in vain. “Drake, where could you be…?”

 

*     *     *

 

 

    “Why do I have to do this?” Asha grumbled to herself as she trudged through woods. “I bet he just had to go out somewhere and is now waiting for us at home…I’m so sure we have to be searching all over these damn woods for him. Ouch!”

    She cried out as she hit her shin off of a dead tree branch. Cursing quietly to herself she knelt down, rubbing her soar leg as she tsked slightly to herself. “What am I saying? He would be doing the same thing for me if I were to just up and vanish…” her head soon snapped up as she heard a twig snap behind her.

    “Drake!” Quickly, she turned to the direction of the noise, falling backward from the sudden motion. “Damn…where have you been?” But as she looked up she found nothing before her. “Great, just great.” She mumbled as she slowly stood to her feet, placing a hand up to her forehead. “I’m not only talking to myself but I’m hearing things as well. Get it together Asha; you have to try to find Drake so you can get the hell out of here.”

    She allowed her hand to fall down to her side as she closed her eyes, not liking how her past comment had sounded. There was just no sense to it. Yes, she hated the fact that she had to walk around the woods, but it was for Drake. She would do anything for one of her friends if she was needed, and now was one of those times.

    Where was Drake? Not one of the girls had heard from him since the night before and that just bothered Asha to no end. If something bad had happened, wouldn’t he have tried to get a hold of at least one of them? And Jade had said that there were no signs of a struggle so why were they in the woods searching for him right now? Had she have been lying to them, just so they wouldn’t worry so much about him?

    “No, no…Jade wouldn’t do that…she would have told us if she thought something was wrong…” she turned back to her direction to continue her search. “I just have to search harder is all.”

    Even if she didn’t know Drake as long as Jade and Tygra had, she just couldn’t push the news of his disappearance to the side. She never would have thought that she and Rose would be such good friends with Drake and the two girls the way they were now.

    Asha could still remember when she first saw them. It had been the first day of her freshman year in high school along with Rose. The two of them had just gotten off the bus and were heading toward the school when something had caught her eye.

    Towards the entrance of the school were a group of three people; two girls and a guy. The first of the group to catch her eye was Jade. She was wearing nothing but black, her usual attire, which made her pale skin seem even paler in the morning light. Asha couldn’t help but feel a little frightened by her freakish appearance at the time, but as she came to know her, she soon realized she had nothing to fear from Jade, as long as she would stay on her good side, that is.

    Along side of her, sitting up on a short brick wall, was Tygra. She sat there with her legs crossed looking to be so pretty, so sweet, just so…perfect. And Asha believed her to be the biggest priss within the school until she saw her in action. When Tygra was threatened, she was anything but a little priss, damn near ripping apart someone’s heart with her sharp words.

    Then, there was Drake who was standing just before the two girls with his hands jammed into his pockets and a broad smile on his face. She had to admit that he wasn’t an eye soar, but with his current appearance, she couldn’t help but think that he was gay. He just had to be! There was no guy around that she knew that would smile like that that early in the morning!

    Back then she never would have thought about talking to any of them, but now, she was glad she had. They really weren’t as bad as what she had originally thought. She really had learned not to judge people so quickly.

    As she continued walking along her path, she mostly looked down to the ground, watching her feet as to not trip or to hit her shin as she had done before. She soon saw the ground beneath her slowly turn into a rocky pathway with small patches of grass here and there. That’s when she decided to look before her. “Oh, damn it!”

    There, not too far before her, was the back of Drake’s house. “Now how did that happen? I should have noticed that I had come this far back to his house…Weird.” She stated, shrugging her shoulders slightly as she turned back towards the woods.

    Asha studied the pathway once again, just to make sure that nothing was missed from before. After not finding anything, she looked down to her watch; not even four minutes had past. “That’s odd,” she stated, tapping the side of her watch. “I thought it took us at least fifteen minutes for us to reach the center…damn thing must be broken.” She lowered her hand as she rushed her way back into the woods. The others were going to kill her for being late.