See You Later by Bookworm18 (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📕

Rosalina’s body. Karter picks up Rosalina, and Miles picks me up. I tuck myself into him as we walk. We walk back to where we left the cart, but the cart is gone.

“Great! No cart, a dead body, and it’s freezing! What are we going to do now?” Honey complains.

“Shut up! Be nice. She was my friend.” I yell, untucking myself from Miles, ready to hit her. He pulls me back to him and glares at Honey.

“Calm down, both of you. Honey, that was mean. Apologize. Now.” He says sternly.

“Fine,” she huffs, “I’m sorry for being mean. Happy now?” I glare at her.

“Thank you. Now, let’s be reasonable. We can just walk home. It shouldn’t be too far.” Miles says, setting me down and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He holds up a hand to silence any protests.”It’s that or stay and take our chances with whatever killed Rosalina. I don’t know about you, but I want to live.”

There’s a moment of silence, when time seems to stop. We all look at Rosalina, and start walking in the direction of home.

We walk along the track for days on end, stopping only to go to the bathroom and eat. We run out of food and we have no more water. It’s been days.

We finally make it back to town, about a week later. What we see when we get there, though, surprises us. The town is a complete mess. Everything is burning or ruined.

“What happened?” I ask, staring at the ruined town in wonder.

“Obviously something, otherwise the town wouldn’t look like this.” Honey says, getting smart. I roll my eyes and turn away, too tired to fight with her right now.

“Let’s just bury Rosalina and get some sleep. We can figure this out later.” Axton says, starting toward the cemetery. We dig Rosalina a grave, and that takes most of the night and into the next day. We say nice things about her short life, and bury her. By then a whole day has passed. We find a decent place to stay in for the night.

“We’ll get supplies tomorrow and see if we can find someone to tell us what’s going on.” Karter says, trying to sleep. We all nod and try to sleep as well.

“Miles?” I whisper after everyone else is asleep.

“Yeah?” He whispers back.

“What do you think happened?” I ask.

“With Rosalina or the town?” he asks back.

“Both.” It’s quiet for a while and I think he’s sleeping. Just as I’m about to fall asleep he replies.

“I don’t know. Now come here. I’m cold and you need to sleep.” I snuggle closer to him and fall asleep to the steady beating of his heart.

The next day we are all up early, looking for supplies and survivors. We find the supplies, but no people. We move on to the next town to see if there are any people there. The next town looks the same way as our town. We gather a little more supplies and head back to our town. We say goodbye to Rosalina one last time and head into the forest.

We wander for a while, until we come across our cart on the old abandoned mining track. We find the cart with a note stuck to it. The note reads:

You’ll find more of these clues throughout the forest.

Follow the track and it will lead you to the next clue.

Be aware. There are clues that will throw you off track.

Good luck and have fun!

“Great! So I guess we have an adventure. Let’s go.” Karter say, getting in the cart. We pile in after him and head in the direction of the car graveyard.

“Look for clues. Hopefully it will be easy to spot.” Honey says as we take off. We ride for a while, not finding any sort of clue. Just as we are giving up, I see something sparkling in a bush.

“Hey. I found it.” I say hopping out of the cart and running to get the clue. I walk back to the cart and read the clue. This clue says:

Congratulations Asher! I knew you would be the one to spot this clue.

You’re more observant than the others. :)

Anyway, the next clue is off track, so you will have to walk.

Go North until you see the church. The next clue is around there. Good luck!

“Come on. We have to walk North until we see a church.” I say, motioning north. We climb out of the cart and head off in the direction of the next clue. We walk until it’s almost dark. We finally find the church and push open the doors. We walk to the front and see the next clue sitting on the podium. We open it and it reads:

Oops! Wrong way. You found an off track clue. Ha Ha.

Well at least you have a place to stay tonight.

I promise this clue is not misleading.

You will have to go back South to find the next clue.

It will be hanging in a tree. Good luck!

“Great! We went the wrong way.” Honey says, glaring at me.
“Hey! Don’t blame me. I was just following the clues.” I say, glaring at her.

“Stop! Fighting is not going to solve anything. We will just stay here tonight and head back tomorrow.” Axton says, pushing us to opposite ends of the church.

“Fine.” We huff, crossing our arms. We all find somewhere to sleep for the night and settle in.

The next morning we head out in the direction that we came from the night before. It takes us until around noon to get back to the track.

“Where do we go from here?” Axton asks.

“The clue said go South, so let's go south.” I shrug and walk South. It takes us almost until dark to find the clue hanging in the tree. This clue reads:

Great job! You are almost done. Just one more clue to go.

Go West and you will find the next clue in an abandoned building.

Watch out for traps. Good luck!

“Great. Let’s go West. At least we’re almost done.” I sigh and we head West. I just want to get to the abandoned building and be done with all of this mystery clue stuff.

We get to the old abandoned building and find the clue taped to the door. Everybody looks to me to read the clue. I hold my hands up in surrender.

“I’m done. The last time I read a clue that was in a building, I got yelled at because we went the wrong way. One of you can read it.” I take a step back and gesture to anyone to get it. Nobody steps up. Sighing, I grab the note and read it out loud. I read:

Gotcha again. Ha. You went the wrong way.

At least I was nice enough to give you another place to stay.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to backtrack as far this time.

You just have to go South until you see the totem poll.

Then go East until you get to the pond.

This will be where the last clue is waiting for you.

Good luck!

“Great! Another off track clue. I hate this. Why can’t it just be over? Where are we going anyway? What’s so special about the ‘pond’ that we are going to?” Honey complains.

“We don’t know. Just be happy that they gave us a place to stay tonight. I think it’s going to storm later.” Miles says before I can snap at her.

“Yeah. I am not staying in that creepy building.” Honey says, starting to walk away.

“It’s this or wander around with no place to go in the middle of a storm. Plus you would be the only one going. The rest of us are staying here for tonight. Have fun in the storm.” I wave and open the old dusty doors. They are stuck shut so it takes a little pushing to get them open, but eventually I get it.

“Great. Let’s find something that isn’t moldy to sleep on.” I say when we are all in the building. Honey is still standing outside when I go to shut the door.

“Wait! I don’t want to be alone. Let me in.” she says. I open the door and let her in because I’m a nice person, and I don’t want to have to deal with her tomorrow if I had left her outside. We all find somewhere that isn’t moldy to go to sleep. I’m sleeping on Miles because the floor is too hard, or that’s just what I’m telling myself. It’s only for a night.

The next morning I wake up with Miles’s arms around my waist and my face right next his. I look up to find him staring at me. That’s not creepy at all, I think to myself.

“Morning Sunshine.” He says, grinning at me.

“Morning.” I say through a yawn, getting up to stretch. I look around to find that everyone is still sleeping.

“You are so cute when you sleep. You look so peaceful.” Miles says, staring at me.

“Umm. Thanks? That’s a little creepy.” I say, with an awkward laugh. He just shrugs, like, eh whatever.

“We should probably wake everyone else up and get going. It’s almost noon. The sun is pretty high in the sky.” he says, pointing through one of the holes in the roof. Sure enough, the sun is almost in the middle of the sky.

We wake everybody else up, so we can get ready to go. We have to wait for Axton and Karter to change clothes. They slept in spots where the roof leaked during the storm so they were soaked.

“Ok. Is everybody ready to go now?” I ask after they finished changing.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” We reread the clue one more time, just to make sure that we knew where we were going, and where the clue would be at. We head South looking for the totem poll.

After hours of walking South, we finally see the totem poll. Nobody knows how far we’ve walked. When we get to the totem poll, we go East, looking for the pond now. We are all wondering the same thing: What’s so special about the pond? Nobody is talking. In fact, the only sound is the sound of twigs snapping below our feet as we walk. There is a slight wind, but not enough to make the tree branches sway. We’re walking in two lines. Karter is in the front, by himself. Honey and Axton are behind him, and Miles and I take up the rear.

We walk for about 10 minutes, when suddenly Miles grabs my hand. I give him a questioning look.

“The last time a girl was in the back, she was taken and killed. I just want to make sure that you won’t get taken.” He says, turning away slightly. Is that a blush covering his cheeks. AWWW. That’s so sweet, I think. He’s blushing, and just because he’s holding my hand. He’s so cute.

“Sure. We all know you just want to hold my hand to be near me.” I tease him. He blushes more and I squeeze his hand. I lean on his shoulder and he let’s go of my hand to wrap his arm around me. He grabs my other hand, with his arm still over my shoulder. We walk like that for another good hour or two, until we finally see the pond.

“Hey,” Axton calls back to us, “I see the pond. Look for the clue.”

“Did the clue we found at the old abandoned building say where this clue would be at?” Miles asks me, letting go of my hand.

“I don’t think so.” I say, fishing the clue out of my pocket and looking at it. “Nope. It just said that it would be waiting at the pond.” I show everybody the clue before putting it back in my pocket. We start looking for the clue in the trees, on the ground, in the bushes, everywhere. Axton was walking by the edge of the pond when he