The Attackers Awake.

Madison

12/4/12

The Attackers Awake.

    Faster...I had to run faster if we wanted to get away. But I couldn’t do it, I could feel my legs start to weaken and slowly start turning to jell-o. My mind was racing a million miles per hour but I was only thinking one thing, get down the mountain. I started feeling my eyes sting from the tears that were leaking through. But I knew I couldn’t let the pain get the best of me so I put up with it, grabbed her hand and ran faster.

    Maybe I should rewind a bit and tell you who “us” is. My name is Madison Waters and I’m an 8th grader at Trinidad School. It was summer 2012 and me and my best friend ,Noa, were going to summer camp together. It is our favorite place and was where we met for the first time. Lost Coast camp is what I look forward to throughout the year. The idea of sleeping in the cabin and playing capture the flag on the beach brings a smile to my face every time. It was my fifth time as a Lost Coast camper and I could tell this year was going to be just as fun. We had returned from our cabin sleep over early because of a horrendous thunderstorm. Everybody was soaked from head to toe. You could tell how much energy it took out of Noa and I ,because when we got back to camp we didn’t change our clothes but just flopped down on our cots and were ready to go back to sleep. I felt a tap on my shoulder I rolled over to see Noa staring at me.
    “Maddi...I can’t sleep.” she said. She had dark bags under her gorgeous green  turquoise eyes. Her long brown hair was stuck to her face from the rain we had just came out of. I could see why she couldn’t fall asleep, thunder was rumbling every 30 seconds and the dark morning sky would sometimes light up because of the lightning. It was difficult but I was so exhausted I knew I had to rest.
    “ It’s ok Noa just try to sleep it’s still really early in the morning” She just sighed and rolled over on her side. Whatever I thought, I'm going to sleep.
   
    A couple of hours later after a nice long nap everybody woke up in my cabin. Our counselor Helena told us we would be going on a “yonder”. Now a “yonder” is basically like a hike but the directors insisted that it was different. They said it was suppose to be the “journey of a lifetime”.But everybody just started complaining on how we just wanted to stay in the cabin and relax.

“ Come on Helena, I’ve never been on a yonder, and I really don’t feel like going on one now.” Complained my friend Ericka.

    “ Sorry girls the directors insist on getting exercise because we didn’t get to do our camp activities today. So everybody up lets go!”

    We had walked to the top of JC hill and suddenly I didn’t regret coming. I had never in my life seen such a beautiful site. The view was amazing. The forest went on for miles but came to a stop at the Mattole river. The river bends through the valley as if it was a snake slithering its way through the grass.  The hills seemed to roll on forever. The dark green of the trees and the light blue morning sky contrasted amazingly together. We stayed on the hill for a while and took pictures with the view behind us. We were in the middle of taking a cabin photo when I felt a sharp pain in the back of my leg. I had absolutely no idea what had caused the pain. I rubbed the back of my leg and rolled up my sweatpants. I asked my friend Alyssa if she could see anything.
” Umm...ya there’s a big bump on the back of your thigh.” she replied.
Being the reasonable person I am, I started freaking out and jumping to conclusions.
    “ Oh My God. I’ve been bit. What if I’m going to die!? What if something poisonous bit me!? What if it was a spider?!”
    “Calm down Maddi. I just heard Helena say she was stung by a bee, that’s probably what happened to you too.” she reassured me.
    “ Oh. Right. Of course. I knew that, haha.” I laughed nervously feeling a bit embarrassed of my actions. The camp directors decided we should go because as it turned out a quite a few campers had been stung, including Noa. I went over to her and we started walking back down the hill. We were up front with Bender the counselor and the boys from the Alder cabin. Everything was going fine we were all just laughing and talking having a good time when suddenly Noa cried out in pain. She’d been stung again and was getting agitated.

” Come on Noa don’t worry we’ll be back to camp soon, everything will be alright.” I patted her on the back just to give her reassurance.

    We got a total of five feet when I got stung in the upper thigh. We started running to catch up with the others when we heard screaming and everyone started sprinting along the trail.
    “ AWWW HORNETS RUN!!!”
I could see the black and yellow beasts swarming around Noa and that was my cue to scream like a little girl and run. I looked behind me to find Noa standing there paralyzed.
    “ Noa! Run!!” She wasn’t doing anything so I ran back took her hand and started dragging her behind me. By then Noa was crying while I was pulling her, we had both been stung at least four times. My ears filled with the dissatisfying buzzing of the hornets. It was like a bad dream and I couldn’t escape the grasp of the terrible monster. It was as if I could feel them breathing down my neck. I ran as fast as I could the only thing is we couldn’t really run because we were coming down a hill! The trail was a good three feet in diameter. We couldn’t risk running any faster or we’d go off the edge and fall down the hillside. But that didn’t stop the boys. We saw them ditch the trail and start running down the side, some tripping and falling down. Noa looked at me and I nodded my head in approval.

“ Let’s do it” she said. We ran down the hillside and things were actually going okay. Noa probably thought that I was crazy though. I was laughing and crying at the same time. I knew it wasn’t really the appropriate time to laugh, but hey, I laugh in intense situations. I was thinking about the old cartoons when the stupid humans ruin the bees nest and the bees start chasing them. I never thought I would experience it first hand. Definitely not as amusing in person. Why didn’t we ditch the trail in the first place we're making much better time. But of course I thought too soon. My foot got caught on the root of a tree and I flew forward, I started rolling down the hillside. When I stopped I couldn’t stand up because I was laughing hysterically, I was way beyond the point of crying. I heard Noa running after me calling my name.
    “Oh my gosh Maddi are you ok!?”
    “Ya I’m fine let’s just go” The truth was I wasn’t fine. I was in serious pain now. My legs felt like I was sitting on a hot fire in the summer time. They were throbbing with pain. And to make matters worse I was now covered head to toe with dirt.
    “ I can’t run anymore.” Noa cried.
    “ Noa come on we’re almost to the bottom” Now that was true. I could see the meadow that was just below the hill. Twenty more feet and we’d be out of the forest. Ten...five...three feet. Finally! We had made it. Noa crumbled to the ground but I helped her back up. We made our way over to the boys. Noa was still crying and was yelling at Bender about how we never should have came. And that we should have stayed back at camp with Nico.
    “ Noa just calm down” I pulled her into a hug when the annoying prankster of the camp ,Gabe, came up to us. He was like a mosquito always trying to ruin a fun time.
    “Madison! There’s a bee on your jacket!” I started screaming running around flailing my arms. That’s when I started crying and by that point I was what some people called traumatized.
    “ Get it off! Get it off!” I yelled. I looked over at Gabe and saw him laughing. I walked right up to him and punched him in the arm.
    “ OW! I guess I deserve that though” he said while rubbing his sore shoulder.
    I was still crying, trying to get the images of the monstrous hornets out of my head. I was taking deep breaths when Alyssa walked over to me. She was rubbing my back and saying encouraging things. I started feeling better if I blocked out the pain from the seven hornet stings up and down my legs. We convinced Bender to take us back to camp  then and not wait for the others. When we got back I was too scared to look at my legs. I brushed the backside of them and could feel the welts all over. I winced in pain. Noa and I went outside to wait for the others. We were still trying to wrap our heads around what had just happened. I mean we were attacked by hornets!
    “ Jeez...I knew we shouldn’t have gone on that hike” Noa complained
    “ No Noa. It wasn’t a hike it was a “yonder, the journey of a lifetime.”
`    “ Ya well I’m never going on one of those again.”
    But deep down past the trauma and pain we both knew that it was actually pretty fun and exhilarating.  We had never experienced something so exciting before. At least I knew one good thing came out of that little “yonder”. It would make one heck of a story.

The End!