Strangers today

"*Sigh*" Ollie sighed as a he took a deep breath, today had to be the hottest day ever, he was sweating so much.

"The heat" said Maddie as she groaned, she felt like if the sun was any hotter, she would need sunscreen.

"I agree, today is hotter than usual" said Matt as he sighed, he was sweating as well, for the past one week they had been continuing on their journey, and they seemed to have made some progress, they were now on higher ground, and it would seem that the higher they went, the closer they were to the sun.

"Curtis, do you feel alright?" asked Annie as she looked at Curtis, she was sweating as well, but she was more worried about him, since he was not well, and the heat could cause him to have a heatstroke, or fatigue, and she did not want that at all.

"I am fine Annie" said Curtis as he was not sweating at all.

"Okay then, but you still need to drink lots of water, just in case" said Annie as Curtis nodded.

"Yes Annie" said Curtis as he nodded his head.

"Geez, are we on a mountain or in the desert?" asked Maddie, this logic made no sense to her, wasn't the weather supposed to get colder as they went higher, then why was it the other way round? Or was it just the work of this blasted mountain.

"I really don't know at this point" said Ollie as Maddie groaned, they were walking in the scorching sun, and the heat was killing, Maddie had decided to stop drinking water at this point, it was like she was sweating out all the water she drank in an instant.

"At this point, we should start seeing mirages" said Maddie as she fanned herself, she was so sweaty, and her hair started to stick to her face, Maddie had removed everything that she would possibly remove, her sweater, she was wearing nothing but her sleeveless top and yet she was still sweating.

"*Sigh*, I hope that all this suffering is worth it In the end" said Maddie as she sighed and she stopped to tie her shoelaces, she did not even know how they got untied in the first place, everything was just so annoying here.

"What's that?" asked Ollie as he looked ahead and he saw what looked like some sort of building.

"It looks like a building" said Ollie

"Don't tell me that you are starting to hallucinate Blondie, I'm not carrying you if you faint" said Maddie as Ollie scoffed.

"No, look, it actually looks real" said Ollie as he pointed ahead and they all looked in the same direction.

"It does look real" said Matt as he looked ahead.

"What is it?" asked Annie as she looked at Curtis who looked at the map.

"I think it's a gate, I don't know, it's not mentioned on the map that Ivor gave me" said Curtis as he looked at the map and back up.

"I think it's another colony, I'm not sure" said Curtis as they kept on walking.

"Well the only way that we can know for sure is if we find out" said Annie as she smiled.

"That still looks like a long way ahead" said Maddie as she groaned, she hoped that there really was something there, and that was not just an illusion, or else, she would have had enough of all this nonsense.

…

"What in the world…" came the voice of a young boy as he looked down as he was laying on the ground, he could not believe what he just saw.

"What's wrong?" came the voice of another boy as he looked at the boy who was laying on the ground as he quickly stood up.

"There are people down there, people" said the boy as he looked at the other boy.

"People?" asked the boy as the other boy nodded his head.

"You must be seeing things Jothan, there are no people here for miles" said the other boy as he scoffed.

"Are you serious Jannes, I am not seeing things, not at all, you come and see what I saw with my own two eyes" said Jothan as he pulled Jannes.

"You see, over there, look, look" said Jothan as he showed Jannes as he saw five people.

"Wait, you are right, there are people down there" said Jannes as he rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was seeing correctly and he was.

"There are two girls, and three boys" said Jannes.

"You see" said Jothan.

"But what are they doing here?" asked Jannes as he shook his head, this made no sense, there were not supposed to be people here, no one knew that they existed anyway, so it only meant that these people heading straight to their territory.

"I don't know, I'm scared, what should we do?" asked Jothan as he paced up an down, the people were getting closer.

"If I knew that we would actually see strangers today, I would have not asked to be on watching duty, this is too stressful, too stressful, what do we do Jannes?" asked Jothan as he was panicking already.

"Can you relax Jothan, you are only making things worse, do you want them to hear us and find us up here so be quiet" said Jannes as Jothan nodded and he kept quiet and stopped pacing up and down.

"Alright, we need to alert the others, they have to come and defend us from these strangers" said Jannes as Jothan nodded and he quickly ran as Jannes followed after him.

…

"Umm, we are here, and there is nothing here at all" said Maddie as they got to the building, which actually looked like nothing but a wall in the middle of nowhere now that they finally got to it.

"It looks like this wall was demolished or something" said Ollie as he looked around and he walked to the other side of the wall,

The wall looked like it had once been a very tall wall, made out of red clay bricks that appeared to be very old, but parts of the bricks seemed to have cracked and fallen off.

"It doesn't make sense why there would just be a random part of a wall in the middle of nowhere" said Annie as she did not think that this wall was ordinary at all, and if it was, it was only weird.

"I agree, this is suspicious" said Matt as he looked around, he could not hear anything at all, it was weird, he had a weird feeling about this place.

Curtis did not say anything as he kept on looking at the map, according to the map, there was supposed to be a colony around here, and there was no red brick wall mentioned on the map.

"What's wrong Curtis?" asked Annie as she looked at him.

"The map never mentioned anything about a red brick wall" said Curtis as he looked at Annie.

"And what are you trying to say Curtis?" asked Maddie as she looked at Curtis.

"It's either Ivor's map is not that accurate or… this is some sort of distraction" said Curtis as that was the only logical reason that he could think off.

"Maybe the map isn't accurate" said Maddie as she moved back, and she heard the sound of a twig snapping, which confused her, since the ground was rocky, and there were no trees here for miles.

"I doubt that, Ivor said that it is very accurate" said Curtis as he looked at the map and in the same moment, Matt heard something that made him very confused.

"Everyone move away from the wall now" said Matt quickly as Annie, Curtis, Ollie and Maddie were confused but they did as Matt said as in the same moment, three arrows were shot straight into the wall.

"My goodness, what was that??" asked Maddie in disbelief as she looked at the three arrows.

"I have no idea, but we are not alone here" said Matt as the weird thing was that he could not hear where the people who shot the arrows were.

"Wait, there's a note on one of the arrows" said Maddie as she walked to the wall and she pulled off the note from the arrow.

"What does it say?" asked Annie.

"Leave now or else…" said Maddie as she read the note and she could not believe this as they all had the same worried looks on their faces.

"Guys, we need to get out of here, whoever sent this is crazy" said Maddie as she dropped the note on the ground.

"What no way, we just can't run like that, how do we know that whoever sent this note just isn't trying to scare us?" asked Ollie as he scoffed.

"We should not leave, not until we know what's actually going on, how are we sure that these people are dangerous?" asked Ollie.

"That's because we are" came the voice of a woman as Annie, Maddie, Matt, Ollie and Curtis all turned to the right as they saw where the voice of the woman came from.

"And if you don't leave right now, we will kill you all" said the woman as she brought out her sword as there were five other men behind her and she pointed her sword at Curtis in nothing but danger written in her eyes.