Warrior Cats: The Four Clans

Conner - July 20th, early afternoon

We both ate a banana and a bit of cooked fish in about five minutes; we were in a hurry to continue on.

We were sort of following the perimeter of the island; close enough to the shore to hear the waves, but not see them. Jayden thought we should use something to mark the trees every twenty feet to know where we'd already been - we used banana peels. It was easy enough to hang them on the low branches of a tree.

After nearly another hour of silent walking, Ryan gasped. He was about five feet ahead of me.

"Conner," he breathed hoarsely. "Uh..."

Evidently, whatever he was staring at had sent him into complete shock. I rushed up beside him and glanced down at the ground, following his gaze.

"Oh my...okay..." I trailed off, trying to comprehend what met my eyes.

A small pile of banana peels and orange peels. With footprints leading to and from them.

"That's...not normal," was all Ryan could think of after five minutes.

"Um...yeah," I agreed slowly. There's someone else here, was all my mind could come up with.

"Do you think...we should...maybe...follow these?" Ryan stuttered, painfully slowly.

I shrugged, still staring unblinkingly at the ground. "We...we could try...I guess." My reply was just as hesitant.

So we followed the footprints in the dirt; we were almost certain it was a male's shoe, since it was nearly the same size as Ryan's. But no more than two minutes later, the footprints were suddenly gone - I looked ahead, and the ground was perfectly flat.

I nudged Ryan, and he looked up as well. He raised his eyebrows; we were standing in a tiny clearing, no bigger than fifteen feet across at the widest point. The dirt was completely smoothed over, except for a small pile of rocks and dry, burnt wood and leaves in the corner. There were also three holes in the ground, where it looked like sticks had been stuck in, then removed.

"This was a camp," I realized out loud, making Ryan jump. "Look - that was a fire..." I gestured to the mound of rocks and scorched wood. "And that might have been where they propped up a tent of some kind..." I pointed at the holes in the ground.

Ryan glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "Stop being Jayden, it's creeping me out."

I chuckled dryly, shaking my head in disbelief.

"This is amazing," Ryan muttered. "Someone...and recently, too...those footprints were fresh, a day at most..."

"Hey!" I exclaimed suddenly, making him jump again; he glared at me, annoyed. "Look, over there, something-"

Ryan was already running in the direction of my pointing finger. He picked two tiny shining objects off the dirt.

"Earrings." His surprised voice was echoed by my shocked expression. He held them up, turning to me. "There was definitely someone here...and I doubt it was a guy."

Jayden - July 20th, sundown

"But what about the footprints?"

Trey's voice was indignant and confused at the same time. He passed the earrings on to Nathan, who raised one eyebrow as he took them.

"He's right," Ryan agreed thoughtfully. "Those footprints were definitely not a girl's, unless she had grotesquely large feet." He laughed, along with Nathan.

"Come on, guys," I said, rolling my eyes. "So, there's a girl here for sure..."

They all nodded; there was a slightly excited look in all four pairs of eyes that made me nervous.

"But the footprints say there's a boy here too," I finished. Everyone nodded again, except Nathan. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well... if there are two people here, wouldn't we have noticed? I mean, we already determined how small this island is, and...I guess I'm saying, there's no way we wouldn't have found them after two weeks here, especially with how much we've already explored, looking for food and everything...it would make more sense if there's just one person, it would explain how much easier it's been for them to hide from us."

"Nate, that's ridiculous," Ryan snapped. "Don't you...hey, you actually said something smart!" he cried suddenly, breaking into laughter.

Nathan shrugged, pretending to be modest. "Well, you know...I have my moments."

"But this so-called moment of yours hasn't gotten us anywhere," Trey argued. "A girl couldn't survive here on her own, there's no way."

Nathan nodded slowly. "That's true..."

"She'd probably be like, 'No, I can't climb that tree, I'll break a nail!'" Ryan laughed hysterically.

Trey chuckled. "So there's a possibility that there are two people here."

I nodded. "But Nathan also has a point...how are they hiding from us so easily?"

"Maybe they don't know we're here," Conner suggested quietly.

"On the contrary," laughed a male voice.

We all looked around wildly, at each other first; then, realizing none of us had spoken, glanced around nervously everywhere else.

A figure dashed through our circle, faster than Trey's quickest sprint. We all gasped in unison, eyes wide, as we noticed long blonde hair streaming behind the person as they ran...

All five of our heads turned toward the figure, and I nearly fell off the tree stump I was sitting on - Nathan actually did, and a bright, dainty, melodic laugh met all out ears.

"I can't believe we finally found you!" cried the teenage girl in uncontainable happiness.

We were speechless - especially as a teenage boy, looking the same age as her, walked to her side and looked around at all of us as if appraising a house.

"Took two weeks, huh," he chuckled.

The girl giggled. " We looked everywhere," she stressed. "Then we heard voices near our old camp...we had just left, then I realized I'd lost my mother's earrings."

Trey swore loudly; as did Ryan. Conner's mouth was moving, no words escaping. Nathan was stunned on the ground, and my eyes were so wide, they could have given a puppy a run for its money.