The Mountain Prophecy: Chapter 3

  "What a bone-head! Doesn't he know that falling asleep in the woods is dangerous?"
  "I know right? I wonder where he came from."
  "Is he from one of the four-well, three now- villages?"
  "I think I would have seen him- Oh! he's waking up!"
I opened my eyes and yawned groggily, trying to pretend that I had heard nothing. As I sat up, I saw that their were four people around me, and they all looked about my age.
 "Hello there, what are you doing standing over me like that?" I wondered.
 "Oh! we're sorry! we didn't mean to scare you!" said a tiny, mousy-haired girl. "My name is May."
 "What're you talking about M? Of course we meant to scare him! My name is Slip."
This boy was sleek and wiry, probably why he was called Slip.
  " I'm Red. And no, Slip. We did not mean to scare him." Red, as she was called, had hair that was redder than poppies in the summer.
  " I'm Louie. Slip is the one who called you a bone-head. if you even heard him."
         This boy had hair so curly and black, you could pull it with your finger and It would bounce back into shape naturally.
  " It's nice to meet you. I'm heading to the eastern village." I told them.
  " We're going there too! We've been told th-!!!!"
  "Shut it M! You're not supposed to tell!"
  "Sorry Slip. I forgot."
I looked around at the group, confused. What had they heard? Would it have anything to do with my dream?
  "Hey... would it be alright if I traveled with you guys? We're all going the same way, anyway." Slip looked at me as if I had grown another pair of arms.
  "Of course, man! what do you think we were going to do? Make you walk 50 feet behind us?" He said, incredulously.
  "Well, no... I guess not." I replied.
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That afternoon as we were walking- er, I should say, slowly plodding single file- uphill, I noticed one thing about the group of four that I was accompanying: they all seemed extremely tense, as if they were on an important mission, and had just had something almost interfere with their plans. Except for May. She was as naive as she was when I met her, and she wouldn't. Stop. Talking. It was starting to get excruciatingly annoying. At present, she was telling no-one in particular about butter. Every kind of butter. I had no idea where she got to talking about butter from. 
  "...And my favorite butter is raspberry butter and my mom's favorite butter is blueberry butter, and my aunt's favorite butter is plain ole' butter, I dunno why, it's so plain ole', and my dad's favorite butter is peanut butter..."
  "Red," I asked, as she was the one closest to me. "Is she always like this? why do you hang out with her?" I wondered.
  "Well no, she is not always like this, but mostly. And we hang out with her, because she's our friend." She told me curtly.
  "Sheesh, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't realize you were so protective of her. I've lived in a cave for most of my life, so my manners aren't up to date. I said sheepishly.
  "You lived in a cave? Why?"
 I had learned my lesson with Tempest, not to tell everything.
   "Oh, lets just say it was an emergency and I had to evacuate my home."
   "How old were you when you left?" She eagerly asked me.
   I decided to be as vague as possible, because to be honest, I was a little shy about all the details.
    " I was pretty young, but old enough to know a few things." I said.
    "Oh," She said, clearly understanding that I wanted to drop the subject.
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          Two hours later, we were finally withing sight of Cooper's village. After I had dropped the subject of leaving home with Red, Slip came back And told me what he was doing with the group. Apparently, he had run away from home as a little kid too, but he had done it because he had wanted to, not out of necessity. He told me that he had an abusive dad, and a horribly addicted mom. His sister had died from being slapped so hard by their dad that she hit her head on the corner of the table and her skull was split open. Slip looked a mixture of angry and sad when he told me this, then looked over at me and said: 
    "So what's your story?"
  I was completely caught off guard by this, and after the initial shock wore off I was a little upset. Had Red told Slip to come pour out his soul to me? Even though I had grown up in a cave, That just didn't seem right to me.
   As soon as I though this, Slip said that I didn't have to tell him right now, because we were quite close to the village.
   That immediately lifted my spirits by a mile. The village! I would have a real home now!
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            The village was everything that I had ever dreamed of. They called themselves the Easterners; and rightfully so, since they were in the east. Right as we got there, we were greeted warmly. Louie, Red, Slip and May were welcomed as if they had been there before. They probably had. 
   Once we were all welcomed( The Easterners had a ritual for welcoming.) Cooper walked up to  me.
   "Ah, hello boy, I see you've made some friends. I trust that you've not tired yourself out to much?" 
   "No, Cooper."
   "Good. Let me show you where the guest house is. You can stay there until we figure out what to do with you." I followed Cooper, and I admit to say that I followed him like a little lost puppy. You would too, if he had given you the key to a family.
    When Cooper had shown me to the guest house and given me some food, he told me to go and get some much needed rest.
   "Tomorrow is going to be a big day boy. We are going to decide if you are worthy to join our village."
  "Who's we?" I asked him.
  "Tomorrow boy. Tomorrow. Get some rest." 
    I waited until Copper left the house to close my eyes. Somewhere in my brain I had realized that I had to keep my guard up. I didn't know why, but I felt that tomorrow would not go how it was supposed to.