The Sickness

Chapter 8

I rushed over to Ollie's side. He moaned and blinked a few times, trying to get his surroundings. But then his eyes focused on me.
His face turned dark. He tried to stand up, but only rose a few inches before collapsing. "I hate you!" he managed to rasp. "Why did you do this? Why? I deserved to die! I hate you!"
I shushed him, and smoothed his hair. "Shh. No, you didn't deserve to die. The thing with Bea happened so fast that no one was thinking."
"I know - and we should have been! She's my sister, and... I let her die."
Ana patted his hand. "No. You did not let her die. Bea died heroically - she let us know what happens when we touch certain trees and rocks."
Ollie ripped his hand away. "Oh, shut up. Why don't you just ask your parasite pal what happens?"
Ana stared at him, in shock. "Excuse me?"
"You're making friends with the enemy, Ana. And he's not much of a help." Ollie said, teeth clenched.
"Yeah, well, this 'parasite pal' here happened to be the one to let us know what to watch out for in the first place!" Ana exclaimed indignantly.
Ollie gave a dry chuckle. "A lot of help that did, eh? Bea still died, all because I was too distracted to remember that we shouldn't touch rocks."
Ana angrily huffed. "Whatever!" she snapped, and went back to taking notes on her notepad. The sky was growing lighter by the minute.
Renee took her braid out to run her fingers through her long brown hair, and then she put it up in a ponytail. She was beautiful, with her olive skin, kind brown eyes, and spattering of freckles. She always wore such nice clothes, and even though they were ragged and dirty due to not being changed in a day or two, her blue tank-top, denim jacket, and khaki pants looked great on her.
Ana tapped me on the shoulder, and I jumped. She handed me her notepad. "Here. Take a look at it and see if I missed anything."
I scanned it. It was a table, with two columns - "Things To Watch Out For" and "Danger." In the first column, it listed chipmunks; hissing rocks; silent trees; lakes that don't ripple; wolves with crackling fur; gold leaves; cold thorns; ants; and black trails. In the second column, there were only four things - next to "chipmunks" was written "acidic saliva;" next to "hissing rocks" was written "poisonous;" next to "silent trees" was written "explosive;" and next to "ants" was written "suffocation."
"Nope, you didn't miss anything." I handed the pad back to Ana. "At least.. not that we know of."
Ana frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, the parasite did say that HUNDREDS of things we used to love are now mutated. We only know 9."
Ana bit her lip. "Good point. But... how are we supposed to know what to watch out for and what not to?"
I pointed to Ollie. "Before we go near anything, Ollie here will go ahead of us and touch it. If it's safe, he'll live."
I saw fear in Ana's eyes. "And if it's not safe?"
"He'll die. It's what he wants anyway."