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Chapter 14

FLASHBACK 

"June"

"June"

"June!"

June jerks awake, sitting upright on her bed and looking around her room with sleepy eyes.

Her hands immediately move to find her glasses on the table besides her, which she puts on.

"What?" She finally responds, looking at Ryland, who has bags under her eyes, disheveled hair, and clothes that might be days old.

But through all that, she has the biggest and most radiant smile on her face.

"I finally found it" She say simply, clutching her sister by the shoulders tightly.

"Found what?" June asks, still a little groggy, while she rubs her eyes.

Ryland looks at her expectantly, her eyebrows rising, and when she sees June's eyes widen in realisation, she nods happily, her smile beaming.

"You did!?" June yells, smiling and wiggling on her bed excitedly.

Ryland nods eagerly, and let's go of June's shoulders, turning around and heading to the door.

"Come on!" She shouts, already halfway out the door and into the hallway.

June scrambles to take the covers off, and puts on her slippers, quickly joining her sister in the room next door.

Ryland is looking over a map, a thick book besides it. The map, which is laid down on top of a table, has things written on it, post-it notes scrambled out and about, and thick marker lines running to and from places

"According to this, the cave is in the middle of the jungle" Ryland says out loud, knowing that June is already there.

June walks towards the map as she looks around the room with wide eyes. Take out boxes line he table, as well as scattered coffee mugs. The whole room is a mess, books piled on the floor, papers stacked in a messy order.

"How long have you been without sleep?" She asks Ryland, who responds with a shrug, not even bothering to look at her, but much rather focused on other tasks.

"Don't know" She mumbles, completely brushing the question off and walking towards the book shelf to pull out another book.

June leans over the map, examining the thick red marker lines that Ryland has drawn all over it.

"And where, exactly is the cave at?" June asks, looking back at Ryland.

"Well. I don't really know the exact location, but I know it's around..." Ryland trails off, and then points at the place in the map. "Here" She finally says, looking back at June, her hair getting into her face. 

June's eyebrows rise in surprise.

"It's... there?" She asks.

Ryland nods eagerly.

"I know! We had ruled out that place a long time ago, but yesterday, a thought came to me" She pauses and opens a book.

"What if it isn't filled with the gold and ancient things like we had thought" She flips the pages maniacally, not caring about bending them and wrinkling them.

Finally, she stops flipping the pages, and points to a drawing.

"What if it holds something even more powerful?" She hypothesises, looking at her sister, who is staring at the book.

June then stares at her.

"You're saying that this," She points at the drawing ",could be in the cave we have been looking for?" She asks, turning back to the map.

Ryland picks up the book, and follows her eagerly.

"Yes" She responds, taking a cup of cold coffee from the table and sipping on it.

"Oh thats. Cold" She mutters before putting the cup back.

"Anyways. Do you still want to do it?" Ryland asks, turning back to June.

June eyes the map, pushing her glasses higher up her nose.

"I mean, if you're up to do it" June finally says.

Ryland smiles, giggling and clapping her hands together.

"Okay okay. All we need to do is plan the expedition. With the fund we have from the museum we can gather a crew to help up get there and back" She says, grabbing the phone.

"Wait, who are you calling?" June asks, looking at Ryland.

"We'll, we're going to the cave. Don't you think we should celebrate? I'm calling Mason" she says, finishing dialling the number and putting it up to her ear.

June's eyes open wide, and she starts shaking her head.

"What? You ca-". She doesn't get to finish the sentence because Ryland interrupts her.

"I'm kidding. I'm calling the pizza guy" She says, rolling her eyes, and then turning around to answer the call.

June sighs, shaking her head. She can't help but let out a small smile. Pulling her hair into a low ponytail, she leans to look at the map, wondering what exactly it inside that cave.

The cave that they had been looking for for months. 

They had finally found it. And they were going to find what exactly, is inside that cave. 

A/N: Did you like this chapter? Would you like me to do more flashbacks? If so please comment down below!