Hope
Every step I took into the forest sent a new shiver down my spine. The temperature dropped, and another dark fingerprint of night clouded my vision. I tried to remember everything I had learned in self-defense classes, tried to recall everything I’d seen characters do in survival-type situations. I cocked my head and listened for civilization—cars on a road, hikers calling out to each other—but there was only silence.
The quiet was all encompassing. Deafening. Even the sounds of nature were mute. There was no breeze, no rustling leaves or crackling twigs. For that I should have been grateful, but all I could think about was being alone—alone with Daniel somewhere out here. I tried to get my bearings, racking my brain for any clue that would tell me which direction I should be going, but there was nothing. To my left, the trees were huge, heavy branches thick with pine needles, some scraping the ground. The tree trunks were massive, some burned out, some so choked with thorny vines that I couldn’t see where one ended and the other began, but I knew I couldn’t go through them.
To my right, the tree trunks were thinner but the forest was denser, just inches between some trees with the occasional boulder interspersed, a thick blanket of moss covering everything. I shrunk into my T-shirt, wishing I still had my hoodie and my shoes, but the thought of Daniel, of going back to that house—to his weird, plaintive eyes and flat mouth—made my blood run cold. I had to keep going, to keep walking. I had to make a decision, to pick a direction and just go. But when I heard the twig breaking behind me, I was paralyzed.
I stopped, praying for that once-deafening silence, but suddenly there was noise everywhere: Blue jays cawing. Something small scrabbling through the pine needles and dry brush. The thud of my heart. The rush of my blood.
He’ll hear me.
I didn’t dare breathe, the sound a ragged tear through my lungs, but my lungs constricted and burned, and I let out a half groan, half breath.
He’s on to me for sure.
I dug my toes into the wet ground and pushed off, hands fisted, legs pumping, running again. Pine needles were slapping at my bare skin and felt like they were slicing across my arms.
There!
Through the trees. A snatch of color zipping by.
A car.
My heart swelled and slammed against my rib cage.
There was a road up ahead.
I couldn’t hear the motors, the tires on the road, but I knew they were there. They had to be there. Up ahead, a little farther. There was a clearing, and I dropped to my knees, crouching down like an animal and looking wildly around. I paused, listening for Daniel. Leaves breaking, twigs cracking, footsteps across the soft, moss-covered earth?
Nothing.
I pushed myself forward on hands and knees. I could feel twigs and tiny rocks pressing against my knees, cutting into my palms, but I didn’t care. I left a trail of blood. I kept pressing on. It seemed to take forever, but finally I was at the edge of road. I felt like I could breathe for the first time.
The first car whizzed by and I wasn’t ready for it, but the breeze it created—a thick, hot wind twinged with cold from the night air—slapped my face, and I laughed.
I was saved.
I pushed myself to standing, stumbled to the middle of the road. The blacktop was still vaguely warm on the bottoms of my feet, and I waved my arms over my head in the darkness. My heart was still thundering.
I kept waving.
No one was coming.
There were no streetlights, and the dark that was just a mild smudge was closing in, was squeezing out every inch of daylight. I could feel my feet on the concrete. I could feel the cold settling into my fingertips.
But I couldn’t see anything.
I couldn’t hear anything.
The air left my lungs. My entire body deflated, and I crumbled to my knees and rolled to my side, trying to absorb every bit of the cement’s heat into my body. I was shivering now, and crying.
No one was coming. I was all alone.