The Survival

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

We quickly came up with a way to how to go back. When we were running we didn't make any curves we always went straight. Our first idea was to do the exact same way back on the tracks, till Sarah reminded us of our "little encounter" with the dark figure, since none of us wanted to cross paths with it again, we decided that we would circle it.

To explain better, we are going to make our way back like we did to reach here, but when we acknowledge that we are closer to the verge of the woods we are going to make a sharp turn and instead of going forward we are going to do kind of a zig zag.

Okay I suck at explaining something, never mind.

I regained the energy my body needed, I'm still exhausted but it doesn't matter, because right now, all I want is to leave this place.

I adjust Beth's arm on my shoulder and try to have a better hold on her waist with my other arm, Nathan is on the other side doing the exact same thing. She woke up not long before we came up with our plan to go back, in another situation we would let her rest more after she was awake, but this isn't a normal thing. She doesn't have any strength on her limbs, and she is dizzy from the impact her head had on the floor when she fell, so when we were getting everything ready to go back, I volunteered to help carrying her.

Her head is leaning on her arm that is being supported by Nathan, her eyes are closed, once in a while she tries to straighten herself up, yet she never can, her legs have barely any force and her arms are flat, which leaves me and Nathan with the difficult task of trying to not let them slip from our shoulders while carrying her body.

"I'm sorry Beth." I look at her and what I see is a vulnerable girl, a broken friend. Her eyes flutters open and her blue orbs lock with my green ones, but only for a small fraction of time before she closes them.

"For what?" Her voice huskily for not using her for so long.

"This is my fault." I feel a pair of eyes on me and I know that they don't belong to Beth but to Nathan, and sure enough, when I look at him, I discover that he was already looking at me, while Beth's eyes remain closed.

"How is this your fault?" Beth mumbles.

"I said that this was Ed's fault, and yes, he is guilty in some way. We wouldn't be here if he hadn't had the idea of us coming and if he had left the trail of bread we would have found our way back by now," I pause to take a deep breath, I can feel my eyes getting watery. "But I had chance to say no, twice. The first one was at the hotel when the idea to come here came up and the second one was when we heard those moans and noises from this supposed woman, when we were still on the tracks. If I had said no, we could have been safe, just maybe if I had said no they would have thought about it and wouldn't even go into the forest, you wouldn't be in this state Beth." I feel a single tear leave my eye. The pressure I feel, the guilt, the shame is so much to hold back.

"It's not your fault, you couldn't have known this."

"No, but I could have guessed that something would happen, you had the feeling, you warned me, and I brushed it off." Beth doesn't say anything after that knowing that I'm right, at times like this I wish I wasn't.

"Still, it is not your fault." This time a male’s voice that answers me. "If we are going to see who’s at fault, then I also am. At the hotel, I forced you to accept while calling you a chicken and saying that you were afraid."

Another tear leaves my eye and runs down my cheek, I probably look horrible now. My nose must be red, my eyes bloodshot and puffy and my face stained with the little amount of makeup on my face, all in all I look like a big baby.

"Hey, no need to cry." His thumb starts to caress my arm that it's around Beth's waist, where his arm also is. "Shh, cupcake. Don't cry" he continues to draw little circles on my skin while telling me sweet words.

I don't know why he is so sweet to me, why he is always teasing me and always around me, but I like it for some reason, I want to know him more, I want to know this boy that looks so cheeky and annoying yet he has a cute side that melts my heart without my knowledge.

Eventually I stop crying and sobbing. "You better?" He asks me so gently. I nod yes, not even able to talk, or better not risking opening my mouth to say something and start crying all over again.

"Shouldn't we have reached the destination by now?" Dylan speaks and directs his question to Ed.

I share a thoughtful glance with Nathan. Dylan is right, why are we still walking? We should have had seen something familiar on our surroundings by now, but still nothing.

"I'm not sure" Ed replies, he stops and looks around, Nathan mimics his actions and I copy, I still see a vast number of trees, tall, thick and large trees all very close to one another’s. This means that we are still far away from the verge. But how?

I raise my head in the direction of the sky, it's hard to see anything beyond the leaves on the branches of the trees but I can see an orange colour glowing on the top of the pines. The sun, it must be pretty late for the sun to emit an orange colour, which means that it may be evening already.

"What time is it?" I address to Nathan, he checks his wrist watch with some effort, still holding Beth, his eyes narrow when he watches the time.

"Um, 6.28pm?" He frowns to the watch. "How is this possible? Is it wrecked?"

"I don't think so. I actually think that your watch is very much correct" My suspicions where confirmed from his watch after all. We have been walking for so long that it's almost sunset, if not already, and if we don't leave it's going to be twilight and then dark.

"We must have done something wrong. We walked just as much as we ran." Ed is talking with himself out loud.

"Kate, help me put Beth on the floor so I can go talk with the boys." Slowly we take her arms from our shoulders and we rest her body on a trunk of a tree, she tries to opens her eyes and this time succeeds.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, we are just trying to figure out something." She nods and closes her eyes again.

I'm so thirsty, I think that my saliva emigrated to another person’s mouth, a humid mouth. Okay this is gross.

I reach for my bag and take out my bottle of water, I take small sips, it's not as cold as it was when we left the hotel but it's also not warm, I clean the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and close the bottle. When I'm putting the water back on the backpack a flower caught my eye.

It's a small purple flower, Rosemary.

I wish I could say that the flower caught my attention because of the beautiful colour or the wonderful odor it provides, but no, unfortunately. On a visit that we did to a Botanic Garden with our science class, I heard the expert telling that this type of plants are difficult to grow in some places of the Earth, I remember perfectly that one of those places was Ireland, especially in November. But here it is in front of me, a rosemary.

Yet, what is worrying me is the fact that when Beth fainted, I noticed the same flower. Can it be the same? I mean, no, we have been walking for hours, it's impossible.

Immediately I start looking around for more small details, I have a photographic memory for small things, for example, once Sarah bought this delicious chocolate bar that we devoured in two minutes and the next day she asked me the name of the chocolate, anyone would remember it except me, I could only remember the small star that was situated at the corner of the chocolate wrapping.

I search for something, anything that I've seen before while we are here, I look at the ground, the leaves, the branches, everywhere, but nothing.

Coincidence, what would the odds be anyway?

I slump into the tree trunk with so much force that the back of my head hits it way too hard, I turn to look at it.

Stupid tree. Be careful, I would like to leave with my head on its place. What do you...

I blink, once.

Twice.

On the trunk is a mark, a small, almost invisible natural mark made from the tree that I wouldn't be able to see if I wasn't this close. It's almost a shape of a 3, and I've seen it before, again when Beth fell, the mark was there... wait, but that means.

"Guys!" I call them, my eyes never leaving the mark.

"Yeah?" Someone answers me.

"Did you come up with a conclusion to why we aren't still on the tracks?" I say loud enough for them to hear, still transfixed with the mark, with what I found, but more important with what this means.

"No." Dylan says.

"Well, I did." I turn to face them and look at them. "Without knowing, we've been walking in circles," I pause. "We are at the same place we were when Beth fainted."

Realization crashes down on us.

The sun is slowly disappearing on the horizon and the darkness welcomes us. The wind starts to pick up, but we still remain frozen.

I’m confused, my mind a jumble of questions without answers.

How did these hours of walking lead us to the place we were before? How is it possible that we were walking in circles when it seemed that we were always walking straight? How is it that no one acknowledge it? How?

“What did you say?” Sarah breaks the silence.

“I said that we have been walking in circles.”

“How do you know?” Sarah asks me again.

“That flower over there,” I point at the rosemary “I’ve seen it before, when Beth was resting, the plant was a few meters away from her.”

Ed is about to say something, but I raise my hand not finished yet, “And this tree trunk has a mark that I clearly remember seeing it, also on the same place. It cannot be only a coincidence.”

“That’s impossible. We must be close to the tracks, we just need to walk a little bit more.” Ed speaks up. What’s his problem? Always defying me, does he have a thing about annoying me?

“Are you sure Kate?” Nathan looks at me, he doubts me just like the others.

“I’m sure, I don’t have any reason to be lying to you. I want to leave this place as quickly as you. I’m trying to help us. You need to believe me.”

“Cupcake, I do believe you, but it just doesn’t make sense.”

“This forest looks like a f*****g maze” Ed shouts and kicks a tree. That’s going to leave a mark. He rubs his face with his hand, tension and frustration is floating in waves out of him, Lucy approaches him and starts talking to him, her voice too low for me or the others to hear, but it’s obvious to everyone that she is trying to calm Ed down.

“What do we do now?” My eyes lock with Dylan’s form. That’s a good question.

“It’s going to get completely dark in half an hour, if not sooner, we should settle here.”

“What do you mean with settling here, Nathan?”

“We should camp here and get some sleep and tomorrow we’ll see what to do.” He sets his bag down, opens it and starts searching for something.

“You are kidding me, right? You don’t really expect us to stay here?” Sarah’s voice almost makes my ears bleed from her high pitch tone.

“If you don’t like it you can go and try to find your way out when the night comes and you don’t see a thing, and you don’t know what can cross paths with you. Go ahead.” His tone is neutral, like he doesn’t care if she actually stays or not.

“But something can come here also.”

“Yes, that’s why we are going to find wood, so we can build a bonfire to keep the animals away. Do you know that animals have a fear of fire?” He says to Sarah as if she was dumb, she hates when people do that to her. Bad move.

“I’m not stupid okay? I know that perfectly well” Her face is getting red and her hands are by her sides clenched shut, she is definitely angry.

“Good to know.” Nathan replies, as if not giving a damn, maybe he doesn’t? He is taking his things out of his bag, probably searching for something.

I head to Nathan and watch him carefully, “Is it safe to stay here?” He stops and turns to look over his shoulder at me.

“I don’t know, but it’s safer than walking around the forest when the darkness installs.” I nod certainly agreeing with him. His hand continue to move on the bag, a groan leaves his lips.

“Do you need help? You seem to have some difficulty.” I giggle not able to contain it, it’s such an amusing sight to see Nathan getting all worked up because of a bag. Well, I’m one to talk, a week ago I wanted to kill my suitcase, yet I never imagined Nathan to also get frustrated with the same thing.

“I’m fine. I’m just looking for a... Got it.” He gets up from is crouching position and in his hands brings two blankets, he turns to me and I see a grin on his plump lips.

“How didn’t you find blankets in your bag? They aren’t small, it’s something easy to spot.” The grin automatically vanishes from his face being replaced by a frown.

“My bag is large and the blankets where hiding from me.”

“Hiding from you?” I try to maintain a serious face, but c’mon how can I?

“Yes,” He starts pouting and I break into a fit of laughs. A smile appears on his face “Here you go, take two, one for you and the other for Beth.” He gives me the material.

“Do you have more? You know, for you and the others?”

“I don’t, but I know Ed has.” I smile in appreciation and turn my back to him.

I walk to Beth and sit by her side, she opens her eyes and smiles at me.

“Hey Kate”

“Hey. I brought you this” I open the soft material and put it over her body, snuggling her in it and do the same with mine. “You better?” She nods with a satisfied smile.

“Are you warmer?” Once again she nods.

Something cold touches my cheek, a snowflake. My eyes look towards the sky, now darker but still with a bit of colour, so I presume that its twilight and more snowflakes are falling.

“Oh crap.” I mutter.

Sarah sits with us and I give her a bit of my blanket, immediately I get warmer because of her body heat. By the corner of my eye I see Nathan and Ed leaving, leaving us alone.

“Where are they going?” Beth questions. I shrug not knowing, but my curiosity pikes up. They wouldn’t leave us behind, right? They wouldn’t be stupid enough to wonder around alone, at this time with such little light. So where are they going? My question is answered minutes later when they came with woods, loads of it, on their arms.

Nathan starts to work on the fireplace, while Ed takes out his blankets and gives them to Lucy, and Dylan is sharing his food with us, well snacks.

Not long before sleep starts to greet me. The tiredness of this day having an obvious effect on me. The fireplace providing me heat, but not enough, the chilly wind freezes my bones. Nathan rests against the tree in front of me and covers himself with the blanket. Everyone is already asleep except him and me. Wait, when did they fall asleep? I didn’t even notice.

He looks at me and smiles, “You good?”

“Yeah, and you?”

“I could be better.” A soft laugh passes his lips, making me smile.

“Like in a comfy bed?”

“Yap that would be awesome.”

We are so close, if I stretched my legs my feet would touch his. The image in front of me is very amusing, the blanket covering him is too small to cover his large and muscular form, only reaching his hips, leaving the waist down unclothed.

I mean not really unclothed, he still has his jeans and hopefully boxers, so yeah.

“Goodnight cupcake” A cheeky grin is displayed to me. What? Why that smile? Wait... was I looking at his pants? Did he notice? Did I mention anything out loud? Can he read minds?

Nah, it’s impossible, only aliens can do it. Unless…

“Goodnight alie- Nathan!” A blush creeps on my cheeks, was I going to call him what I think I was? He looks confuse and amused with my reaction but shrugs it off and slumps deeper on the tree, he closes his eyes and lets the sleep invade him.

And I follow suit.

***

The wind is blowing forcefully against my hair. Did I leave the window open?

I can’t feel my feet. Why?

A ray of sunshine hits directly on my face. Ugh, I should have had closed the curtains.

I hear birds singing. That’s annoying in the morning when you are trying to sleep.

My butt is in pain. What’s wrong? I don’t remember the bed being so uncomfortable.

And then it hits me.

The hotel.

The trip.

The stories.

The forest.

The figure.

Running.

Lost.

Us.

My hearts leaps fast on my chest when I realize where I am, what happened and how we got here. Now I understand why I don’t feel my feet. I have a small amount of snow around them.

Why my butt is sore. I’m sitting on the ground.

The chilly air, the birds and the sunshine are factors that remind me of my surroundings.

I’m almost full conscious of everything when a powerful scream occurs.

Shit. Now I’m fully awake.