4 Pain suffering and missing.

As they fell, Lucile grabbed her sister and held her very tightly in her embrace while breaking her fall with her own body.

'At least one of us gets to survive' she thought to herself as she closed her eyes after seeing the door from which they fell close up.

Lucile held her sister tightly even as she began to feel the impact of the strong fall. It was as if she was being compressed between two forces. Suddenly, the force behind her gave way and she started falling again. The shock from the sudden second fall almost made her let go of her sister but thankfully, she quickly grabbed her and held her even tighter in her arms. All of a sudden, the air began to feel strange, and it became difficult to breathe. Lucile knew that as long as she held her sister in her bosom, the girl will surely be able to breathe even if it was only for a while because she did not know how long they would continue like that. As she began to think of what would have happened if they had gone to the market the next day and had gone home instead.

'Faith really works in strange ways' she thought to herself.

While she was thinking, the temperature suddenly became both hot and cold. Thankfully, the cold was in front of her while the heat came from behind her. The more they fell, the worse the temperature became unbearable but she knew that she had to be strong for both she and her sister. Although she had set her mind on bearing the immense pain, what came next was definitely never expected. The pain was enough to make her let go of her sister whom she was bent on protecting but she never did. It felt like something was cutting her back like it was writing or drawing on her back. Immediately the heat left one spot, a cold touch followed making the pain more bearable. The girl did not know for how long it went on and as her consciousness began to fade, she took one last look at her sister before she lost consciousness.

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Meanwhile, back at Falaria, everyone was panicked. It was already past dinner time and the girls were still not back yet. Everyone was worried because this had never happened before. Lucile has always been a responsible girl and she was more than careful not to ever let her sister stay out this late. They sent a search party to look for them. A few hours later, they arrived.

"Look! They are back! They're back!" a woman shouted as she saw the men with torches approached them.

"What happened? Did you find them?" Sarah asked. She was the closest thing to a mother the girls had.

"I'm sorry. We couldn't find them but after asking a few questions, we found out that they were chased into the forest by bandits during mid-day." the young man told her.

"Oh no! No! Impossible!" Sarah cried and wailed as some other women came to her aid to console her.

"We are going to search the forest tomorrow as it has already gotten late. Hopefully, we would get more clues by then." the youth told them as he walked away.

Slowly, one by one the people went back to their various homes praying for the safety of the two girls. That night, they could only sleep with heavy hearts.