Chapter 16

Worriedly she looks around, "where has everyone disappeared to?" She had turned upside down overnight, "where has everyone disappeared to?" she asked herself again.

She ran up to her car and drove off. While driving, there was no other traffic, no traffic lights were working, and there were no cars parked along the side of the road.

It was scary, Angela had switched on the radio, but there was a loud screaming noise, no signal; switching off the radio, she drove up to her house.

"Jack?" She had run up to the door, screaming her brother's name. The house was empty and unfurnished; she walked across the yard she had started to panic. Was this some joke or a dream she had not woken up from?

"Jack?" Angela screamed, but there was no response. "I have to be dreaming," she thought to herself.

Thats when something grabbed her by her throat from behind, choking; she scratched and tried to break loose until darkness fell upon her. She heard a sound of a wolf crying in a far distance. Slowly she opened her eyes; her vision was blurry; she saw a sharp light and tall trees surrounding her, and her body felt sore.

She had a pounding headache that would not seem to go away, placing her hands on the ground to push herself up. her legs were shaking, and Angela realized she could not stand up, "where am I." She looked around, but there was no one in sight, thats when she saw her clothes beside her, all she was wearing was her underwear, and she had no idea what might have happened.

"Help, is anyone out there?" Her head felt dizzy. The excruciating pain was unbearable; her body had blue marks all over. Someone had left her for dead, and thats when she realized the possibility of her being raped. For a moment, she closed her eyes, and when she felt a sharp abdominal pain, she had a vision of men on top of her, and she was fighting them off.

She saw blood stains, and whoever did this to her had drugged her. Touching the back of her head where it hurt, she saw blood on her fingertips. Angela attempted to stand up again, and this time, she managed to stand up. Standing up made her pain sharpen; she leaned down, holding her stomach. "I'm alone in this; no one is here to save me." The temperature was cool since its morning. Bare feet, she walked in a direction she guessed was correct.

While walking, she had a flashback of being dragged there and started crying. Emotionally and physically, everything became too much, and she fell to her knees.

"This is unlike her; we have searched the whole campus, and she has not returned to her room this morning. We should go out looking for her."

"We must search the woods; we both know it just becomes more dangerous the deeper we go; there are all sorts of animals out there; we should report her missing."

"If we do that and they find out we were using drugs, we all will risk losing our scholarship. We should keep quiet about it and hope she returns to campus. If she doesn't, we should go out looking for her rather than having a search party interrogating every one of us."

"Fine, we all act normal, let's not attract attention." said her roommate.

"Where am I? Is anyone out there?" Angela tried to put her shoes on, but the swollen feet and bruises on her feet made it even harder. The climate changed as it became hotter; looking up at the bright sun, it felt as if her eyes were burning. Angela felt weak and dehydrated. She pushed herself to walk to the shade to cool off, upland air flooding through the everlasting branches of the lively tree as it casts a vague shadow onto the grasses, delicate green. Fresh sunlight penetrates through the components of the tree, perfectly illuminating spheres of water upon its green wands.

The sweetness of the scene blankets her numb and almost transparent clothes as the sunlight paints her lips red, her hair and eyes honey-like.

The noon sunlight acts as an HD camera, telling no lies in the world in which shadows of truth are the harshest, revealing every flaw in the sight, like a toddler carrying his very first camera, taking pictures of whatever he sees.

She looked down at the sight of her cold and lifeless feet, severely bruised from walking bare feet on the hardened ground. There was an infatuating tree, glowing brightly virescent at the edges of the trunk, inviting a soothing, tingling sensation to her. However, her body was aching all over.

Angela felt it radiating into her blood as her heart skipped a beat. She was soon enlightened by a beating pair of wings effortlessly moving. They were fragile, like glass balancing the edge of the table. The fluttering pair of painted silk wings circles her front as another team comes into sight, creating a delicate breeze that brushes past her quilted cold cheeks.

"I can't!" she repeated.

In the woods was a narrow path, a path she had not recognized. Angela heard sounds of water pouring; the waterfall wistfully winded around the rocks as it hid from the sparkling summer sun. Being dehydrated, she pushed herself to the trails of the waterfall. The closer she got, the louder it became.

When Angela had reached a point where she was standing on the edge of a large rock, she gasped in astonishment at the clarity of the Caribbean-blue waterfall. It was spurting over the basalt rock, spilling eel-like over the ledges. Its clamorous passage at the foot of the mountain threw up bubbles of spray. They sparkled uneasily in the dying light and shimmered like the ghostly blood drops of a phantom.

There was a whooshing vortex at the bottom. The plummeting water funnel caused it to spiral from on high. It looked like a drape of blue aluminum; such was its lushness. The cascade was sieved with silver at its fringes, lending a hallucinatory quality to it.

Wagtails were bobbing and dipping on a rock, foraging for juicy flies. The rock tip pierced the rhapsody pool like the upturned nose of a dwarf. Runoff water tingled the rock as it seeped away, distilled as pure and clear as an angel's tears. There appeared to be a cave under the arch of the waterfall. Quickly removing her top and shoes, the adrenalin kicked in, and she plunged it. The watery slide she had passed through was so cold that her body was quaking when entering the cave.

At first, her only impressions were of a curtain of doom-black confronting her; then, her senses became fully attuned. The air was musty and ranked, like sticking your head into an old dustbin—the reason became apparent as the night vision kicked in.

She landed in the fresh water, feeling a sense of relief as the bruises on her body were nurtured by the water in the lake; Angela rinsed her face, took her two hands, and cupped it as she scooped water, drinking it. It felt soothing; her dry throat and dehydration soon faded.

Angela had rinsed herself and then climbed out. Sitting on the edge of the rock, trying to figure out where she was, it would be dark soon, and she had to get moving, "but which direction should I take?" she said to herself. These unfamiliar surroundings could be dangerous. Angela remembered her phone, she had one, and everyone carried one. She grabbed the clothes she was wearing and searched for the phone, to her disappointment her phone was gone.

She had not much; when darkness comes, it reveals the actual dangers; Angela had to remember what her mom had taught her, 'if you are in a place and can't get out, climb the highest and look for human habitation,' she looked around her. The highest was that rock she came down from. She could not see much from up there.

Another option was to spot gaps in the tree line due to roads, power cables, train tracks, and other paths people carve through the woods. She heads toward these breaks to find a way out. At night, scan the horizon for artificial light sources, such as fires and streetlights, then walk toward the glow of light pollution.

If all else failed, she should make herself a spear and get a fire going; Angela looked around for a stick and sharpened it on the rocks, then she had to figure out a way to make a fire. Thankfully her survival skills kicked in.

She had watched multiple movies and documentaries of people using two sticks rubbing together on dry grass, she had known this would be hard, but Angela had no choice but to try; she would find out who had done this to her, even if it took her whole life. She will find the perpetrator.

The night sky's darkness revealed only visible stars and a moon; the air was cold.

She had spent hours trying to get a fire started. A few times, there was smoke. Her bruised body and exhaustion were overwhelming as she was about to give up. The flame lit, and the smoke started as the fire grew the more she fed it with dry grass. The fire enabled her to keep warm and keep away the animals; sooner or later, she would have to start hunting for survival. There were animal sounds all around her; she was no longer scared she had to be vital to survive and get out of there.