I tilted my head up, feeling the rays of the sun that went through the treetops, warming up my skin as I tried not to think about my failing body. It works somehow for now, but I didn't know how long will this pretending to be strong act will last. I was thirsty, I was hungry, I was tired and I was wounded. Those three days in the cabin with only biscuits and water to fill my stomach was enough to make me feel weak, I wonder how long would I last if I have nothing to eat? It had been hours of walking, not knowing where I was and where to go, but I wouldn't stop because Michael was waiting for help and he trusted me to not lose hope. That's what he had done to me, he might not be a perfect person, he had many flaws, but he made me do things that were good. He made me do things that were good for others. I had disappointed him many times, this time I will not. If I don't have enough strength to walk then I will crawl till I could feel the strength and walk again, till walking made me feel like I can run again.
A puff of air moved through the woods, ruffling the leaves, shaking the last of the rainwater from them. After a second or two the air fell still. Then it was not still; in the dripping quiet came the sound of twigs breaking. That stopped and there was a pause followed by a flurry of moving branches and a rough rasping sound. A crow called once, in alarm. There was a pause and then the sounds began again, moving closer to where I stood. The sky was still bright, maybe a few hours after noon and there was no way I should be thinking about ghost here. It shouldn't even cross my mind either.
How do you explain the sounds? The creepy voice in my head said again. What an annoying sound to hear.
You can talk to me, no one can see you. No way, there's no way I will try to talk to myself, that's so not gonna happen.
But you still talk to me in your mind.
A pause. I shook my head, thinking it was all my imagination. A form of entertainment to occupy my mind. But it wasn't even entertaining at all.
Admit it, you're going insane.
"No! I'm not going insane!" my eyes widened. Unable to accept that the voice made me answer it.
You know, you're wasting your time. You'll never find your way out. There will be no help. You'll die out here, just wander around in these woods until you die, and the animals will come and eat your rotting body and some day some hunter will come along and find your bones.
There was something so terribly plausible about this last-I have heard similar stories on the TV news not just once but several times, the thought made me shiver as tears brim in my eyes.
I could actually picture a hunter, a man in a bright red woolen jacket and an orange cap, a man who needed a shave. Looking for a place to lie up and wait for a deer or maybe just wanting to take a leak. Stopped and sees something white and thinks at first, just a stone, but as he got closer he saw that the stone had eye sockets. And that those eye sockets belonged to me...
"Stop!" I said, palms pressing against my ears, not wanting to hear those voices again. "Please make it stop." I say in between sobs. But I knew it won't stop. I was going insane.
Or maybe you won't just die, Maybe the thing out there will kill you and eat you.
I ran through the woods, as if I could leave the creepy voice behind. Thinking there would be no such thing in this place that is actually going to eat me.
I stopped running and stood by the fallen tree, my one hand reached out and grasped the dead jut of a small branch-and looked around nervously like someone being chased by a killer. And luckily, I saw none. From the moment of waking, all I'd really been able to think about was how badly I needed to eat. I've had all day ignoring the fact that my stomach has been aching so badly, and I feel a bit nauseous about it. As my sight started to blur once again, as little dark spots like blooms of black roses began to grow bigger, I blinked hard a couple of times, thinking it would go away. I want the Good Forces to help me out on this one. My mouth felt dry, and couldn't get any more drier, as I slowly went down on my back, not letting my eyes close, I heard a voice. Sleep now Andria, I'll be here when you wake up.
Upon hearing the voice, my sight became pitch dark. But I will not worry, for I know who it was... Michael.
And I will be very happy to wake up, knowing he's with me now.
****
When I woke up, it was nighttime once again. But tonight's moon was so bright that it had embarrassed all but the brightest stars into invisibility, and something about it, or about looking at it from where I am, made me feel how alone I am. Before I closed my eyes, I made myself believe that Michael is here with me, but when I woke up and found him gone, I was not surprised at all. And I was still here, lost in the woods.
And there was no beast trying to eat me. I was not going insane either. All those crazy thoughts were just the fruit of my extreme hungryness. That's just how I could explain it, doesn't matter if it isn't even a word anyway.
The coldly beautiful face of the moon suggested me that the Good Forces was more plausible after all, but sadly with no interest in lost girls like me, because saving some drunk drivers from falling into a bridge was far more important, because the Good Forces were nothing but a knocked-out-loaded God Whose mind was like a circling cloud of bugs and Whose eye was the rapt and vacant moon.
"At least there's a moon," I said, as I stood by a tree and looking nervously around me.
The moonlight wasn't as good a thing as I thought, either. It was bright, true, but it was a deceptive brightness that made everything look simultaneously too real and not real at all. Shadows were too black, and when a breeze stirred the trees, the shadows changed in a disquieting way.
Something twitted in the woods, seemed to choke, twitted again, and was silent.
An owl hooted, far off.
Closer to, a branch snapped....