Chereads / Missing: Despair / Chapter 4 - alONE

Chapter 4 - alONE

-- Day Three since awakening in the Forest--

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I slowly opened my eyes.

'This time, I was not awakened by a sound. I woke up myself. I opened my eyes, myself.

Right?' I wondered as I stared at the scenery before me.

My vision was still a bit blurry, but I was slowly gathering my senses. My vision was sharpened as it refocused upon trees. The trees suddenly took on detail and filled my whole field of vision with green.

For a time that I could not understand, I could do nothing. Even after my mind began working and I could see what could possibly have happened, it could do nothing. It was as if my hands and arms were lead.

'Did I possibly get lost? Is that how I ended up here?'

'Was I kidnapped?'

'Did I come on trip and somehow got separated from others, fell on a hard rock?'

'How did I end up here?'

Then I looked for ways for it not to have happened.

'Be asleep', my mind screamed at the greenery environment.

Just be asleep and your eyes will open now, and your hands will take the control and your feet will move to your command, painless—but it did not happen.

Still tired, nauseous, hungry, thirsty and in pain. but better than before.

I noticed that I actually still had control of my body and mind. My body still ached from the previous brutal events, but it was manageable. Definitely better than how I felt yesterday.

I carefully sat up and examined myself. I had a black hear. A black long sleeve shirt, long black pants, and black shoes. Which were all dirty but dry now and got up as I felt the thirst in my dry mouth and heard the growling of my stomach. I needed to find a source of water and food. My mouth was as dry as desert without a year of rain.

I had fallen into a stream of water earlier and almost drowned, so I had not drunk any water since then. But now, I needed and wanted water. Real water. Not salt water.

And my stomach was very much empty.

Even though the incident I experienced before still haunted me, I walked along the woods. Anyone could easily get lost of direction due to the tall trees, bushes and the many plants. I passed trees after trees and could not spot anything edible or drinkable.

Then, finally. I saw a bush. A bush with berries.

I hastily made my way towards it and began plucking out a lot of berries. Fast.

I wanted a lot. I wanted them as soon as possible. Still hungry and thirsty, I wanted to get as many as I possibly could right now so that I could try to fill my stomach with them.

As I was about to pull more berries, I could hear something sneaking around me.

I was not alone. Not alone in this forest.

Something was moving. It was creating noises in the bushes. Faint noises but I could hear it. I could sense it creeping behind me.

I slowly turned around and was startled by the face in front of me.

The person appeared to be around my height. Maybe a bit taller than me, I didn't stay long to find out. It carried a devious look, so I sprinted. As fast as I could with my tired, hungry and thirsty body. Dropping all the berries on the way.

It chased behind me.

I continued running. No matter how fast I tried to run, I could not form a long distance between me and the creature.

It caught up.

It caught up and grabbed my arm.

I tried to grab something for defense. This is a forest. There are many things that could be used as weapons.

I saw a rock a rock, reached for it, and grabbed the rock. I held it tightly onto my hand and tried to hit the creature with it, but it flicked it of off my hands before I could use it.

"There's nothing you can do now", It said with a grin.

It talked.

The creature talked and I understood it.

It talked, it ran, it had eyes, mouth, nose, ears and more. It had everything I had but, I was terrified.

I wanted to escape. I did not want to die this way. After everything I went through.

This was not the way I wanted to go.

It put its hands around my neck, and it began to suffocate me.

Surprised, I kept my eyes open and nervously glanced at the creature suffocating me. Seeing the shadow of death on my face, it waited patiently for me to die.

I tried moving my right foot and kicking, hitting or doing just about anything that could get the creature off me- I couldn't feel the left - and cried out in agony, as white-hot pain shot up my spine. I froze, and tried to focus on just breathing, a task that was proving to be monumental right now. My breath came ragged, the air moving sluggishly over my bone-dry tongue, drying them more in the process. Thirst consumed my very being. My lips were cracked, the only moisture was the blood that was oozing out from them.

I had no recollection how I ended up here, trapped in this forest and now on the doorstep of death.

Eventually, I grew weak, stopped struggling and was on the verge of giving up my life.

This was my end.

I lost.

I was going to die not having figured out who I was and where I was.

I was going die.

Then. Suddenly.

It stopped choking me. The creature let me go and started to kneel down.

I began coughing heavily and looked towards the creature.

It was also coughing.

Painful coughs.

I notice that it couldn't move its feet. I looked puzzled and breathed a sigh of relief. There was no shadow now. No one suffocating me. I still had a chance. A chance at survival.

Then came the smell.

More and more of the smell now.

Very strong.

Bad.

I turned again to glance at the creature before me, who now laid curled up on the ground and was grimacing in pain, reaching for its left shoulder again, as I watched.

The creature's sounds were a hiss, barely audible. I noticed that it was having bad aches. severely bad aches.

It stopped as a fresh spasm of pain hit it. Even I could see how bad it was—the pain drove the creature back into the deep forest.

"I've had pains, sever pains, but I've never had anything like this . . ." it said.

It wanted to hide. Far. Away from me.

'Maybe it considered me a dangerous enemy?' I terrifyingly thought

The creature slowly, and painfully made its way towards the forest, away from my direction. As it took a few steps, a jolt took it like a hammer blow, so forcefully that it seemed to crush back into the ground.

I slowly and cautiously approached the creature to examine what was happening to it.

After a bit I reached for it, the creature. I was curious and could not understand at first what it was, could not know.

And then I knew.

I knew.

The creatures mouth went rigid, it swore and jerked a short series of slams into the ground, holding its shoulder now. Swore and hissed, "Chest! Oh God, my chest is coming apart!"

I knew now.

Did not know how I suddenly knew. But I knew.

Vast amount of information were running through my brain.

Scriptures that I could not understand or comprehend

Then.

Suddenly.

I knew.

I knew what those scriptures meant.

Displayed through my lenses, the scriptures started making sense. I understood the writings.

I understood that this creature was now suffering from a heart attack. It is about to die.

Soon.

In less than 30 seconds, it was going to die.

From an extremely excruciating chest pain.

The creature was having a heart attack.

I knew.

The creature was having a heart attack and even as the knowledge came to me, I saw the creature slam into the ground one more time, one more awful time it slammed back up and right back into the ground and his right leg jerked. Its head fell forward and spit came. Spit came from the corners of its mouth and his legs contracted up, up into the ground, and his eyes rolled back in his head until there was only white.

White.

Only white for its eyes and the smell became worse, filled the cockpit, and all of it so fast, so incredibly fast that my mind could not take it in at first. Could only see it in stages.

The creature had been fine, just a moment ago. Right in front of me. Standing.

The creature had been talking, just a moment ago complaining of the pain. Talking.

Perfectly fine. It looked strong, healthy, and horrifying. Its figure was definitely neater and better than mine.

Then the jolts had come.

The jolts that took the creature back had come, and now I sat and there was a strange feeling of silence in the forest—a strange feeling of silence and being alone. I was stopped.

I was stopped. Inside it was stopped. I could not think past what I saw, what I felt. All was stopped. The very core of me, the very center of me was stopped and stricken with a white flash of horror, a terror so intense that my breathing, my thinking, and nearly my heart had stopped.

Stopped.

Seconds passed, seconds that became all of my life, and I began to understand what I was seeing, began to know what I saw and that was worse, so much worse that I wanted to make my mind freeze again.

I was sitting in a forest. A forest so big and wide.

A forest that was hard to identify where it began and where it ended. It was hard to tell if I was in the middle, the beginning, or the end. The only things that could be seen were mounts, rocks, trees, many many plants, and more unknown organisms.

With a creature who had suffered a massive heart attack and who was either dead or in something close to a coma.

I was alone.

In the forest, with no one else, I was alone.

Alone.

Since the day I opened my eyes, I knew I was alone.

But now this feeling was different. I had seen a companion. Even though it was scary and tried to kill me, it was something. Something other than myself. It made me feel like I could survive. Like I could find my way out of here.

Or maybe I wouldn't be able to survive. Maybe I'll be stuck in here forever. Just like how it died in this forest. This big, wide, creepy forest.

I will also not make it out of here.

In this forest. This big, wide forest.

All of my hope was lost.

I was alone.

All alone.