Arianna walked slowly. She had walked past a whole area of possibly dead bodies. She had even seen Leyla. A vulture had chewed off a part of her cheeks. Even if she managed to wakeup, her appearance would have already been ruined. She was marred for life.
She was becoming more and more tired with every second. The feeling of fatigue washed over her and her head spun. She knew she was going to faint again, so she sat down to rest. Her throat felt itchy and her body was clearly dehydrated. She took in deep, long breaths.
After a while, she stood up and continued walking. She hadn't walked for long when...
"Kee-eeeee-arr"
She heard the shrill chwirk of a hawk. More like hawks. Hawks? What were hawks doing in such a dry place?
The hawks were coming for her. Her adrenaline immediately hit and she lost all previous signs of fatigue. She started running.
"Huh-uhhh. Huh-uhhh."
She ran and gasped for breath. Her stomach problem and injured ankle made her unable to run fast. She even fell and ate dust at a time. But she stood up and continued running.
The hawks were on her tail. They furiously pecked at her to which she fiercely flapped her hands at them. She used her hands to shake them away and continued running.
They still fiercely followed her, occasionally poking her with their beaks. This was torture as she couldn't make them go away and could only keep running. She wondered why the hawks had targeted her.
While she was running, her feet accidentally knocked a stone and she fell over. Her forehead was scraped. She screamed and cried.
"Ahhh. Huh-uhhh. Huh-uhhh."
Straining, screaming, gasping.
The hawks were still at it.
She wasn't ready to die such a horrible death so she started to crawl forward. They tore at her clothes, her hair, her skin.
She crawled and crawled until she saw traces of grasses. She looked ahead and saw some sparse vegetation ahead. By now, her body was bloody and she had dirt all over her face.
She saw the vegetation as her last straw of hope and with that, she gathered some strength from within herself and crawled faster. Her whole body was weak and the hawks were not helping matters. These hawks were absolutely not normal
As she got closer, she became even more hopeful. She tried to stand up and walk forward, but she immediately fell over and landed face down into sinking soil. At this point, the hawks immediately scattered. She had fallen into a swamp.
Since her face was inside, she found it difficult to breathe. She wanted to remove her face, but she was sinking. No. She couldn't die like this. She flailed and writhed but all her attempts proved futile.
She started to cry and regret. Was she going to die like this? This was all that Tristan's fault. If she hadn't come to Aysha in the first place, none of this would have happened. She was still blaming and cursing Tristan when suddenly the thought of her brother, Logan came to her head. She missed him. It had only been a few days, but for her, it felt like centuries.
If she died here, would her coming to Aysha with hopes not be a waste? If she died here, would her body ever be found? No. She would rot before anyone would remember her_if anyone would even remember her. She wouldn't get to see Logan again. She wouldn't be able to find out the mystery behind her parents' disappearance. Her entire life, her whole existence would be for nothing. She needed to at least have a good death even if she didn't die with honor. If she died here, she would regret it even in the afterlife.
With that, the seed of determination sprouted into a towering tree in her heart and sent sparks all over her body. Her adrenaline once again surged and she started struggling for her life. During the struggle, she managed to grasp a vine and she pulled at it.
With every ounce of strength in her body, she pulled the vine. Her head came out first and she gasped desperately for breath. She pulled at the vine and slowly her torso started coming out of the sinking swamp.
With every pull, her body came out an inch. It was a physically tasking process and at a moment she felt like she couldn't go any further but she remembered that she couldn't die in vain. She pulled and pulled until her knees had came out, then she grasped the earth around the swamp and dragged her body out.
She breathed in deeply. She laughed and cried at the same time. She hadn't died. On the ground she lay, and looked at the sky. It had turned dark and the place had become cooler. She lay on her side without moving, before her eyes closed shut in deep slumber.
...
He finally rested.
The pain still lingered on. But it wasn't the feeling of suffocating anymore. She had managed to scale through.
He sighed.
…
After four hours, Arianna woke up. She wondered why she was only able to sleep for four hours. Emotionally, mentally, physically, she was exhausted. But since she had woken up, she couldn't waste any time here.
She stood up weakly and started limping. Her stomach grumbled. She needed to find something to eat, fast. The grasses on the vegetation were not edible and were toxic even on heating.
The farther she walked, the more lush the vegetation became and soon she had entered a jungle.
The feeling of weakness was coming over her again and she was starting to feel nauseous. She made to throw up but since she hadn't eaten anything, she couldn't puke.
She saw a stream and ran to drink water. She took long swigs of it like a dog. When she was satisfied she sat on the ground and leaned on a tree. That air was very cool now and her clothes were now nothing but a bunch of rags, so she slightly shivered.
She was still hungry and needed to eat, despite her thirst being quenched.
"Hiss"
The sound of a snake came and she immediately became alert. But it wasn't slithering towards her direction but away. She decided to go in the direction the snake had come from. Maybe if it was a female snake, it might have laid some eggs. The terrain here was most suitable for them to lay eggs. Moist and secluded.
Indeed, it was a female snake and it did lay eggs. Since snakes showed little or no care to their young after laying them, she had nothing to worry about. There were fourteen eggs in total. She didn't like raw eggs, but the wood here wasn't suitable to use for a fire, so she cracked them open and ate them like that.
The shells were still warm and sticky which meant that the eggs had just been laid.
Snakes eggs weren't very tasty but they were larger than chicken eggs and so could satiate her hunger. Because she hadn't eaten in a while, after eating the first egg, she threw up. She ate four more and picked two in her hands. These eggs deserved to hatch, so she left the rest of them.
She continued walking.
The trek had just begun.