Chereads / The Parallel Nexus System / Chapter 3 - Cold

Chapter 3 - Cold

The sudden sharp pain in her side, makes Xiaoyi awaken from her drugged slumber. When she opens her eyes and the ringing in her ears subsides, she hears grunts from both the driver and the mole man as they try to crawl out of the car. 

Neither of them are small enough to crawl through the squished window gaps. 

Being the only one that had her seatbelt on she tries to unbuckle herself. She slowly guides her hand down as she groans in pain. When she finds the button she almost doesn't have the strength to push it in. 

She feels as if she must have broken something in her left hand or arm. Her entire left side is just in so much pain but it's too hard to see what's hurt. 

She starts to wiggle her way through the dead body of the other man on her left. As she does this she feels an abundance of pain from her back and her side, causing her to grind her teeth in order to continue. 

After struggling to move the man's body she finally manages to push his lifeless body far enough against the seat so she can make her way to the window. After he is out of the way she then proceeds to crawl through while pushing his lifeless body deeper and deeper into the car.

When she is about halfway out of the window a hand grabs onto her ankle very lightly. As she looks down she can see two of his fingers bent away from his thumb.  

"Don't leave me." The driver begs.

A quiet voice could be heard from the driver of the car. His leg had gotten crushed into the seat by the steering wheel. Thus preventing him from being able to get out. She quickly shakes his weak grip off and proceeds to wiggle her way out. Her bloody body covers the surrounding snow in blood, slowly melting some of it. 

Once she is out of the car she can finally look at what's in her side. When she looks down she sees a huge piece of glass about as long as her finger stincking out of her side. She wraps both her weak arms around the glass shard and begans pulling. She screams in pain as she pulls it out. 

"Help me, please. I wasn't going to do anything to you, I promise. Please help me." The driver continues to beg.

The mole man from the back of the car also started to call for help when he noticed she was out of the car.

"I'm sorry, you brought this upon yourself." She grunted as she started getting up.

She gets up and starts walking further down the hill. She pushes her hand into her side trying to cover up as much of her wound as best as she can. She stumbles away from the crash without looking back. She finds a small cave opening about 200 feet away from the crash and started beelining straight for it. 

The man that had hit their car saw her walking away, from where he was. He tried screaming to her as she was going the wrong way but the howling wind kept his yells from reaching her.

"Maybe I'll get through this." She said to give herself hope.

The cold wind and snow kissed her face famking her nose and cheeks red. Her face did have small cuts but they didn't bleed much. Each step and breath she took the cold air would assult her lungs.

She quickly walked over to it. It's about as tall as a typical person, but goes back for a while as she can see. After crawling to a spot where snow wasn't under her, she laid down cold cant exausted. She assumed it was mostly due to the drugged rag that she was so tired. She reached into her pocket to pull out her phone.

As she pulls out her phone she sees that it has been bent at a 45 degree angle and won't turn on.

'Guess I'm not as lucky as I was hoping for.' 

Seeing how it won't be of any use she puts it in her pocket again.

She starts to think about how much her life has changed in the past 4 years. Once they found out her mother had an incurable cancer things started to go downhill. They spent most of their money on doctors in hopes someone would be able to help, however, their efforts were in vain. 

After a year of doctors, they had to move to a cheaper place. Her friends became distant as time passed. Her new school set her up to be alone there too. She was smarter than most of them. She was the best looking as well.

Most girls envied her looks so they never got close to her. The girls that didn't envy her looks hated her for taking part of their boyfriend's heart. 

Guys didn't try to get close to her because of their fear of rejection. They also had an unspoken rule that no guy can claim her for themselves. This rule ended in the recent year however no guy was successful in having been accepted as a boyfriend.

After her mom died her dad started to drink more than he did when she was in the hospital. He also broke the only thing she had gotten from her mother in the past 4 years. The violin. The same violin that was smashed into her back a few weeks ago. That was the point of no return for her father.

Day after day she would get hit. Whether it was with a hand or a beer bottle. It was also in a spot where she could go to school and no one would notice. Her back. 

Even laying on the ground caused pain. Although no matter how she laid right now she would be hurting. 

The cave entrance was slowly getting blocked off by the blizzard. Everything around her was getting darker and darker. She will soon just be left with herself and her thoughts. 

'Even though those men had bad intentions, I hope they don't suffer too much.' She pitied them.

She's suffering when she should be on a train to a different town right now. Or would she already be there? 

'How long was I asleep? I don't even remember it starting to snow before I was attacked. Well, maybe it's almost over. All I have to do is stay alive for a couple more hours and I'll be safe.' She then closes her eyes and falls asleep. 

A couple hours go by before she wakes up. She had been lucky she woke up at all. This time not because of the bleeding in her side, but because it had gotten too cold for her to sleep. Her entire body was numb. She no longer felt the pain from the accident, or the abuse on her back. 

This was bad. If she had not woken up she could have frozen in her sleep. I need to get warmer or I could die.

Getting up she saw that the entrance was completely blocked off so she decided to try pushing the snow away. Unfortunately, it kept getting covered by more snow. She soon gave up and turned around going further into the cave in hopes that it would get warmer. She pulled out her phone to check it even though she knew it would stay broken. She got up against the wall then began walking parallel to the cave wall.

Her hands scraped along the cave wall, as she used it to keep herself standing. She didn't feel it tearing at her skin because of how numb she was. Her hands were raw and bleeding. Her body slowly and gradually became weaker and weaker as she lost blood from reopened glass wound in her side.

She eventually made it into a bigger carvery space before she fell to the ground weakly. The bigger space was much warmer than where she was. She looked around and realized that this cave was going upward meaning she has been hiking the inside of a mountin.  

'Could there be a way out? Maybe to a road or a house? Please I don't wanna die.' She thought to herself before her eyes closed once again.