Like I was informed, we arrived in Michigan a few short hours later. Michigan was something different than every other state was passed on our trip. Instead of stretched fields and empty streets; there were buses and construction; brown grass was replaced with a yellow and dried pasture; most leafless trees were now chopped down; and once red skies were now purple. In the lilac sky were the dry, black clouds I had seen the first night. Other buses were everywhere; by our sides, behind us, in front of us, even driving in the fields. Numbers ranging from fifty to three hundred were painted on the sides.

We stopped at a construction site. Buses one to two hundred were to share the same site. The ‘campsite’, as they told us to call it, was basically set upon a huge copper colored field; where the weeds grew high and the trees towered above us. The long road behind us left the sightline as more buses followed it farther into the world. Along the edges of the field were the foundations of future buildings; buildings that would be made with gray bricks and black cement. And in the center of it all was a white tent that held tables and a fire pit which I assumed was for cooking and eating.

 Upon arriving they gave us water and food, which was something everyone was complaining about during the long trip. Instead of frozen foods, we were finally served cooked meats and vegetables. There were no instructions the first few hours we were there; so it was an opportunity to meet others and try to figure out what was going on. The people there were all different from their attitude towards the evacuation. There were the angry older men, the ones who threatened the authorities if answers weren’t given. Staying close to the buses were the moms; desperately clinging to their children, they complained to each other about the safety of the child and, obviously, themselves. Us young adults, or teenagers, stayed by a nearby building in construction and either panicked or tried to lighten the mood with friendly smiles. And of course there were the few “free-spirits” who didn’t give a damn about anything that was going on. I liked them the most though; they weren’t scared or confused, they simply just didn’t care.

Later that night we were given tents to sleep in until the buildings were done. We had to set it up in the vast field but we were not able to go out of boundary lines. Although the older men, the ones who ‘needed’ the answers, wouldn’t budge; wouldn’t take a tent or sleep. Some didn’t even eat. Something like a protest, I suppose. Later they were put into a group away from the rest while the authorities whispered to them. They talked for about thirty minutes and I’m sure they got to know the reason of our arrival before anyone else. And for some reason, I didn’t care. I wanted to wait for the answer knowing it would be something I most likely couldn’t handle.

I guess you could say that we already guessed why we were there before we were even given a hint. Laying in that tent with Chase and two other people who needed a place to pass out, I kept thinking. Obviously Chase had been thinking too because she had said the first word. “I know why we are here.” She had said and the three of us looked at her with furrowed brows. “Think about it, the signs are right in front of our faces. You just have to know how to read them.”

We spent that night talking about Chase’s so-called “signs”.

And she was right. The next day they had told us and it left a sick feeling in my gut that never truly went away.

The Virus had gone viral again.

            Somewhere out there someone was at home watching television; someone who refused to get on the buses up North. Somewhere out there a family was playing outside awaiting the deadly disease to hit them. Somewhere out there were children who had no idea what was happening and adults that were never informed. Yet those people weren’t any safer than us. And truthfully, if I had my family, I would want to be home right now. I would want to watch television, run out on the road, take a walk along the garden, and do anything as long as I was home and happy. Here, at the campsite with a bunch a strangers, I was not happy.

Chase, being my only little ray of sunshine, was always smiling during the day. Always laughing and cracking jokes. People really loved her there, being the optimistic girl she is. I was just known as the quiet friend who smiled often but held lies behind her glassy indigo eyes. However, Chase was someone else too; someone that only I knew and witnessed. Every night when she thought everyone was asleep; she would leave the tent and cry. I sat up every single night and listened to her discreet sobs. I wanted so desperately to go out there and comfort her, but if I couldn’t help myself, how was I supposed to help someone so much stronger than me? Eventually I stopped staying up and waiting for her to leave the tent. Eventually I started to fall asleep faster.

There was one day in particular that would never fail to leave my mind. The image, still so clear to me, showed up in my dreams keeping every detail exact.

It had been a few (two?) weeks and the buildings were almost done while the grass had surprisingly just become browner. The skies were still purple and the black clouds still sat flatly on the horizon, failing to move. It was at dusk that I had noticed it. Chase wasn’t in the tent; however she wasn’t sitting outside and crying either. I saw no sign of her silhouette in the blue, light absorbing tent walls. By this time, it was past curfew and everyone was supposed to be in their tents doing whatever satisfied their needs. And since Chase had become the only shoulder to lean on in the camp, I grew worried. So I stuck my head out and observed the few officers on duty and decided it was safe to crawl out, knowing that they were too wrapped up in their card game on the other side of the field to notice or even care. I slowly snuck to the small clearing, behind a leafless bush, and discovered that Chase was, indeed, not in her usual spot.

At this point I was panicking. The officers took no hesitation in throwing out people in the camp that showed symptoms of The Virus, and although Chase didn’t show symptoms to me, it was a fast infection that could develop a few indications in hours. I observed the field again making sure to keep an eye out for her light navy jacket she wore earlier that day. Again, I saw nothing but blue tents, construction, brown grass, and tired officers.

And that’s when I felt it. A pain, much like a burning sensation, had pierced my neck while blocking my airways. I could breathe, but barely, as another pain appeared like a shot in the throat, suffocating me more. It was something I couldn’t describe but I felt like it was how fire incinerating your skin, inside and out, would feel. I tried desperately to make noise, to get anyone’s attention, but I was too far away for anyone to hear my kicking feet in the dirt. I fell on my back with one hand clutched around my neck and another reached into the sky. I was a writhing mess lying in a pile of black dirt. My eyes grew wet and through the tears I could see Chase and the figure of another woman. As my oxygen was cut off completely I saw Chase waving frantically at the old woman.

Then the pain went away.

I took no hesitation in spitting up the blood in my throat.

            Chase was next to me in a matter of seconds and rubbed my back as I continued to spew up red blood onto the dirt. She kept her arm around my waist, as well as keeping her words directed towards me; however her attention was focused on the woman standing in the grove of trees. Her green eyes squinted in an unreadable expression. Then the woman started to walk over, keeping herself hidden to anyone else that could be watching by weaving in and out of trees and bushes.

As I was starting to breathe normally, Chase whispered something in my ear.

“Don’t talk.”

Finally the strange woman reached our location, only keeping her distance by a few feet.  She squatted down and examined my sweat stained face and blood streaked throat. The woman, pretty and all, had many wrinkles that traced her mouth and eyes. They were small indents in her coarse, tan face. Her eyes were as black as the clouds in the sky, matching her untamed feather invested hair. She was very tall and wore rags, not bothering to cover much up.

Although her face had a civil appearance she looked like she had been raised in the wild. The woman looked at Chase, then me, then up in the sky. The blood chilled my skin from the coming winds and I could see the goose bumps appearing on the woman’s bare legs. She suddenly seemed frantic and ripped off a small sheet of one of her bright olive rags, and slowly crawled towards me like an on-edge animal. Truthfully, I was scared and held my breath as she slowly got closer.

Her black eyes stared into me as one long arm reached out. I looked at Chase, who nodded reassuringly, and let the woman wrap the cloth around my neck. The red liquid took no time to soak up into the rag.

“Thank you,” I whispered slowly and quietly not wanting to scare the woman any more than she was. I looked at Chase again to make sure that I wasn’t going to freak out the woman, making her do something unexpected. However Chase wasn’t watching us, she was eyeing the sky and I realized so was the woman. What was once (rare) blue skies were replaced with the dark purple night and the wind had only gotten stronger. It violently thrashed the trees and shook the tents.

            The woman cocked her head slightly to the left and slowly backed away.

The airstreams started to howl as she crawled faster and faster away into the forest; the one farther out than our boundary point. When I felt Chase’s hand tugging my arm, I turned and ran. We jogged the short distance to our tent and quickly jumped inside. Inside were our two “roommates”, wide-eyed and frightened. I ignored their whimpers from the storm, and stared coldly into Chase’s emerald eyes. “What the hell was that?” I hissed.

“We can’t talk about this here. I will tell you tomorrow.”

And although I desperately wanted answers as to who the woman was and why Chase was out with her, I agreed that talking about it in front of two scared teenage girls wasn’t the best. I ignored Chase the rest of the night and used our water bottles to clean the dried blood off of my throat. I told the two teenagers that I had fell running after Chase, and they helped me bandage it up. Instead of helping, Chase sat quietly in the corner staring at her hands.

The wind never did stop howling that night.

            The only person who really took interest in my burns was Luke. At first he was angry and then he was anxious to help. I assumed everyone else just thought I had self-harmed or was messing around when I wasn’t supposed to by the daggers their stares brought. Although I didn’t know what caused the burning sensations, I still lied to Luke telling him that I spilled some of the boiling water at dinner last night. I said that someone bumped into me and the sizzling water headed straight for my throat. Luckily, he bought it.

Chase wasn’t talking to me. She would stay close to the officers and conversed with others, but disregarded my attempts to make eye contact. She even slept in other tents doing God knows what, instead of facing me. It had been three days before I couldn’t take the rude glares at my throat and the memories of the woman. I marched up to her while she was busy flirting with a group of officers, and rather crudely yanked her to a clearing that nobody was near.

I demanded to know everything. She told me to meet her at the grove of trees that night, which I did. I waited until the on-guard officers had accidently fallen asleep and snuck out. Chase was sitting at the trunk of a tree staring at the stars that were hardly ever out.

“About time,” She smirked, “almost got worried about you.”

“Worried about me? You are the one sneaking off, never coming back for curfew, and hanging with strangers in the woods.”

Her smile faded. “Listen Allison, I really am sorry. But I’m also trying to figure out everything. It was a lot to take in, you know?” I crossed my arms and pursed my lips. Her eyebrows rose. “Let’s take a walk.”

She headed towards the woods past the boundary line.

“Are you crazy? We can’t go back there!”

“Lower your voice a little, would ya? Besides, what are they going to do to us? The officers are all asleep, they will never even know. You can trust me.”

Oddly enough, I did trust her. After a hesitant look back at the snoring authorities, I followed her until we were at the edge of the woods. The trees were tall, black, and naked.

“The woman,” Chase spoke so inaudibly that I had to huddle next to her to hear, “she told me that she lived in here. She lived here with some other women; a clan is what she called it. It was hard to understand her, but I think she said she had been watching us for a while.”

“Watching us?”

“Her clan is going to try to harm us, Allison. The whole camp, the woman warned me. Told me to get out of here.”

“Harm us? What do you mean Chase?”

“Allison. The woman was a witch.”

            That night we cautiously ventured into the woods. The atmosphere resembled a Snow White theme with the black forest, monstrous trees, and black thorns. However the plants didn’t grab and snap at me, like they did in the movie, although the heavy winds made it seem so. Even Chase was frightened; I could tell by how close she would get to me every time we heard a soft noise. After a while we were practically in each other’s arms.

“Tell me why we are in here, again?” I asked some-what annoyed, some-what curious.

She didn’t answer as we, for no reason, kept walking farther into the woods.

It was almost like we were looking for something. Not the witch, that’s for sure, but like a sign of her. Chase started to tell me things about the woman like she thought that that was an appropriate conversation at that time. Yet I still hung on to her words. I learned that the witch’s name was Evelyn. I also learned that the burning pains in my throat were caused by Evelyn. Apparently she thought I had been spying on them and used her powers (magic? sorcery?) to choke me from afar. She also told me that Evelyn had told her about a sign. The howling winds? That meant a clan of witches, specifically outraged ones, was near. The stronger it got the closer and angrier they were. If Chase had been right about the witches wanting to hurt us, then the strong winds we got was a sure sign.

As we kept going we started to notice strange things. First it was just red stains (I wanted so desperately to believe it was paint) on the trees making the impressions of symbols. The symbols were weird and made lines that pointed towards the sky. We should have turned around there, and Chase wanted to, but it was me that wanted to keep going.

Next we came across burnt leaves. We were basically walking on top of ashes that may or may not have been more than just plants.

Finally, we came across a campfire. It wasn’t lit, of course, but it did seem like someone had been there recently; the white ashes had yet to blow away in the wind.

The one thing that I wouldn’t be able to describe from that place was the smell. The horrid, yet powerful, smell was enough to make your eyes water. Even breathing through your mouth was useless; it appeared as if you could actually taste the foul odor. We looked around everywhere for what could make such a smell. Or maybe we didn’t care about the smell, and we looked for loot or emblems. All I know is that we were searching for something.

The leaves whistled above me and I heard a soft thud. It continued with the loud creak of a tree branch above me. Chase and I stood by the fire pit, her head at her kicking feet in the white ash, and mine starting to turn upwards. I peered up the tree, expecting an animal, however Chase’s shrill scream was enough to tell me that it was something much bigger than that. High up on the tallest branch was Evelyn’s dead body, hanging several feet over our heads. The lifeless body descended towards us in a dangling motion as the wind brushed past it. There were multiple cat-like scratches on her legs and a large gash resting upon her stomach. Her rags had fallen by the fire pit, already infested with bugs; however her long hair hid almost the whole upper half of her body.

The open mouth that was frozen in a deathly scream had me shaking and I turned to run, without Chase and all. She yelled my name but I kept my feet going.

Before I realized it, I hit someone else; slammed right into them as we both went tumbling down. I wasn’t even thirty feet away of the campsite. I lifted my head to see that I was laying on a figure that possessed a long face, tall body, and rag covered skin. It was a woman, much like Evelyn, that seemed scared, anxious, and angry all at the same time. The woman’s long fingernails dug deep into my skin while Chase was screaming behind me. After that everything was gone. Everything was black.

I woke up to a light sky and an itchy lawn. I was lying in a field of long green grass, something I hadn’t seen in about two months. I sat up and observed the lime plants and trees and the bright sunlight. I smiled to myself knowing that the purple skies and dried up life was no longer surrounding me. Maybe everything was behind me. Maybe I was blacked out long enough for everything to return to normal. Maybe, just maybe, everything had all been a dream. I heard birds chirping in the distance and I couldn’t help but grin bigger. I was all alone in my own little field of sunlight.

 Suddenly, a low and very raspy grunt interrupted my grinning and I shot my head backwards to reveal a woman. No just any woman, but THE woman; the one that broke my fall on the horrid night in the woods. She sat on a stump, playing with something in her hands, and staring at me closely. I started to sweat.

She looked down at the item moving back and forth from each of her hands and grunted again. “I will not hurt you.” She talked very quietly and muffled.

            I nodded wanting to avoid eye contact.

            We sat there for what I estimated as twenty five minutes before she spoke again. “Allison?”

I looked up.

“That is the name you possess, ye? Miss Allison White.”

“Yes.”

She took a few moments before telling me hers, “I am Amani.”

Again, I nodded and looked down. I had no idea what to say to the woman or how to even find my voice. It was obvious I wasn’t even trying to hide my fear for her.

“Camille Winslet. That is your friend, ye?”

“Yeah, Chase, that’s her.” I finally found my voice although I couldn’t help the shakiness of it, “Do you know where she is at?” It was a question that had been bothering me since I awoke that morning.

            Amani pointed towards the woods. “Looking for camps.”

We sat again in silence until Chase came back. She didn’t seem hardly as afraid of Amani as I was; how she smiled at her and easily made conversation.

            Later that night, when we all had warmed up to each other a bit, we made a campfire. Amani told us ancient tales about the woods and clans, while Chase told her about our experiences coming here. Although Amani’s stories were a lot more interesting, she intently listened to Chase, her low croaky voice grunting along indicating that she was hanging on to every word.

            After a while Chase told us about a nearby camp, only about two miles away. There was a tent filled up with bags that held clothes and food. I looked down at my own indigo jacket and blue jeans stained with mud and grass. At our camp they gave us a new set of clothes every couple of days. They were all donated clothes that were never washed to begin with. Really, we were basically sitting in garbage bags. So, fresh clothes, not to mention food, sounded nice.

“The camp is guarded though. And these guards aren’t like ours, they don’t take visitors lightly. It will be a struggle to get by them.” Chase explained.

            “Is there any sort of plant or vegetation near this tent?” Amani asked.

            “It’s by the edge of the woods. There is a guard who stands by to watch but he switches places with another every thirty minutes. I suppose we could sneak in during one of their rotations.”

            “We will sneak into the tent tomorrow. Tonight, we get good sleep.”

            As Amani and Chase laid on the dirt for some shut-eye, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you helping us?”

            The woman sat up and stared at me a little too suspiciously.

“I mean, you’re a witch, right? I thought you were supposed to be hurting us, not helping us.” I added a “sorry” after I realized how rude I sounded. However Amani didn’t take my sorry as her face scrunched in either fury or frustration. “I am not like the others. I am not like my clan. I am, instead, like Evelyn. The one that got killed for helping you. We were planning on getting Camille out of here; we saw something special in her. But Camille insisted that you came for some reason,” Her black eyes made my blue ones physically hurt, “I don’t need to hear any more from you tonight.”

            Chase looked slightly surprised and looked at me with sorry in her eyes. I shook my head and laid on the cold hard dirt, facing away from the fire. I stared at the stars until I fell asleep.

            I awoke to Amani and Chase pouring water on the smoking ashes of what was once the campfire.

            “Get up. We are getting ourselves some fresh food.” Chase smiled at me and started off in the direction of the camp. I slowly got up and followed.

            “So, I haven’t looked in a mirror for weeks. How bad do I really look?” I asked Chase with a little laugh in my voice to show I was joking.

“Actually you don’t look that bad. Your hair is even bigger than before though.” She giggled and pulled on a curl. “And truthfully I don’t think any of us really smell like roses either.”

            Amani walked behind us and added in, “We will wash up later,” not catching our joking sarcasm.

Eventually we got to the camp. We stayed hidden in the bushes and spied the few people walking around. As Chase had said, there was a male guard staked at the open flap of the tent. Inside were dozens of blue and red duffle bags.

“This camp is really emptied out.” I observed.

“The sickness has wiped out many here, yes.”

I gazed over at Amani, “If The Virus has killed many here isn’t there a good chance we are going to get it? It’s highly contagious.”

“Don’t worry, we can’t get it. I’ve protected us.”

I didn’t question her any farther, knowing it was probably some weird witch magic or something. Plus I didn’t want to piss her off any more than she was. I looked back at the tent. “So who’s going to get the bags?”

It had been decided that I was the one to go, probably because Amani wouldn’t care if I got caught or not. I waited until the guard walked off behind another tent and crawled fast until I made it inside. I was to grab two blue bags and two red bags. The bags were stacked high, much higher than I could reach, and it was a struggle to get enough in time. I could hear faraway crunching footsteps in the dirt and I hurriedly reached for my last bag. The heavy footsteps got louder and louder. Finally I grabbed the last red one and I was about out the open flap when a silhouette approached. It was a woman in uniform with a high black ponytail. She stood right in front the opening.

I tried to sneak behind a stack to keep myself hidden and in the process I managed to make more noise than I intended. The woman turned and peered into the tent. I watched her from a little opening between two bags behind the farthest stack, the one in the corner. She took a step in and continued to scan the surroundings closely. She stood there for what I thought was a long time, which was probably just seconds, until finally walking back out to the front of the tent. I breathed out heavily, just realizing that I had been holding my breath the whole time. I took the bags and kicked them out the bottom of the tent, which wasn’t secured to the ground very well, and crawled out after.

Amani and Chase were standing at the edge of the woods motioning for me to come fast. I guess I had made more noise because the woman was back in the tent. I could tell by her voice asking if anyone was there. I grabbed the bags and ran. I think Chase and I might have ran the whole way back, making sure we were completely out of range before even breathing.

Once we made it back to camp we opened the duffle bags. The red ones held clothes and the blue ones held food. Later, we found a clean stream which Chase and I had bathed in. We soaked in the water and scrubbed each other’s hair. I had taken a gray jacket that was tight around my stomach and Chase got a large black hoodie that hung low around her thighs. We both got new blue jeans. Amani still wore her rags and made sure to bathe away from us.

We stayed at our so-called camp for a few nights more before finally heading north. I had no idea where we were headed and every time I asked Amani she would just shrug. Later I grew homesick. I stayed up many nights, and cried, just like Chase had. I made sure that no one was awake and let the tears soak my skin. Every night I heard the sound of my hands punching the ground; I heard the snores of the unsuspecting women by the fire; I heard the echoing screams and the rip of my hair when I felt like it just got in the way. I often wondered about my family, my friends, and if they even missed me; which I had doubted because at the time, I wouldn’t have missed myself at all.

When I managed to sleep I had dreams about Evelyn and Luke. Some were nightmares and some were pleasant, but with each dream I grew more terrified and unhappy. An empty feeling had made a knot in my chest and I began losing sleep for fear of more nightmares.

The pain stayed and the headaches came. The aching bones and muscles, the droopy eyes, the empty chest, the tired thoughts all came at once and that’s how the panic attacks started. Every night I would have difficulties breathing; my head would spin in all directions and my legs would shake. I would whimper and hold my head and, most of the time, weep. My heart had sunk like a stone in a pond.

All of it was a heavy pain that took a toll on my emotional and physical health. See, I wasn’t ever the strongest person, or the bravest. So instead of trying to suck it up, I would just go on my way and freak out. In time I stopped talking altogether. There was nothing ever left to say. Chase’s questions were left unanswered and my thoughts were sealed tightly in my head. I would hum children’s songs or trail behind and stare at the sun, wondering how it could be so stunning yet so harmful. I found myself thinking about leaving Chase and Amani and traveling out on my own. By that point, I didn’t care about surviving or ending up safe. I just wanted a way out.

The night I was planning to leave was the night the witches came.

            Several long, rag covered bodies surrounded us. They ranged from short haired teenagers to white haired elders. They all had their course skin and jagged teeth, which they bared at me with humanly snarls. Chase and Amani were sleeping by the fire while I stood and stared at the dozens of black eyes. My head felt like it was spinning although I remained completely still. It reminded me of movies, how the camera would circle around a character to make it obvious that the character’s heart was rigorously beating and there was fear in their veins. I felt like I was that main character. The witches seemed to chuckle at me sensing my fear. The wind had picked up hours before but we thought nothing of it. As soon as the witches came it started howling which sounded much like dense cackling and the numerous low grunts didn’t help with the uncanny atmosphere. It wasn’t until I felt one grab me that I blacked out.

I had awaked lying on the ground. I was on a pile of black leaves in a dark, cold forest. My vision blurred but I could sense a warm fire somewhere to my right. No matter how many times I blinked, I could see nothing but swirls of obscure branches and hazy ashes drifting over me. When I looked to my right I saw a large red blur, what I was guessing was the fire, and quite a few silhouettes. I recognized Chase and Amani almost instantly as Chase was a lot smaller and Amani stood right next to her as everyone else kept a distance. There were whispers and murmurs however the cackle of the fire kept me from hearing what was being said. As my sight slowly got better I saw that Chase and Amani were stripped, their hands bound with rope.

Soon the fire calmed down and the witches talked louder therefore I was able to pick up some of the conversation. There were many different raspy voices.

“Do they die?”

“No, they might be useful.”

“What if we torture them? After all, it is a runaway with an outsider.”

“No. We will keep them unharmed; bring some clothes for the women.”

Green rags were handed to Chase and Amani as their ropes were cut.

“We will continue to follow their path up North.”

“What about the other outsider? The one lying right over there?”

“She is no use to us.”

All heads turned to me as I pretended to still be passed out.

“We can’t leave her. She’s a witness.”
            “She will never survive anyways.”

“There is always a chance.”

“Not if I can help it,” a low growl joined in and I could almost hear the grin on her lips, “blind her.”

A hand was raised in my direction and with a quick snap of the wrist; I felt a razor-sharp pain paralyze my face. My eyes, frozen open, fogged over with a tingling sensitivity which had caused me to scream. My vision was white, then brown, then blue; while my eyes continued to itch and my skin; sting. I clawed my face, which was now dead from pain, and continued to bellow. Tears had gathered in my eyes but had no way of falling down my skin, and after a few long seconds of severe agony, I saw nothing but black. My mouth tasted of cold iron. I could hear Chase calling my name and the sound of faraway footsteps; however I was alone in a matter of seconds. I laid on the ground as the numb feeling subsided. I sat up and rubbed my eyes yet I could see nothing. I felt around me. The wet leaves had a rusty smell and I felt the warmth of the fire only a couple yards away. I was still unable to cry as the pain sat around my eyes, seeming to weigh them down.

My head weighed to the side as soon as I was on my feet, and in no time I was back to lying in the leaves. I tried again to stand, but my ears popped and my head fell to the side once more. I buried my face with the bugs under the soil and sighed, giving any habitants under the leaves an earthquake with my pounding headache. The air was cold and so were my clothes as they had gotten soaked on the forest floor with mud and dew. Therefore I crept towards the fire and stopped only when I felt the burning ashes under my hands. Sitting there, with a scorching face, is when I came to the realization that I was stuck in a foreign forest, with no sense of direction, and the disability of impaired vision. I had tried my best to fall asleep but in the back of my mind I knew the nightmares would come. I knew I would wake up shrieking and have no relief when I grasp the fact that reality is the worst nightmare I had. The night was filled with the cries of owls and snaps of twigs. I stayed up that whole night holding my ears, blocking out all the frightening, far-off sounds.

In the morning I opened my eyes and, surprisingly, I didn’t have a cold black screen over my sight. Instead I saw foggy white and blurs of nearby objects. My sense of touch and smell had heightened during the long night and I recognized the smell of wet leaves and fresh air. The fire had long been out and the cold breezes caused my skin to crawl. I figured that sitting in the woods would never give me a chance to live, and for some reason I had a whole new hope. So again, I tried to stand up and after a little trial and error, I managed to walk. I lifted each leg high and grabbed any trees my hands could find. I was headed to what I thought was south, back to a camp in Michigan.

It had been probably an hour before I came across an open field. I walked around in circles trying to find a campfire or stumps to tell me that this is where we camped the night before. However I did not find anything and I continued to feel my way south. Before long, I was blanketed by total darkness and I stopped for a rest.

That night I managed to sleep.

The next day I succeeded in going farther without stopping; same with the next day. On the other hand I had become weaker with hunger. I could easily find streams by listening for running water, but food was something that was almost impossible to get. The pain shot my stomach with each step that was taken. By the next day, I was convinced that there was no hope for me. My vision was no better, if at all worse. I was weak, famished and blind.

However, later, I had picked up the scent of something sweet. The wind had gotten a little stronger and the smell blew my way. It was a very faint aroma and I almost thought that I was imagining it, but my desperation got the best of me and I crawled towards the scent.

The smells lead me to a bulky shrub, I could tell by the leaves scratching my arms and face. I felt around the plant and found many small round objects which I assumed were berries. I sniffed them and sure enough, they were giving off the sweet smell. Without giving another thought I devoured the handful in my hands and any others that I could find. The sugary taste on my tongue reminded me of home, and yet again I thought of my family. I was a mess that sat on the ground scarfing down berries and whimpering from longing.

There was a grunt behind me as I was licking the finial traces of nectar off my fingers. Not a grunt like Evelyn and Amani would have made, but a very low, very scared grunt; one that sounded like a cry for help. My first thought was an animal, a vicious one that would consume me in minutes. I turned my head and tried my best to see a figure in my foggy vision which had surprisingly gotten better. Instead of blurs, I could see full silhouettes although details were still very hazy. I assumed that maybe the spell or whatever the witch casted on me, would wear off in a matter of time. However at the time, that was just a guess.

I was interrupted again by the same sound only a little louder. I blinked and made out the figure of something hunched over, its legs bent close to the ground. It didn’t look much like an animal, at least one I’ve ever seen. The smell, much like the one I witnessed with Evelyn’s dead body, was horrid and reeked of rotting skin. The thing tried to groan again, but it came out like a heavy sigh with scratchy pitches. Then it hummed a little, crawling slowly towards me, twitching violently with every move. That’s when I realized that it was a human; someone who was badly hurt and obviously not in the right mind. I took no hesitation in getting up and running. I heard the person behind me also get up and with a scream limped towards me with alarming speed. I turned once to see the figure struggling to keep up. They turned into a little black blur as I got farther and farther away. The croaky voice kept screaming with force; the sound stabbed my eardrums with a pick of distress.

Something found their way under my feet and I collapsed face first into a thorn bush. The sharp branches stuck to my skin; yet I was more afraid of the approaching maniac than the pain of the thorns. But with my hair and clothes caught, I wasn’t able to get up. I frantically fought and rolled around in a panic. Each time I rolled, a sharp thorn would pierce my skin and I would exhale in discomfort, making it harder to free myself.