Okay, I'm going to try and post this for Sage. Here goes nothing!
Chapter 1
The Woods
She ran through the forest, at lightning speed, ears al.ert, dilated eyes not missing a single movement. The thick woods completely surrounded her and the darkness hid her from view, but she knew that it wasn’t safe. She had to keep running.
Both her legs were throbbing and she could feel the blood pumping through her veins as her breath slowly neared hyperventilating. The heavy backpack was slowing her down and she deciphered the decision to just drop it and keep running. Her malnourished body was beginning to break down and her knees were tempting to collapse.
A protruding tree root caught her foot sending her flying face first into a bush, her arms and legs breaking the fall, but getting scraped in the process. She screamed as she felt the thorns tear the soft skin from her hands and scrambled out of the shrub. Turning around she rammed head first into a tree and fell back onto her butt. Tears sprung to her eyes as she cradled her legs to her chest and rocked back and forth, a soft lullaby coming to mind. She sat there for a few minutes, breathing deeply, waiting for the shock and horror to settle in-yes she has gotten away, but how long until they found her? Grabbing her bag she began on her long trek through the dense tree-infested land, this time at a much slower pace.
A small light shone through the forest almost beckoning her to it. Her whole body shook with relief, for wherever this light was coming from must be where the forest ends. She ran towards it not caring that her eyes would probably explode –or something around that- when she reached it. Her whole life she had been in the dark, her eyes had become accustomed to it, and she was beginning to wonder if running towards the light was that smart of an idea, but she wanted out of these woods badly. She’d been in them for almost three days and was sure that by now her small scrap of a dress was torn and withered-she’d fallen down a lot in here.
Reaching the light, the emaciated girl stepped out onto a thick, black strip of some kind, she rubbed her feet along the pavement enjoying the feeling of the gravel on her cuts. It was more than one light, dozens of them all towering over her by at least 20 feet, and the sudden brightness sent glares into her massive pupils causing her to squint. Walking farther out-eyes still barely open-she looked around her and frowned at what she saw- there were trees surrounding both sides of this thick strip of gravel, everything was tree’s except for this brightly lit random hunk of pavement. She felt like crying, was she ever going to escape the rath of these woods. The road seemed to stretch on for miles either way and she wondered how she was ever going to walk that distance. Why was this gravel here in the first place? She’d never seen anything like it.
She turned her head to the left and was surprised by two parallel lights in the distance that were floating in the air. Were they moving? She walked slowly towards them transfixed as to how this could be. Every step she took the lights became closer and closer almost as if they were moving towards her too. It wasn’t until they were about 50 feet away that she realized the lights weren’t floating, but instead, were connected to a giant beast that towered over her. She stopped suddenly her entire body going rigid, but the beast kept coming, nearer and nearer, until finally it sounded a loud noise that caused the frightened girl to jump, scream, and cover her ears all at once. The monster seemed to be slowing but was still headed in her direction, a large squeal sounded from it as it neared her now only a foot away. Screaming one last time, she fell to her hands and feet, the gravel cutting into her palms and knees, and prepared herself to die.
