One by one

|Madi|

Madi, 10:00 am 6/8

Friday

I'm dead. And I died in the lamelest way possible, a single hit to the head with a shovel of all things. Yet I could still feel my head pounding. It hurt like hell.

I got up and looked around me. Wow...death is a real disappointment. I'm still in these stupid woods. I felt the back of my head, my hand came back with blood on it. I checked my pulse straight after. I felt the soft rhythmic beats of my heart beat. I was still alive. Surprisingly.

I winced at a sudden jolt of pain coming from my forehead. When I put my hand up to check it, I felt a gap between my skin. When my hand came back down, more blood could be seen on it.

"What the hell?"

When I looked around me, it was only trees. I wasn't locked up anymore and my captor was gone. Maybe they thought that I was dead after that blow to the head? I shook my head to clear my thoughts, which made my forehead hurt even more. Whether my captor thought I was dead or not, I needed to get out of this place. I could still live, I had a chance. Even though it's probably been 24 hours without food or water, I still had what? 2-4 days until I would die of it.

I looked around me and thought of what way to go. I looked up at the trees. Too bad they were too tall to climb. Then at least they could have come in use and I would have liked them a bit more.

I couldn't decide on a way to go so I closed my eyes and began spinning around while pointing my pointer finger in an unknown direction all while counting down from three. When I got to zero I stopped and opened my eyes before walking in that direction.

It didn't take me long to realize this wouldn't just take an hour. If I even was close to anyone, it would take me the whole day to get there. I tried to let my mind think about the better possibility, that I would get out of here. I thought about what I would do when I did. First, I would hug Collin and everyone else. Then I would tell everyone to start carving a weapon so we could fight against that person together. My weapon of choice would be a dagger so I could cut that basterds throat open. Then they can see how it feels to get a knife to the throat because by the way, it doesn't feel very good. My second option would be a shovel so I could hit them in the back of the head like they did to me. I would also make sure that they would suffer for Alli's death.

I began to run excitedly when I spotted water.

My shoulders dropped at the sight before me. A dirty swamp. I splashed my hand around in the water to clear the algae on top. I could see my reflection staring back at me. On my forehead, was what looked like the number eight, carved into my head. No wonder it hurts. That bastard carved an eight into my head. And it was deep too. That was gonna leave a scar.

I washed up my hands and forehead before getting up from the ground, deciding not to take any chances drinking the water and started to walk again.

I ignored the leaves that crunched ahead of me thinking it was a deer. I knew it wasn't a deer when I saw a person about thirty feet ahead of me. They looked at me straight in the face. I couldn't tell who it was. For all I knew, it could've been my captor. I quickly hid behind a tree and prayed that they wouldn't come near me. I heard the crunching leaves growing more distant, I saw the person start to run away. It looked like they might have been hurt since they were limping. I couldn't reason why they would be running away from me. Was I that scary looking right now? I mean, the magic water mirror didn't show me much on my looks recently. I probably did look pretty spooky though since I had an eight carved into my forehead and I was bleeding from the back of my head just a bit ago. But I couldn't tell if that person had been my captor or not. I don't think they were because why would they be running from me? It should've been the other way around in that case. They were too far away for me to make out anymore than their tan skin and black hoodie that scared me at first. I knew what skin color my captor was from seeing their bare hands on that shovel. That wasn't my captor. It must have been a camper or a random person. Maybe they could help me.

I was far too late when I tried to find them. For an injured leg, they could definitely run fast, unless they were hiding.

I carried on walking in the same direction watching as trees passed by. If I got a dollar for every tree I have seen so far I would be considerably wealthy enough to buy whatever I desired. Which would be a lot of manga. Too much for me to comprehend.

I started to lose hope and patience again after about two hours. Walking seemed pointless. I accepted my doom again.

I started to pick up pace when I remembered all the good that would come out of all this walking. My captor would be dead, I would get to go home and see my parents and my brother, and I would be able to see Collin again after all. I was most excited to see Collin since he was my best friend and cousin. He was one of the only people to ever actually understand me. So to see him again was like winning the lottery at this point.

I started to get really hungry. There weren't signs of any food near me though. I thought about eating my own flesh like I'd seen some people do in documentaries to survive but then again, that would only ruin my skin and it would never fill me up. I'm also scared that I might end up liking it. And I don't plan on being on my strange addiction after surviving all of this.

After all this is over I'll be known as Madi, the one who saved so many. I'll be a hero, and famous. Everyone will want to interview me and be my friend. I'll make sure everyone knows the person who wacked me with a shovel. I was sure about that one thing.