SCARS (NaNoWriMo2015, LGBT)

Chapter 1

A/N: possible trigger warning in the first chapter for an attempted sexual assault.
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How long had she been walking? Beth's mind was foggy from lack of food, but it had been at least one day. Or was it two? Her stomach growled and she paused to survey her surroundings for a possible food source. If only she had paid closer attention during her wilderness survival lessons at summer camp as a child, maybe she would know which plants would be poisonous, and which would be safe to eat. Then again, these were not the woods back home. There was no way of knowing what might be edible, Beth had no idea where she even was.

The last thing she remembered was sitting down on the plane. Her seatmate had struggled to stuff an oversized carry on into the overhead bin, and she grimaced at the eye level view of the sweat-stained armpits of his white shirt. Beth pushed her backpack under the seat in front of her with her feet and turned her attention out the window to watch the suitcases being loaded onto the plane instead. The workers tossed the suitcases easily in an effort to load the plane as fast as possible, and she made a mental note never to pack anything fragile inside her suitcase from that day on. How long ago was that day?

The next thing she knew she was waking up in a steep ditch with a gash in her right leg and a throbbing left shoulder. The rest of Beth's body ached from what she could only assume was the fall. Her first thought was to check the time, but both her watch and phone were nowhere to be found. Beth grasped at her pockets only to discover that she was wearing black sweatpants and a black tank top -- a far cry from the yellow sundress she had been wearing at the airport. What was going on?

Without a sense of time, Beth struggled for what felt like hours to pull her battered body up the steep slope of the ditch. Twice, she had slipped on the slick black mud of the banks and landed back down in the shallow puddle at the bottom on the ditch. When she finally emerged victorious on dry flat land, Beth collapsed once again from exhaustion. She awoke as the sun was beginning to set and started her search for help that had lasted most of the night and the following day.

"I guess that makes it two days, then..." Beth said aloud to nobody in particular. She had always had a habit of talking to herself, but it did not seem so crazy now given her current situation.

Night would fall again soon. If Beth had known how scarcely she would come across water, she would have been more inclined to stay inside the muddy ditch. Whatever rainfall had occurred to slicken the banks, had since dried up in the heat from the daytime sun, but at least the mud that had been caked on her back had protected her exposed shoulder from what otherwise would have been a nasty sunburn. Beth looked forward to the cool escape of sundown. If she could not find help, then at least she could cover more ground without the need to rest in whatever shade she came across.

It had been midway through the day when Beth finally reached the chain link fence topped with razor wire. She assumed that following it would eventually lead her to civilization, but yet the hours dragged on. Beth hesitated at the thought of who would own such a fence, but her initial trepidation wore off as the hours wore on; she just wanted to be found. Her stomach twisted in a knot as it occurred to her that she did not know which side of the fence she was currently on -- was it meant to keep people out? Or keep her in?

A rustling sound in the nearby tree line soon pushed aside all questions in her head. A mountain lion?! Between the large brown cat approaching from her left and the fence to her right, Beth's decision was an easy one to make. She scaled the fence in a surge of adrenaline, ignoring the way the razor wire tore at her flesh, and landed with a hard thud on the other side. The cat pressed its massive body against the chain link, so Beth scrambled to her feet and ran with the last bit of strength she had left. By the time she had stopped, the fence was far from sight and night was quickly settling in.