First Impressions

Chapter Eight

"There She is! Come on Catch her"

As soon as I heard that I dragged my legs even faster, moving swiftly among the dense trees, staying away from the thorny bushes, preventing myself from tripping over the rocks. I moved across the endless creepy forest, with them trailing me from behind. I was feeling much exhausted after running for so long but was however compelled to run.
For my life.

After sprinting for about ten minutes or so I could no more hear their voices or even sense the sound of the footsteps from behind. Guess they lost track of me.The atmosphere was getting eerily darker now. Against the dark hazy sky, black branches writhed like the tendrils of a monstrous, unseen beast.

A snapping twig, a tumbled stone- something had caught my attention and I paused, turned and looked at the dark forest behind me.

There was not a single human as far as my eyes could perceive. The absent sounds of living creatures took me by wonder. The air was Chilly. I felt the tinge of claustrophobia surrounding me as I started walking again. The only sound I could hear now was of my own footsteps on the dry, dead forest leaves.

Just as I was walking ahead- to absolutely nowhere, taking baby steps as I did so, I heard some voice behind the tree in front and in no time the stout dark figure made its appearance, scaring me to death.
"Finally Caught you. Now where will you run" he grinned widely. Behind him the other man who was with him paced ahead, standing alongside him.
The look in their eyes made my blood run cold.

The stout man came ahead, closer to where I was standing. There was no one else in the forest who could save me right now.

The only person who could save me right now was ME.
As he came another foot ahead I gathered all my courage and lunged at him to kick his stomach. He held his stomach, groaning in the pain but that was for about a matter of a few seconds or so because after that he came closer to me again and pushed me back with his hand so that I may fall down on the forest floor.

But I didn't.

Well enough I was pushed back, and my feet had lost its grip from the ground, and I could sense myself almost falling but before that two tight arms gripped my waist from the behind. In a reflex the one who had gripped me threw a lump of mud from the forest floor right into the eyes of the stout man who had tried to push me. My hand was held and I was dragged away from the two scary men in front of me.

A guy was running ahead of me with his right hand firmly holding my left one. I tried to see his face but failed in my attempt to do so. We were still running past the gloomy forest, dodging dead branches and twigs, him a little ahead of me and the men probably behind us though I didn't turn back even once to check whether they were really behind us or not.

I was more curious to know who this man was. Just then a thought struck me. what if this guy's dangerous too?
But he had saved me from those men right?

I stopped in my tracks. I needed to know who he was first. But he, who probably didn't realize that I had stopped kept pulling me and I, as a result fell down on the ground screaming loudly.

Pain was searing through my legs.

I didn't know why but my vision began to blur.
I could see he had turned back hearing my scream but I, however couldn't see his face. I felt an unusual sense of dizziness pass through me. My head suddenly started spinning.

"What happened?" a faint, familiar voice was all I could hear. My eyes were burning and therefore I had to shut them involuntarily preventing me from seeing the face of my savior.
"Rhea!" I could feel his arms shaking me by the shoulder.
"Rhea. Get up Rhea. What happened?" this time the shaking was more felt.