Don't Go Into The Woods

Chapter 40

I opened my eyes to the sight of sunlight glistening through the holes in the bottom of the tree that I was hiding in and spent the night in. I sat up and peeked out through the holes, listening for any sudden noises. I heard nothing and saw nothing. Slowly and cautiously I climbed out from the safety of the tree. Stretching from my stiff sleep I had, I looked around. The woods were much brighter today than before when I was here the last time. I pulled out my cellphone from within my rug sack. Not only was the battery about to die, but I had no signal here anyway. I returned my cellphone back to my rug sack. I wondered if Carmen had alerted the school of my disappearance yet. Than again. Why should I even care? I didn't belong there and they would probably just try and force to stay there. I took in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. I was better off here.

Suddenly I was interrupted by the sound of leaves being shuffled in the tree above my head. Immediately I looked up to see who was making the noise. What I found was a rather large raptor looking bird. It looked like a red tail hawk. I was no bird expert, but my dad loved raptors. Red tailed hawks was one of his favorites by far. The raptor stared down directly at me. For a moment I thought it was actually staring directly into my soul. It was a little unnerving. Though I wasn't afraid of it. I stood there, staring back up at the raptor. It let out a loud cry before taking off into the air. Swooped down low, it shot pass me. I had to duck to avoid being hit by its talons. I looked up again to see the raptor flying off through the woods letting another cry. I doubt it wanted to hurt me, but I believed that it definitely wanted to attract my attention. The bird had certainly gotten it.

I don't know if I was going crazy here or if these woods were slowly starting to affect my brain and any form of sane thinking I had left, but I believed I had to follow that raptor.

I took off across the snow in the direction the raptor was going, using its cry as a way to follow it when I could not see it. It twisted and turned threw the trees so easily. It must have done this before. It must be an expert at this. I struggled to keep up, stumbling a few times and falling into the snow on my hands and knees. Each time I got back up and kept moving forward. I don't know what drove me to keep moving for. To keep going on. Somehow I just did. It felt like forever that I was running. Out breath and starting to feel sore from the countless tumbles, I started to slow down. I stumbled once more and landed hard in the snow. This time, I found it extremely hard to stand up again. I flopped over onto my back in the snow and sort of just laid there. My eyes staring aimlessly up at the trees above. The trees were so tall, barely any or glimpses of the sky above could be seen through the treetops. As I laid there, I wondered to myself where did the daylight in these woods come from if so little sun even penetrated the treetops. Somehow it did though.

I am not certain on how long I laid there for. It felt like hours. Then suddenly the red tail hawk appeared above me. It circled the air above. My eyes followed it going around and around. It seemed as though it had come back for me when it noticed I was no longer able to keep up with it. Did this raptor really want me to follow it? Where to? For how much longer? The cold was started to affect me poorly. I didn't even know how I made it through the night in this cold. I just did. Suddenly the raptor let out a loud cry. It woke my mind up from the trance which it had been in. The cry was followed by what I considered to be far more alarming to hear. A loud, heart pounding wolf's howl. They were coming! I had to get out of here! I staggered up to my feet and started to run again. The raptor lead the way. There was another wolf's cry. This time it sounded much closer. They were closing in on me. I tried to speed up, but the further I went, the thicker the snow became and the harder it became for me to run through it. The raptor let out another cry before disappearing amongst the trees. Was it going to just leave me here to be caught by the wolves? I climbed out of the snow after having my foot stepping into the snow deep. I took a step forward and suddenly the snow gave in beneath me and found myself falling down the side of what, I didn't know before till than, to be a hill of some sort. I tumbled and rolled down the side through the snow till coming to the bottom and landing in the snow with a thud. The wolf's cry in the distance became softer. Had I managed to evade them somehow? I could not dwell on that for too long as I heard a shuffle in the snow near me. When I looked up, I found this white hooded figure standing above me. I wanted to scream, but before I could do so, a long hand shot out from under the white cloak and placed itself firmly over my mouth to prevent me from making a sound. I tried to fight the being off. It was more agile than me. Probably because I was feeling so very exhausted due the cold. The figure kept its hold on my mouth while holding me down in the snow by my right shoulder with the other hand. Than suddenly I heard the familiar voice.