Koral's Escape

Chapter 1

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked around for the water bottle that I had take with me. There wasn't a whole lot left, but I was going to need some if I was going to go on a two mile hike. Or at least I was going to after I figured out which was was northwest.

I didn't really know what I was going to do. I was a complete and utter mess. I wanted so bad to just get out of this hell and back to my car so that I could go home. But there would be no hope for Ryan if I did that. There also wouldn't be much hope for me, so that was just a lost cause.

I looked up into the sky and sighed. I wish there was so sign so I knew which was I should be heading.

I then saw the sun out of the corner of my right eye. No duh! Now I could tell which direction I needed to head. I was relieved that I finally knew the way I was supposed to be going, but at the same time scared out of my mind because I was not ready to go anywhere near this cabin that I was supposed to find. I didn't want to have to continue on following more clues and jumping through hoops to appease whoever it was that was doing this to me.

I was a not ready or prepared at all for what lied ahead. I was far from in shape. I was rather fat and never tried to work out at all. That was the reason we'd been so far behind on the hike. I'd have to catch my breath every five seconds or so because my lungs were tired from carrying all 180 lbs. of me in my 5'5" frame. It didn't work overly well. Besides that, I was just terrible at hiking in general. I just wasn't cut out for it. I didn't really know why, but that was just the case.

I took a deep breath and then started walking toward the northwest, which was foward and to my left at about a 45° angle or so.

I slowly, as was as quick as I could walk anyways, began heading in the direction of the cabin. I closed my eyes for a quick second and shook my head in frustration. What the hell had I done to get myself pulled into this situation? I wasn't a terrible person? Why me? Why not one of those other girls in our youth group? One of those girls who didn't care about anyone else but themselves?

I wiped a tear that had escaped from my eye off. I hated being in this situation. I wasn't not at all mentally, nor physically for that matter, prepared for this at all. I didn't do well with pressure, and I certainly didn't do well when death and someone that I loved and cared about was invovled as well.

I slowly began to compose myself and looked up toward the side and exhaled. "Lord, I'm sorry. I know I'm being a selfish little brat. I can't believe I was just trying to push this on one of those other girls for being selfish when that was in fact what I was being. Please forgive me.

"I'm just frustrated God. I don't want to be here right now. I want to be home. I want to be with Ryan so that I know that he's okay. Just keep me safe through this. Amen."

I whispered my prayer to God as I moved along toward the cabin. After I had finished a little bit of confidence and strenght had returned to me which I hadn't had originally when I had began this journey. I was just glad I was finally getting my head in the right place.

**********

I stopped for my tenth break in the last hour and cursed myself because of it. Why couldn't I go longer? I was so frustrated with myself. I knew being in such terrible shape was going to come back to haunt me one of these days. I shallowed some water down and then stood up to try to get going again.

I didn't know how far I'd gone, but I was definitely worried that I wasn't going to get there in time. Not only was I stopping often, but I was moving at a very slow pace between the breaks.

The sun beat down on me heating me up. It felt good, but yet at the same time it was getting to be too hot. Beads of sweat were all over my ugly freckled body.

I cursed for being so fat. It made me sweat more than a pig. I was certain I could fill up at least a gallon jug with all of the sweat that I'd produced within the last hour. It was ridiculous the amount of sweat that my body could emit.

During the first little bit of the hike I'd found a small path that I hoped led to the cabin. It went in the general direction of where the cabin should have been and was free from all the plants and shurbs that were always getting in my way when I went off the path.

The path was maybe as wide as my feet when they were pushed together, but not much more. It meant that I had to keep one foot in front of the other or one of my feet would end up off of the path if I tried to take too short of steps, even though that was the normal way that I walked.

My thighs rubbed up against each other and I felt a burning sensation. For some reason whenever I was sweating whenever my skin touched each other it created something like a rash as if I were allergic to my own sweat.

I winced in pain as I continued to push myself on. I pushed myself harder than ever not giving into the temptation to quit. I needed to make it there within the two hours. I needed to do it for Ryan if nothing else. I was his only chance of survival and I wasn't going to give up until I had saved him.

I stopped just long enough to take a drink of water and then started up again feeling the burning pain in my legs. It was a worse pain than I had ever felt before. It felt worse than just the soreness that I commonly felt from being so badly out of shape. It fel like it coming from something else. I didn't know what it was, but I wanted it to quite because it hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt before in my entire life.

I cursed in midst of my pain and then cursed myself again for cursing so much. I was pretty sure I'd cursed more in this one day than I had before in my life. It wasn't like me. Yeah, my tongue was known to slip and say some pretty bad things, but not this common nor this often. And not even as bad as I was saying right now. I was just a complete and utter mess in every way.

**********

I was still a ways off, but I could finally see the cabin. It had already been an hour and fifty minutes that I'd been walking. I was finally down to the last stretch, but I felt like I was going to collapse. I didn't know how I was going to be able to make it any farther. I was tired and borderline dehydrated, if not fully so.

I put one foot in front of the other trying to make it, but it was extremely hard. My legs felt like spaghetti flapping all over the place. They were past sore to the point where I thought they might fall off. I didn't want to be out here in this cursed wilderness. I wanted to be home, where I should be by now.

I persevered and made it to the cabin. I nearly colapsed as I grabbed the door handle to the cabin. My knees were shaking like crazy and I had to use the door handle to hold me up as I pulled the door and opened it up, revealing a plain cabin.

The place was nearly empty in fact, with the exception of a lone table and a lone chair.

I walked over to the table and found a letter with my name at the top.