The Man in the woods

The Fall

After a week of sitting in bed, I was impatient to finally go out again.

My first venture outside was to go gather berries. It was risky, because "the bears could still get to you" (Drake's words, not mine.)

Honestly, I didn't think it was that big of a deal. But he treated it like it was an almost suicide mission.

"I'm a big girl," I had argued. "I can tie my own shoes and everything."

"Okay, be careful," he said. He almost looked like he was going to kiss me, but he gave me a nice hug instead.

After the hike to the bushes, I went to the blueberry bush he told me about.

He had also said that there was a poison berry bush right next to it.

He was going to be chopping wood, so he was extra careful describing the differences to me. He had said that he had just been there in the last week, and it was easy to tell the to bushes apart. The inside of the poison ones was red, the blue berries were blue, but the juices were both purple.

When I got to the bushes, I started to pick the blue berries, making sure I was picking off of the right bush. I was getting so thirsty. I decided I wanted to have one. It might help quench my thirst. As I lifted a berry to my mouth, I saw the skin was ripped a little bit.

I stopped my hand. The ripped skin wasn't what made me stop, it was that the inside was blood red.

I grabbed another berry off the same bush, and it was blue on the inside. Well that's strange, I thought. Maybe I had just picked it off the wrong bush.

As I went to picking berries, I started to notice that some of the skins were ripped.

As I looked closer, I noticed that some were red on the inside, and some were blue.

I stared at the basket. How many poisonous berries were in there? To many to count.

I started to try and sort them out, but I soon gave up out of frustration. Oh well, I thought. I'll just take them to Drake and tell him to be extra careful when eating them.

I walked back to the cabin wondering why the bush had been filled with both types of berries.

********************

On my way back to the cabin, I was to lost in my own thoughts to look where I was going.

Why had he sent me to the bush if he had been there only a week ago? Did he know that the bushes were grown together? Was he hoping that I would accidentally eat a poison berry, and die so that he wouldn't have to take care of me anymore?

I dismissed that thought immediately. It seemed like Drake had really cared about me. Hadn't he even seemed like he was going to kiss me?

I was so lost in my own thoughts, I didn't notice the ditch in front of me.

The plunge was so fast I didn't notice I was falling until I hit the ground. I had landed in a pile of leaves, so I didn't hurt myself to badly, but as I looked up the walls of the ravine, I knew it was to steep for me to climb up.

I was trapped.