Native

Chapter 1~ Tucker

'Stay calm, stay calm Lorena... well that's just not going to work...'

The car was over heating, the windshield was cracked and the radio was going haywire. 'What just happened?' The girl took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes since her vision was blurred. She vaguely remembered her head banging against some part of the car, and now she had a pounding at the base of her skull and behind her eyes. She really had no idea what happened, the last thing she remembered was making a wrong turn down a dirt road that was extremely bumpy and then panicking when the head lights of her little Jeep started flickering. Not being able to determine what made her crash caused her more anxiety. No animals or humans could be seen lying on the ground anywhere, and absolutely no buildings were in sight. All she knew was that her control of the vehicle was lost at some point, and the rest was a blur.

Lorena opened her door and got out to look at her surroundings. She had been driving all night, returning from visiting a friend, and dawn was approaching. The natural light revealed a barren wasteland of dessert on one side of the road and on the other was a sparsely dispersed field of corn that looked like it had been baked twice and then roasted in an oven. Clearly it was not a well taken care of crop, which lead her to believe this was a road less traveled on. She looked at the road ahead, which extended for as far as she could see. Behind her, the direction she thought she had come from, was nothing but more dry and dusty land, not at all what she remembered going through.

She sighed deeply and looked at her cell phone.  No service bars, 50% battery.  She immediately tried an emergency number, but not even that would dial through.  She tried again three more times before throwing her phone in the passenger seat and huffing with impatience.  She had extra clothes with her and even a few snacks for the drive home, so she thought that waiting until someone drove by would be best.  So she waited.  And waited.  And waited.

 The sun was high in the sky, the dusty wind was whipping around, the corn was about to turn into popcorn, and she was baking inside the car.  Sitting outside the car was no better, the heat was just exhausting.  She honked the horn, tried calling the emergency number numerous times, and even yelled out but her voice didn't carry very far.

 It was at this point; hungry, sweaty and sleepy, that she really started to panic.  Her stomach was in knots and there was no calming her thoughts.  What in the world had happened?  She couldn't come up with an answer.  Finally her frustration got the better of her.  She took a small swig of her water that was half way gone, put her sunglasses on, filled her purse with her snack bars and set off to somewhere different than where she had sat all day.  She didn't know where she was going, she just went and went and went as far as her feet would carry her.

 Dusk was approaching,  The heat had finally broken off and a cool wind blew about the land.  The sweat on Lorena was now chilling her and she quickly dried off with the jacket that protected her head from the heat, then wrapped it around her to protect her from the cold.  She looked to her right and saw barren land.  To the left, barren land, but also, a black dot about 400 yards out that stood motionless.  Lorena squinted to make out its shape, but it just seemed like a lump of wood.  Or maybe it was a sleeping animal that she dared not to wake.  But she figured if she was going to run into any animals she would have already.  She had been in this godforsaken place for almost 12 hours, and her mental state was less than prudent at this point.  So she started walking towards the object, then she yelled at it.

"Hey! Hello?! Can you hear me??"  She yelled as loud as she could,  No movement.  So she started running towards it all the while yelling at it like she had just found salvation.

When she closed on it, she realized it was not a lump of wood but a lump of human.  A bonded human at that, and she slowed down her pace.  It was man, slumped over in the stocks but still breathing.  She slowly approached him and gave him a slight nudge, but he didn't move.