The Trail of Mysteries

Chapter 7

The

Trail

of

Actions

Spirits high at finding a cleared path to follow, Ty had increased his pace. Not only did he feel the cleared trail had become fresher and easier to follow with every step, but the trees were beginning to thin out and the sky became more visible as well!

The time was a little after four o'clock in the afternoon Ty observed as he squinted at his watch stopping for a minute to wipe the sweat away with his arm. Feeling renewed at the amount of ground he had been able to cover in such a short amount of time, he was able to increase his pace to almost a jog.

Over felled trees and trodden brush, Ty moved for a good solid hour with the willpower of one leading the last leg of a marathon coming to the finish. He rounded a sharp curve in the trail concentrating on the possibilities of catching up with Liv when he abruptly sank up to his knees in a soft patch of damp leaves. His momentum pitched him forward and to the side, falling onto the side of a hole in the ground that measured at least twenty feet across!

Clinging to an exposed root which he now realized was a branch buried under several feet thick of dirt, detritus, and decayed leaf material, Ty looked down at the opening that loomed black and threatening beneath him. His adrenaline level spiked sharply as he felt the branch and surrounding ground shift under his weight! Testing the amount of strength of the branch to support his weight, he slowly pulled himself a foot up the side of the pit, barely managing a toe-hold in the loosely exposed undergrowth.

Hanging on the edge of the pit made the possibilities of Liv, in harm's way, seem much more real and dire. He needed to look all around the edge to see if he could find Liv's footprints. Going down into the musty, dank hole after his sister wasn't an idea he relished. However, he knew he would do whatever was necessary to find her.

He was her brother. They were family. That was enough to risk life and limb.

Slowly, Ty inched his way up to the rim and over the side to lay panting on his back staring up at the jungle canopy. He rested for a few minutes planning for this new obstacle in his path.

Rolling to his feet, Ty tested every few feet to see how soft the edges were, Ty slowly worked his way around the hole towards the far side directly across from the place where he had almost fallen through. His mood darkened as he reached the far side with no signs or footprints of Liv's possible survival.

Unwilling to accept his sister's apparent fate, Ty moved at a crawl along the other edge of the hole often stopping for a few seconds at a time scanning for anything that might give him hope. A large tree base directly in front of him, seemed to have sprouted directly through the ground without any roots. For the second time Ty's heart missed a beat. A long heavy branch hung about a foot over Ty's head to stretch across the midway point above the emptiness – a branch that an athlete could possibly jump to. Delicately sidestepping around the base of the tree rewarded him with what he was looking for – a set of deep sunken footprints!

Approximately three feet from the tree someone had jumped out of the tree and scored their heels about an inch into the softened earth and leaves. The two tracks then lead him around back the way he came but at a looping arc out and away from the hole. Then the prints turned southward again with more fresh evidence of trail-blazing.

Drawing in a deep breath, Ty set off south at a reckless pace trading pain for distance as he was constantly tripping and flailing through the jungle brush. If he could catch Liv before nightfall then all of their problems seemingly would be solved! If they could not find each other by the setting of the sun in a few hours, the chances would be bleak at best, since neither would risk a fire with at least one known terror lurking nearby.