Ensnared

Chapter One

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

-Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

The sounds of gun shots and blood-curdling screams woke me up in a shock. My sudden jolt of fear also woke Anndrea, my roommate. My heart raced as adrenaline pumped through my veins. Eyes wide and cautious, I leapt out of bed just in time. A burning arrow thudded into the backboard of the bed, precisely where my head would have been if I'd waited another millisecond to move.

Anndrea bounded out of bed and leapt to my side, clutching my arm to save her tired, limp body from falling to the ground. I could hear her heavy breathes rapidly getting faster as she saw the arrow that had impaled my bed. I looked around the room, searching for the culprit who had tried to kill me. The only people who were visibly present in the room were Anndrea and I. However, the dark figure standing merely ten metres away from my bedroom window could not be ignored.

The figure was wearing a long, black cloak which managed to mask its entire body and head. The figure was holding a bow and arrow by his side, which explained the arrow in my bed. The mysterious figure threw his bow and arrow to the ground, and pulled out a large, sharp hunting knife out of his coat pocket. My eyes widened and a gasp escaped my mouth. He took one small step towards my window, and suddenly the distance between us closed rapidly.

I scanned the room, searching desperately or an escape route. I pulled Anndrea to the ground without a second to lose and began to crawl quickly towards the closed door, which unfortunately happened to be right next to the open window in which the figure was still slowly stepping towards, dragging her behind me. I tried my best to crawl lower than the window, so that we could go undetected by the frightening knife holder. Once we reached the door I pulled Anndrea up off of her knees, ignoring her small cries of pain. The fact that she hadn't screamed out loud yet told me that she hadn't seen the figure slowly making its way towards us yet, which was a good thing. If she had have seen it, she'd be petrified with fear, and there would be no way of moving her frozen, horrified body.

I yanked the wooden door open and sprinted from the bedroom, through the pitch black lounge room, only just managing to not trip over anything, and towards the front door of the house. I gripped tighter onto Anndrea's arm as I flung open the door.

The gust of freezing, ferocious wind hit me the second I opened the creaky wooden door, my long hair blowing behind me in wavy currents, swaying in the wind. We ran from the front door, leaping across the balcony and jumping down a flight of stairs, four steps at a time. As we hit the bottom step, Anndrea's ankle suddenly gave way under her, pulling her towards the ground and landing her in a puddle of mud. A soft cry came from her chest, but she managed to pull herself up onto her knees and did her best to try and pull herself up.

I picked her up out of the cold, wet mud and began to pull her along into a sprint across the fields of knee high grass that surrounded my home, and made our way towards the surrounding forest of thousands of tress that seemed to provide a safe thought of haven that we could no doubt hide in. I looked back towards my home, to see that what once had been my beloved home, had now caved-in and ignited in bright bursts of flames. But beyond the flames of sorrow, a body appeared. It was him. He was still coming towards us, knife in hand. This time there was no stopping Anndrea from seeing him.

Her eyes went wide with horror and her mouth flung open. But before she went into total, complete shock mode I forced her to turn around and run, pushing her until her legs were pumping at full speed. Her ankle would have to be aching like hell right now, but she knew we couldn't stop running. We wouldn't stop running. Not ever. We finally reached the barricade of tall, dark trees that made up the boarder of the forest. Anndrea slowed down in front of me, her legs becoming obviously tired. I shoved her and encouraged her to keep running. I'd always been faster than her; running had been her weakness since the first grade. I dodged a wall of trees, stepping on small rocks, leaves and twigs with my sore, bare feet. I could smell moss and wet trees all around me, and the smell of a nearby fire. I wasn't sure whether it was the fire of our ignited home, or the fire coming from the chimney of a nearby house. The scent had a lavender hint to it, almost as though someone was burning lavender scented incense somewhere close. I could see smoke rising from a clearing a few hundred metres ahead of us, and pondered whether we would make it there in time to find help.