| I blacked out I guess. Luckily I ended up floating on my back so I didn�t drown before strong yet exhausted and worn out arms took me along with their owner to the shore. Brad caught up to me. When he did I wasn�t responding by then and he freaked out. He pushed me along. Adrenaline kicked in I guess. He even was swimming faster than when he was just following me. Finally we came to the shore. He must have seen the light I had. It was the campfire of some hikers a little ways into the woods. There was a hiking trail that was long and hard that they were following and it happened to go by the same lake we had come to. He pulled himself and me out at a place where there was some semblance of a trail to where the fire was. He paused for a moment. He checked and found that I had a pulse. He also felt my breath on his hand as he put it in front of my face. Then he picked up my limp but still alive body over his shoulder. Then he began to walk. Before he got us to the fire the water we were soaked in began to freeze and crystallize on our clothes and bodies. When we came into sight of the hikers, they were very scared. They thought we were ghosts of the hikers rumored to have died during the winter along the trail that they were traveling. Their friends had scared them and told them the story earlier that night around the campfire. While they still were in that state of shock, he managed to get relatively close. But then he was able to gently put me down right before he collapsed. The hikers realized we weren�t ghosts and quickly acted to save our lives. They took our frozen clothes off and got us wrapped up in blankets by the fire. They built it up so it was even warmer. Suddenly I awoke. I almost screamed. Here I was, I only had blankets wrapped around me. I didn�t know where I was. The last thing I remembered was my escape in the dark cold water, then only blackness. Also there also was those eyes, burned on my memory forever, no matter how hard I ever tried they would never go away. They even now haunt me still. I begin to shiver a little bit. I hear a soft and gentle voice. �Look, I think she might be awake now.� I turn around. Sitting there is a young woman seemingly in her twenties. She�s sitting by this man in his twenties probably. It seems like that they are married or at least boyfriend/girlfriend. �I don�t truly believe it. I was almost sure at first that she was dead.� I sit there staring at them. My mind is slow to think of words and my mouth is even slower to speak. I try to stop shaking but it doesn�t work very well. �Who-o are y-you?� I choke out somehow through frozen lips. Trembling I also manage to say, �A-and wh-wh-what am I doing here?� I shiver even more as a chill goes down my spine. At least this is better than the island, by a whole lot. I remember a light while swimming and I think it might have been this campfire. I stare into it� �Well you�re here because your friend or whoever he is brought you here. Beyond that I have no idea. But your first question I can answer with ease. I am Brittany and this is Bill my fianc�. We came up camping up here with another couple. We�re trying to de-stress before our wedding next month. Guess that�s not happening now.� My friend� my brain registers that and I look to my right, Brad �s there wrapped up in blankets just like I am. His face looks pale, but then again, it always looks that way. He groans. My heart leaps to my throat. I lightly rest my hand on his cheek. To my surprise it feels very warm, especially since my hand is cold, but not the ice it was before. As I lean over to look a little closer at him, he opens his eyes slowly. Surprised at me, he softly curses. Later he told me that he thought at first that this was the afterlife and I was welcoming him to it, he feared we both had died. �Thanks.� I manage to choke it out without my voice wavering too much. �You saved my life,� I pause, �All of you saved my life. You didn�t have to, and I don�t really deserve to live but you did anyway. Thanks.� Suddenly Brad gently grabs me and pulls me into a hug. We let the tears flow freely as we sit there not caring about anything else. My face soon becomes as wet as it was in the water. Life is so unfair and it really seems that way to me now. The moment lasts forever it seems, yet it�s not long enough. If only, I thought, this bliss could never end. Even as I thought that I knew it was impossible. A twig snapped in the woods. Suddenly we were rudely jerked back to where we were. Brittany had dried our clothes out and they were now dry. She handed them back to us. We put them pack on but still were huddled in the blankets. My memory was growing less fuzzy, clearer. Mike, the Island, the football game so long ago, they all flow back in. The game seems so distant, yet I know it hasn�t even been a week yet. The horror floods back into my brain. I shake uncontrollable. Softy, unintentionally I mutter, �We don�t want anything to happen to Brittany and Bill, it wouldn�t be fair.� To my surprise Brad agreed. �We need to get out of here, away from you-know-who and yet I�d feel guilty just leaving Jeff and Amy out there with him�� Brittany interrupts him, �Okay, now that both of you seem to be awake and look much healthier than you were when you came here, will you please explain to us why you�re here, coming out of the shadows like spirits in the cold dark night?� Brad takes a deep breath. �Yeah I will,� he answers before giving a shortened version of our story, from that football game until the present. As he tells it, the fear in Brittany and Bill�s eyes increases and is visually present. �Wow,� Bill comments. Otherwise we�re all silent. The silence is awkward, but not as bas as before, Brad�s grave mood where he wouldn�t speak. �I don�t know how we can help you out.� The silence comes again once Bill�s voice is stopped. The silence is broken by the lonely call of a wolf in the distance, or maybe a loon I�m not too sure. I yawn without even really thinking about it. �I guess I�m not the only one who�s exhausted now,� Brad says, �But there�s good reason to be exhausted.� Brittany says, �I wish we had more for you to use, but the blankets you�re huddled in are all we have aside from enough sleeping bags for one to a person of those of us that started out on this hike. At least there is the fire still. You can soak up the last warmth it�ll give.� I hadn�t noticed how tired I was until now. Everything starts to fade, but not suddenly. Comfortingly the shadows come and take me away from this world to the happy land of dreams. This time I know I will wake up, unlike in the water not too long ago� Much later I wake up and realized that it was at least morning, the sun was blinding me. I guess when I had fallen asleep, someone, probably Brad, had laid my head down on the pack that was sitting near the fire. There wasn�t much in it, I think it was the bags from the tents that were set up a little ways away. Over by them there�s a group of people sitting there. The fire is nothing but blackened ashes now, a very small reminder of what it was that saved our lives. �Wake up you sleepy-head. You�ll waste the day away!� Brad calls joyfully from the group as he turns around and notices I�ve sat up now. �We started breakfast already, come and join us! It�s yummy but plain oatmeal. But even though it�s tasteless it�s quite filling.� I yawn and get up and walk over there. Brittany smiles and hands me a bowl full of it. �Eat up!� I smile back, surprised that I am, I haven�t truly smiled in oh so long. I sit down by Brad and begin to eat. It�s very satisfying and I have another helping. I�m actually hungry and in amazement that I am. I haven�t been in so long. I haven�t eaten much lately. Breakfast I eat enough to get by but it doesn�t amount to much. Lunch I choke down enough so that the people at my table don�t get worried about me. Gosh, when was the last time I had a real meal� Oh yeah Thursday night. Then Friday I had a sandwich for dinner, not much. Then Friday night into Saturday they were driving us up here and all we had were a few candy bars. Then Sunday morning they gave us granola bars, we didn�t stop for lunch and at dinner it�s not like I was able to eat. Actually I shouldn�t be too surprised that I am hungry after all. Besides the fact I haven�t really eaten in such a long time I also have a renewed desire to live now it seems. I yearn to feed myself well, to take care of myself. I haven�t for a while though, I was somewhat getting back into the whole let me punish myself, I�m so rotten, and don�t deserve to be happy mood again lately. That�s why I had started to hurt myself. I was punishing myself over heartache and pain I suffered because of Him. That retarded bastard. The one person in the world I�ve ever truly hated. The reason why Mike is ten times scarier to me than he might have been if not for� the fact that he reminds me so much of Him, Michael. Both of them have taken away from me something I can never get back. However, what sickens me the most is that I�d let Him do it willingly. Their stupid piercing blue eyes, I�ll forever be tortured by the look of them. I fear that even other blue eyes not the same will trigger memories of horrid awful things for years to come if I live that long. At least Mike has black hair. Blacker than the night, raven black it is. He�s different. I hated Mike even before he did that to me. With Mike I had no ability to have stopped it, none other than to maybe get myself killed. With Michael though I had a choice. I made the worst decision of my life. The stupidest ever made. If only Carmel had never happened, I might actually have been happy before I was abducted� Maybe it would have been possible to have stopped Mike. If Amy had gone down there, if only Mike wasn�t so sick� Amy and Jeff were still there. I stop eating. There they are on The Island, with Tyler and Mike. I feel so guilty of my freedom over here. Safe as it seems at the moment, away from the terror of those blue eyes. Mike�s words come back to me, echoing in my mind, �You think you�ve escaped? Tomorrow I�ll come and get you both! It won�t be pretty. Better hope that you die from the cold first.� I�m not allowed much time to ponder those chilling words. Instead I drop my bowl and start to tremble. Across the clearing I see Mike, standing there. He has his gun drawn and looks ready to use it. Brad noticed my clumsiness and is about to tease me about it, then he looks where I can�t help but stare. He locks up and fear takes over us both. Brittany noticed all this and looked where our gaze was transfixed. She curses, �Uh-oh� Um� what should we do, Bill, what about our friends, new from last night and the ones we came out here with�� Her voice trails off and dies as she too is frozen in terror. Other friends� I realize I didn�t even look on the other side of the clearing, somewhat closer to where Mike is, yet not much more, more directly across from him. I turn back to what I am not able to keep my eyes off of for very long. I wished to whatever length it was possible that it wasn�t him. I wasn�t however. He is standing there, staring at me, trying to smoother me it seems with those eyes. Oh� �Come here. I guess my precious thought she could get away. He-he-he-ha! What a very slim chance there was in that. The other girl is nothing compared to you. She was more fun at first. But since she was new prey, unlike you once I broke her spirit, she was boring. See now, you have this fear ingrained deep within you already and it�s just surfacing again, after you repressed it for so long. It makes it so much easier and then it�s much more pleasurable.� His eyes are trying to look into mine and I turn away just enough so he can�t, yet I can still look at him� �When it was light out, I tied her up like her boyfriend. Then I put them in a canoe together. Tyler and I pushed it into the middle of the lake. Now their only chance to survive is through our canoe. Well, while I don�t have a problem with them drifting and dying in the middle of the lake, you do. And unless you�ve magically pulled a canoe out of somewhere that I have no idea about, the one that I came in is the only one for miles. I suppose that you could save them if you swam out there but I don�t think you could survive it again. Besides, I think I control you�� �Bastard.� I say it almost inaudibly to myself. But as I turn back around to face him, my eyes were screaming it out. I�m able to quell my shaking. I stand up. The tears streaming down my face now are blurring my vision to a sea of vague red shapes. Why can�t I escape? Am I doomed to be tortured by him and Him, both of them? Mike�s terror is only extreme because he is almost the same as the terror that ruled my life before I�d come here. I�ve tried to move on from that. Jeff�s helping or was when we�d talk so much online. Instant messenger is just so a wonder-drug to my situation. When I�d feel especially down he�d always find some way for me to snap out of it, he�d show me where I�d hidden the hope I�ve always had yet suppressed� I move in front of everyone else. The look on my face now is nearly entirely perfect hatred. Suddenly out of nowhere, out of the bushes to my side, Tyler jumps out. I�m so surprised that he grabs me and covers my eyes with a hood before I even realize he�s there. I hear yelling. Mike is going psycho I think. I lose count of how many shots are fired after ten. They all become a blur� |
| La Cartasis |
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