Alone and afraid

Chapter 2. Follow the white rabbit

After falling down the mountain for about a minute, Kay landed on a pile of snow, Kay got up and looked around to see that she was alone in a forest. Kay then looked up to see the mountain that she fell from.

"That's one hell of a fall I took." Kay said to herself as she stood up..

Kay pulled out her phone to call for help, but to her horror, she saw that her phone had no internet connection. But Kay still had the emergency survival kit with her, and so she opened the lid and pulled out the compass that was inside. Immediately, the needle on the compass pointed east, and so Kay began to follow where the compass indicated.

After a while of walking past trees, Kay began to feel uneasy. It felt like somebody was watching her. Kay turned around and saw a little white rabbit. The strangest thing about it was that the rabbit wasn't afraid of Kay as it hopped towards her.

"Hi there, little fella." Kay spoke to the rabbit in a soft, non-threatening tone so she wouldn't scare the rabbit.

Kay crouched down to the rabbit's level, but as she went over to pet the rabbit, Kay saw something that unnerved her. The rabbit's eyes weren't normal; the eyes looked way too human for a rabbit, and the eyes were a burning orange color.

Kay got up when she heard a growling sound. Kay turned around and saw, to her horror, that it was a wolf. The wolf rushed up towards her, knocked her down, and began to attack her!

"Agh! Help!" Kay cried out as the wolf was now trying to bite her neck.

But as Kay thought she was going to die, she realized that the emergency survival kit had the pocket knife inside the container. Kay pulled the knife out of the container and plunged the knife into the wolf's chest. But instead of the wolf crying out in pain, the wolf stopped attacking Kay and walked off calmly.

Kay got up and saw something that dumbfounded her; instead of seeing a trail of blood, there was a trail of jet black ink. Kay looked down at the knife she used to stab the wolf and saw the same black ink on the blade. Kay carefully wiped the ink off the blade and got some ink on her fingers.

"It smells like vinegar and formaldehyde." Kay said to herself, confused and disgusted as she smelled the ink that covered her fingers on her left hand.

But then she felt an intense burning pain in her fingers. Kay plunged her left hand into the snow, which numbed the pain. After a few seconds, Kay lifted her hand out of the snow and saw that her fingers had turned red and began to blister as if she had poured drain cleaner onto her hand.

Kay used her right hand to open the emergency survival kit and grabbed a tube of burn cream and bandages. Kay covered her left hand in burn cream and wrapped up the hand. But Kay then began to wonder why not only the wolf bled ink, but why did the ink give her chemical burns?

Kay knew that the closest thing to ink giving people chemical burns were the black henna tattoos that some people receive, but she was still dumbfounded by how the ink burned her. But as Kay was alone in her thoughts, Kay realized that she still had the flare gun. Kay pulled out the flare gun from the emergency survival kit, loaded a flare into the gun, aimed it up into the air, and pulled the trigger. The flare shot out of the gun and flew into the air while emitting a red glow. The flare landed a few yards from Kay's position.

"I need to save up these flares." Kay said as she put the flare back into the emergency survival kit and sealed the container.

Kay continued going east with the help of her compass, but she continued to follow where the compass indicated. A snowflake landed on her compass; unaware of her, a snowstorm was beginning to form.

Back at the Sensha-Dō field, everyone was getting ready to find Kay just as the snow storm was forming. It was clear that it was going to be nearly impossible to find Kay during the snow storm. The Saunders girls, especially Nonna, were concerned for Kay's safety.

"We can't leave Kay out there." Nonna said as she took a sip of hot chocolate.

"We'll go look for her ourselves." Darjeeling replied, "I'll be taking charge. I'll get Oarai and Anzio to help us; you and Katyusha can plan on something."

Darjeeling got up and went to find Anchovy, the leader of the Anzio team. Darjeeling then grabbed a phone and called Miho, the commander of the Anglerfish Team, and Erwin, the commander of the Hippo Team.
Later on, the girls were standing by a table, looking at a map of the area.

"That's where Kay fell." Nonna said as she pointed to the edge of the mountain, where Nonna had crashed into Kay's tank and made her fall down the mountain.

"We don't know where Kay went, but my best guess is that she either went north or east." Darjeeling said as she looked at the map.

The girls knew that if they went to find Kay, they would have to power through the cold. They also knew that the search and rescue mission was a race against time; they had to find Kay before something bad would happen to her.

After an hour of planning, the girls set off to find Kay. The Anglerfish Team and Hippo Team separated from Darjeeling and Anchovy and went north to find Kay; Darjeeling, the Anzio girls, and the Pravda girls went east to go find her.

"Kay should be here," Miho said.

"Me and Yukari will try to find Kay ourselves," Erwin said.

"Alright, but take this rope." Miho told Erwin and Yukari as she gave them both the rope, and the two of them set off to find Kay.