Survival of the Fittest

Chapter Seven

“Does anyone know exactly how long we’ve been walking?” Niall complained. “Oh Niall, buff up” Rachel laughed. I have to admit I agreed with Niall, it didn’t seem like we were making any progress and we have been walking for hours. The forest seemed to be never ending and I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to find a way out of it. What if beyond this forest something worse awaits us? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was; this place has proved to be very dangerous.

                We continued to hike through the woods but you could see that everyone was getting very tired and we were all heavily sweating. “I have to stop and sit down” Kate said between breaths. “I agree, I think we should all sit down and take a break”  Zayn added as he dropped the bag he was carrying and sat down. “Do we have any water left?” Kate asked hopefully. “No, we drank it all on the way here” Harry sighed. “Well we need to find more water soon or we’re going to get dehydrated”  I said as I plopped myself on the ground unzipping my sweater and taking it off. Harry, who was standing beside me, put his bag down and began to stretch his back. I was looking around at everyone, when I noticed Ivy was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Ivy?” I asked out loud. Everyone began to look around confused. “She was just with us” Liam said puzzled. “She probably couldn’t stand being near me” Louis said with a defeated expression on his face. “Don’t blame yourself Louis, that probably isn’t the reason, maybe she just got lost and took a wrong turn” Kate said trying to keep positive.

                “Well we should stay he—“ Liam was cut off by a loud scream. “IVY!” Louis screamed, there was no answer, but another scream emerged and we all jumped up and began to run towards the noise. We frantically pushed through shrubs and broke branches as we ran through the trees. We finally stopped when we reached a ravine. I had to stop very abruptly or I would have fallen over the edge. “IVY!” Louis called again. There was no answer or scream this time. The panic in his face was unbearable to watch, I felt so bad.

“GUYS!  Is that Ivy over there?” Rachel cried pointing to a girl who was passed out on a rock in the ravine. “That’s Ivy!” Louis said about to jump in. “LOUIS DONT” Harry yelled as he put his hand out and pulled Louis away from the edge. “You can’t just jump in Louis, you could get hurt, you don’t know how deep it is, there has to be another way to get to her” Liam said. We were pretty high up from the ravine below; we were basically standing on a cliff. None of us were smart enough to grab a supply bag when we ran over here so we had no rope or any supplies that could be helpful to us. “I’ll go back and get the bags” Niall offered as he turned to walk away. “No Niall, we are not splitting up, we don’t know where we are right now and we don’t need to lose each other in the forest.” Liam affirmed. “Well we can’t just stay here and watch her lay on that rock, there is no way for us to get down there safely without the rope from our supply packs” Niall argued. Another good point made by Niall, there was no way of reaching Ivy unless we jumped down, and that was in no way safe.

I put my hands in my pockets in hope I would find an answer in them. There was no rope, but I did find a roll of red sewing thread. I don’t know why this was in my pocket, but it could prove to be useful. I had an idea, “Guys, why don’t we split into two groups? Some of us can stay here so we can watch over Ivy and make sure she stays on that rock and the other half can take this thread and make a path so you know your way back” I suggested. Liam didn’t seem too fond of the idea but he agreed with it anyways, we didn’t really have any other choices. “Well I’m staying” Louis said as he took a seat by a tree. “All right, I’ll go, who else is joining me?” Niall asked. Rachel, Liam and Zayn volunteered to join him. “Okay but be careful and make sure you unwind the thread as you go, we ran in a straight line so it shouldn’t be too hard to find our stuff” I said while passing the thread over to Niall. “Yes m’am” Niall laughed as they walked away unwinding the thread as they went.