Ava staggered through the forest, her hair filled with twigs and leaves, her legs like lead.
She was tired. Her movement had been reduced to a slow crawl. She felt as if somebody had stuck a tapper right into her and gradually drained her of all energy.
She had run at first. Sprinted, in fact.
When she first heard it she had been swallowed by fear and excitement. She had rushed off into the woods. She was so filled with emotion, with desperation and eagerness, that she had forgotten to even tell anybody.
Stupid, stupid, Ava thought, cursing her reckless action.
She stumbled past a collapsed tree, felled in some long-forgotten storm. The harsh transitions between each season had stripped away its bark, leaving a smooth and twisted shape. Dry branches reached out from the log, like outstretched arms.
Like bones. Like a skeletal creature, snatching at her.
Leaves crunched underfoot. Something scuttled through the leaf litter, snaking over her foot. She cried out and shook her leg, sending a centipede flying into the mulch.
Birdsong came in lulls and bursts, swells of scattered tweeting in the canopy far above Ava's head. She felt like the birds - the jays, the little finches, the mockingbirds - she felt like they were looking down on her, mocking the girl who had lost herself in the forest.
She wished that she hadn't been so rash.
She could barely contain her excitement and terror when she heard it.
Ava, somebody said, Ava, help me.
She had spun in a circle, eyes wide, searching her surroundings. But nobody was talking to her. Nobody had called out to her.
Somebody was speaking inside her mind.
Ava, they said again, help me, please!
Then, with an electric moment of shock, a sudden inhalation, she realized - it was Adrian!
Somehow, he was communicating with her. Had he developed telepathy? How was he in her mind? Where was he?
But all of those questions were transient - momentary moths in the radiation of the sun. They vanished before she could consider them. Because Adrian was begging for help. He was in trouble.
Where? Ava thought desperately, confused, wondering if he could hear her.
Where are you? she thought into her own mind, unsure if her brother could even understand.
There was a tense moment of silence. She felt overcharged with stress, straining to listen for any sign, any indication that Adrian had heard her.
Then - a reply.
I'm in the forest.
Help.
I don't know where.
Help.
By a big rock.
Psi-band going off.
I feel sick.
Feel like I'm gonna die.
Help.
Help.
And then she ran, sprinting straight into the depths of the forest.
How long ago was that? She couldn't be sure. She had searched through the forest, looking for her lost brother, until she had lost herself.
Ava called out in her mind, called out in real life. There was no answer.
She forced herself to keep walking forward. A breeze poured through the trees, an arctic draught that chilled her to her very bones.
And she cried as the cold wind blew.
***
Hope you're enjoying the story! Please check out my other story, Survival Zone, which I'm now updating constantly. What do you think will happen next?