Escaping Trepidation
Chapter 1
Mr. Kidd showed no remorse towards the little girl with long black hair and brown eyes as he pushed her into the hole. She was too scared to run off or fight back, and even if she did not lack the courage, she had nowhere to go. They had abducted her while she was walking home from school and had dragged her to a foreign country where they had a hole dug in the middle of the wilderness. The hole was lined with wood, so she would not be sitting in the dirt, and it was small, barely large enough for her to fit.
"Don't even bother calling for help. There will be no one to hear you," Mr. Mcrae said.
Mr. Kidd chuckled while he threw a small water bottle at her. "Let's seal her up."
Mr. Mcrae nodded and picked up the wooden panel that would become her roof. The girl suddenly began to fidget when she learned what they were about to do. Her worst fears began to take over her mind and she wished that someone would help her. The only thing she did not have to worry about was suffocation; a metal breathing tube had been placed in the middle of the wooden door giving her enough air to survive.
The little girl's world became dark and she gained a sense of claustrophobia causing her to bang on the wood above her, screaming. She carried on for hours until she became too exhausted and began to cry silently to herself.
Miles away, the two kidnappers celebrated their success and began to carry out the second half of their dark plan.
Two Days Later
Emma took a deep breath and looked around. She was about 250 feet above the ground, or about halfway up the cliff. The morning air was cool against her skin and she was glad to be climbing once more. Two years ago, her mother had died after suffering a head injury from climbing and she had become afraid, even though climbing had been her greatest passion. Her friend Alison encouraged her to overcome her fear and after much consideration, she decided to spend her holiday in the Scottish Highlands with her friends, dragging Ed, her boyfriend, along as well.
He was a climber, much to her dismay, but he also told her to stop living in fear. "It's in your blood to be a mountaineer," he had told her. What happened to her mother was a fluke, and they helped realize that. "As long as I trust the people I climb with and we use proper equipment, I guess I will go climbing again," she said before deciding to go on the trip.
A bird flew overhead, cawing. "Is that a golden eagle?" Alison was holding Ed's camera following the bird with the lens. The three of them were waiting on a wide ledge while Rob climbed to their third belay point.
"I don't know. Maybe it's a buzzard or something." Ed really did not know his birds.
Emma squinted as she looked up at the sky, watching the bird fly gracefully away. "No, it's much too big to be a buzzard. Did you get a picture of it?" She leaned over Alison's shoulder.
"Barely."
"Let me see." Alison ran the playback on the camera. "Yeah, I think it was a golden eagle. He's massive."
"All right girls, enough with the bird. Throw the camera at the money."
Emma laughed, lightly. "Babe, I think we have plenty of pictures of you."
"Come on. I want people to see how high up we are. Just one more picture all right, and then I will put the camera away."
"Fine," Alison said, "if it gets you to stop pouting."
"I've told him dozens of times that he should be a male model since he loves himself and the camera." Emma chuckled. Ed always wanted attention and was the most photogenic person she had ever met.
"Shut up," Ed retorted, looking at the picture Alison had taken. Around his ankles, the yellow rope lay coiled. A hundred feet above him, Rob began to tug on the rope, and with a sudden hard tug, the rope tightened making Ed lose his balance. Before he could process what had happened, he was hanging upside down, his camera no longer in his hand. His head banged against the rock.
"Ahhh!" The next few seconds were long as his brain finally concluded what had transpired. It was then that Ed began to panic. Turning his head slightly to the right allowed him to see Alison and then Emma, who was dangling a few feet below her.
They had slipped as well, but unlike Ed, they were not upside down. Ed shifted his eyes and saw the ground below, making him gain a strong sense of vertigo. He usually did not have a fear of heights, but this time was an exception. He continued hollering at the top of his lungs in pure terror.
"Ed!" Alison yelled after her initial shock had subsided. Emma began to hyperventilate, tears streaming down her cheeks as she watched her boyfriend hang helplessly upside down. Her head hurt since Ed's camera hit her face when it fell towards the distant, but she ignored the pain.
"Alison, help me; it's not going to hold!" Ed tried to lift himself up. When he failed, his fear intensified, allowing him to become irrational. "Alison, please! The rope will not hold!" In his mind, he thought the rope would snap even though the rope was strong and properly supported.
Emma's thoughts strayed to her mother the longer she watched Ed, and she began to wish that she had never agreed to go climbing. Hanging off a cliff officially lost its appeal and she just wanted to finish the trip and leave. Another shout from Ed shook off her thoughts. "Ed, hold on! Rob get down here now!" Emma shouted. Her palms were sweaty and her stomach was tied in knots. In her head, she recited another prayer.
"Ed, just breathe. Ed, Ed, you have to listen to me. Just breathe." Alison coaxed as Rob began to descend.
"Ahhh!" Ed would not stop fussing as the long, tense, minutes passed. Several times he tried to lift himself up to grab the rope, but he never could. He needed help. "Rob, help me!"
"All right, all right, all right. Get your breath," Rob said when he was finally next to Ed. "Jesus Christ guys, what happened?"
"The rope caught on his foot." Alison said.
"All right. Let's get him up. Come on, get a hold of the rope and just breathe."
Emma embraced her boyfriend once they made it to the top of the cliff. "I thought I was going to lose you." Ed held her close and said nothing, still shook up. He was fortunate that he was not seriously injured or dead, but he was quite sore and his head throbbed. The three had managed to receive a few cuts and bruises from the jagged cliff that they had eventually conquered. They rested for a while to catch their breath and to allow their adrenaline to subside. It was late morning when they set off again through the rugged terrain of the mountain. Though it was tough to trudge through, it was still beautiful. The taller mountain peaks were covered in snow and the top was hidden due to the clouds. The grass was a little brown due to the lack of rain, but it was not a terrible scene to behold.
A few trees dotted the vast landscape. Only when they began to descend did they find more and more until they were in a forested part of the mountain. Most of the trees were pines, but there were a decent amount of spruce trees as well. They were all greener than the grass giving the area more color much like the wildflowers that grew around their trunks.
For hours, Ed moped about losing his camera. It was one of his passions and Emma told him that she would get him a new camera for his birthday, which was only a few weeks away.
During a short water break, Alison finally commented on their early morning mishap. "Hey, Ed, don't ever have a concentration lapse like that again. If you want to climb with me, you have to up your gameāok. Complacency is a killer out here." She was a very experienced climber, maybe more so than Rob, and she was picky about who she climbed with.
Emma became annoyed. All morning Ed would not stop talking about what happened and she did not like her friend harping on him, especially when it was not entirely his fault. "Just leave him alone, will ya."
"We got lucky, Emma. The three of us only got away with some cuts and bruises, but I do not want that to happen again." Alison dropped the conversation and walked away, taking the lead.
"Thanks Emma, but she's right." Taking the blame made him look pitiful with his sad blue eyes, the same blue eyes that make Emma melt each time she looked at them. She kissed her boyfriend before she followed Alison. "Remind me why we do this again?" Ed asked, softly.
"Because we don't surf," Rob said.
Once the rocky terrain subsided, they found the path that would lead them to their cottage where their friends Alex and Jenny waited and the real adventure would begin.
