Here is chapter two! Leave me a review and let me know your thoughts :)
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2)
Charlotte woke up for the first time in three days feeling well rested. Her first several nights out in the wild were not good. She jumped at every noise and found herself imagining all the things out there that could get her while the sun was away. Last night she must have passed out without a care in the world, truly exhausted from hiking through the woods. With her trusty phone Charlotte was able to track her progress. She was averaging about 12 miles of land covered a day. Today was the first morning where her muscles weren't screaming in protest at moving. The soreness in her back and legs had startled her the first morning. The young woman was no stranger to backpacking through the woods, but this was different. She was never this stiff the next morning. Setting off for her second day she quickly realized the issue; Charlotte was constantly ducking limbs and jumping over downed trees. Her adventures usually had nice clear trails that were easy to navigate unlike the rugged wilderness she found herself in. She had none of that here, and it was really starting to worry her. She had traveled almost 40 miles following a small creek, hoping to find anyone. But her hopes were starting to dwindle. Luckily the creek was getting larger and it would hopefully lead her to some sort of settlement. If history taught her anything, it's that people settle by water sources. This creek was her best hope to finding some answers, so Charlotte stuck to it like glue.
Sitting up and stretching her arms overhead, Charlotte started thinking back to the vivid dream she had last night. It was as if she was watching someone go about their daily life while walking alongside them. The main character was a man who was probably in his early 30s. He had dark shoulder length hair and piercing grey eyes. Not a model, but certainly handsome. His clothes were as strange as hers, reminding Charlotte of the renaissance festival she had visited as a kid. His weapons were absolutely historic too. A sword strapped to his waist and a long bow slung on his back. The stranger seemed to be walking through a woods just as she. Although his woods were a bit different than hers. All of the leaves were still green where this man was located. It had not yet started descending into autumn there. Her forest had to beginnings of changing leaves, just starting to turn to the red, yellows, and browns of fall. He seemed confident striding through the woods looking as if had been doing that for years. He probably had she realized belatedly. Charlotte had silently followed him through the woods while he seemed to be on constant alert. Not the constant alertness that kept Charlotte up at night, but the calm alertness of a practice soldier. He would certainly be able to take care of himself. She took notes on the way he walked, rolling his feet from heel to toe creating the least amount of noise as possible while keeping smooth even strides. Perhaps she should try to mimic that, instead of tromping through the wilderness like a rampaging rhino.
Shaking the dark hair man from her thoughts, Charlotte stood up and started going about her morning routine. She doubted that man was even real; he was probably a figment of her imagination. A thought she dreamt up because she wasn't use to going this long without human interaction of some kind. All alone out in the woods and it was starting become weary for Charlotte. With her face washed and hair pulled back into a single braid, Charlotte set off for the day.
Walking. Walking. And more walking. She was getting tired of walking. It was sometime past noon and Charlotte was starting to become hopeless. The cheery bubbling of the creek no longer lifted her spirits, in fact it had started to grate on her nerves. At this point everything was starting to become annoying. Charlotte knew slipping into a bad mood was not likely to help her situation, but she could not help it. She was tired, sore, in need of a bath, and desperate to talk to some other person. Charlotte didn't think it would be long until she started talking to the trees around her or to the birds perched on them. Shaking her head to clear her wondering thoughts, the woman stepped off again. Perhaps another hour of walking and then she would set up camp early.
12 days! She had been walking this god forsaken forest for 12 days! And still no sign of anyone! Where in the world could she be where there wasn't one single sign of a human being in the some 140 miles of hiking she had covered? She didn't find a single piece of trash in all of her time walking! It seemed impossible. That would never happen back home. She was starting to realize that she wasn't back home any more. With a large sigh, Charlotte sat down on a rock and decided to think about this more. She had always assumed that she was back in the midwest somewhere and still relatively close to civilization. She never even bothered to think about that maybe she was somewhere else because that would be absurd!
But maybe she needed to start thinking outside of the box a little bit. Charlotte had many pieces to this puzzle, she just needed to start putting it together. Her biggest hint was her clothing, she realized. If she was back home why in the world would she be dressed the way she was. The skirt and the blouse were in no way "normal" for 21st century America. On top of the weird clothes, her weapons were medieval too. She was a much better shot with a gun, why not give her one of those to defend herself with. Instead of twin long knives that she sort of knew how to handle. Maybe she had been sent to the past? That certainly would explain her clothes and weapons. It would also explain how she never had any cell service! She even detoured and climbed up a pretty steep hill to find some and had no luck.
Those were defintely concerns, but her biggest concern was her food. She had three days worth of food left. She was really going to have to start rationing. Charlotte had even skipped breakfast this morning to help save the little food she had left. If she didn't find someone soon, she would need to start finding ways to collect food in the wild. Not that she even knew what to look for. Charlotte would probably starve out here before the end of the month.
That thought was scary and Charlotte had refused to think about it before. But now it was very real and very terrifying. She hadn't let herself cry yet, knowing that it would not help her. But now she was unable to hold it back. Charlotte let herself cry for fear of never being found. For the very real possibility that she would never see her family again. Her mother was probably worried sick about where she was and her brother was probably seeping worse into his depression. They had already lost her father when Charlotte was in high school, but for her mother and brother to loose her as well. That was just totally unfair! Fate was a cruel mistress.
The strange woman had starred in his dreams again last night. He hadn't noticed her at first, but then he saw her hunched over on rock sobbing her heart out. Faramir hated to admit it, but she looked dreadful. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, her nose was running, her clothes were dirty and she had a few small twigs stuck in her hair. It had been a little over a week since he last saw her in his dreams and it looked like she still hadn't found what she was looking for. Faramir reckoned she was looking for people, as most young ladies didn't trek through the woods on their own.
He sat there and watched her for a long time. Finally she pulled out a small rectangle and slipped a white string into one of her ears. It was the same device she had strapped to her arm while she was running in the very first dream he saw her in. It was clear that she couldn't see him in this dream, so Faramir decided to get closer. When he was within a few feet of his mysterious woman he started hearing sounds, well music he thought. It was different than any music he had ever heard, but it was umistakidly music. The woman had a soft smile on her face and was starting to look a little bit better. She would be alright, he thought. Faramir just had a feeling that she would find what she was looking for soon.