Authors Note: For those whom have been waiting for this new chapter, you may want to go back and reread chapter one at the very least. It had an extreme make over last night. :D Chapters two and three were also edited.

Warnings: Implied abuse and rape toward secondary characters.

Italics denote thoughts

Day three was wet and cold. A steady rain had moved in a few hours before sunrise and thankfully, it wasn't anywhere near as heavy as the rain from the previous night. In fact, beneath my bush, I was comfortably dry, with only the occasional drops of rain reaching me here and there. Rather then getting up and moving as soon as the sun rose, I waited a while, hoping for the rain to fade. Unfortunately, sitting and waiting brought back the reminder that I hadn't eaten or drank in at least two full days.

Food and water... sound really good right about now.

The emotional exhaustion of day one, combined with the physical exhaustion of day two had my food reserves running on empty. Day three, for this hypoglycemic(1) twenty year old, was going to be full of shaking, headaches, slurred speech, and clumsy movements. If I wasn't careful, I would fall unconscious, and never wake up.

I waited beneath my bush for a few hours but the rain just kept falling harder, and thunder could be heard in the distance.

Great. Just what I need; another thunderstorm.

With nothing else to do but move forward and pray, I left my shelter and continued upstream, again. Today however, there were many more breaks, most of which consisted of sitting down with my head up and mouth open to catch raindrops. It wasn't enough, but it would have to do.

As the day moved on, the storm kept getting more and more severe. It was quickly becoming a powerful rival for the storm from the other night; lightening began to strike the trees and the rain fell in sheets. By midday I was forced to take shelter beneath a collection of small trees. I couldn't sleep, despite the fact that I was desperate too, so I prayed, watched the storm, and the whole five feet of my surroundings that I could see through the rain.

Fortunately, while I waited out the storm, my body calmed down a little; I wasn't shaking anywhere near as badly as I had been earlier in the day. The storm finally left late in the evening, uncovering the brilliant bright starlight of the non-light polluted sky. The beautiful light that had now emerged with the stars, made my surroundings semi-visible.

I was in a much less dense area of the forest. The bright starlight illuminated the wet leaves, and cast a shadow on the forest floor. With the storm gone, everything had become very quiet-only the occasional drip of water could be heard. Almost methodic in its falling, the drips of water slowly bade me to sleep.

An owl in the distance to my left...

Something small scurrying...

The occasional voice...

A voice? Bolting upright, eyes wide and searching, I cursed my traitorous pulse as it again filled my ears.

There it is again! Ahead of me, some distance away, was a voice! A human voice! There were people in this forest! That meant help! Food!

With a renewed burst of energy, I almost jogged towards the sound of the voices. As I proceeded, a faint fire light came into view, and the voices became louder, and my hope grew.

Finally! I can get back home!

I began to call out to them only a few hundred feet away, but stopped myself short when I had a relatively clear view of their camp-my heart fell.

Before me was indeed a beautiful fire, surrounded by people and food. But in the far corner of the camp, there were also people bound by chains and tied to the trees. Looking through the camp again with a more critical eye, I was dismayed to find abusive and promiscuous activities occurring around all of the eating and drinking. The longer I watched, the more disgusted and horrified I became, and I froze, not sure what to do next.

The instinctual part of me said, "Go dammit! You need food, shelter and water" but a more cautious side of me said, "Don't! It's not worth it". I battled with myself for sometime, unable to make a decision.

The decision was made for me.

One of the free individuals turned to the captives and chose a girl about my age from the group. My heart and gut clenched when I realized he intended to involve her in his activities. Turning away from the terrible site, I came upon the sickening realization that there was absolutely nothing I could do for the captives except pray-which at the moment, didn't feel like enough.

Trying in vain to block out the girl's cries of protest, I turned and quietly made my way back to my shelter- only to be startled out of my prayers and look back when someone from the camp called out in my direction. Someone had spotted me, and called out to me in a language that I did not understand-the language I realized, as my heart dropped, that they had been speaking the entire time.

Seeing a bright flash of silver, and hearing the angry shouts, I darted off in the direction I had come from. Extremely thankful the blessed starlight gave me just enough light to see by. Still clumsy and disoriented from the days prior, I made my way, tripping and falling, back to my shelter.

Behind me some of the men had followed, carrying with them torches and weapons. In my panicked state, my mind shut down and instinct took over.

I ran.

And ran, and ran, and ran.

I ran in strange patterns back into the darker part of the forest, and I didn't stop. I didn't even know where I was anymore. I just ran, even after the voices fell behind and faded away, even with all of the tripping and falling, I still continued to run. I was shaking violently, clammy, felt sick to my stomach, as the world swayed around me, but I could not stop. Something, something that defied all reason kept me moving forward and getting back up. It felt like forever, even with the strange blank moments in my mind, but I didn't stop moving. I walked, occasionally ran again, then walked, and did not stop.

My sense of time was entirely gone, my head hurt beyond belief, my limbs weak. Somewhere around me, sunlight penetrated through the trees. Stopping to evaluate my surroundings, I looked up from the ground I had watched religiously this past night, and felt my body freeze slightly and finally give in.

I couldn't handle it, I had absolutely nothing left. I couldn't even speak to whomever was in front of me, tell them to move the arrow.

I had reached my limit. With a frightening thought, I fell into unconsciousness.

This is it.

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(1)Hypoglycemia, to put it simply, is sort of the opposite of diabetes. Rather then having high blood sugar issues, the individual has low blood sugar issues.