Chapter 1
~X~
I shivered as I felt a small breeze drift over my arms. Without opening my eyes, I reached out next to me to pull the blankets up more. Instead of soft, cotton blankets, all I felt was itchy grass and hard soil.
Confused, I slowly sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Opening them, I looked around me to find myself in the middle of a forest.
"What...?" I asked no one in particular.
Why was I in a forest? Had I been kidnapped?! At this, I abruptly stood up. I noticed that I still had my pjs on. A pair of my old gym shorts and an oversized black Aeropostale t-shirt I had gotten from my dad. I sighed in relief.
'At least I hadn't been raped. Yet,' I shivered at that thought.
'Please tell me I'm not in some kind of real life hunger games,' I pleaded silently.
First thing's first, get to higher ground. In all the movies I've seen, everyone always stays on the ground and that makes it so much easier to get themselves killed. So unlike them, I will be up in a tree. I walked around a little bit in an attempt to find a really tall tree.
I grinned when after only a couple of seconds, okay actually 2 minutes, I found one that was both tall and looked sturdy enough to hold my weight. I walked up to the tree and began to climb it. Or at least I tried to.
I had never climbed a tree before, so this was seriously tricky. I huffed in frustration as I fell back onto the ground for what felt like the umpteenth time.
"Are you fucking kidding me?! Trees are supposed to have those foot hole thingies that make it easier to climb! Why the fuck don't you have it, huh?!" I screamed at the tree as I kicked it.
I fell to the ground in pain and clutched my aching foot. Maybe kicking a tree while bare footed wasn't the best idea. As I lay there, shriveled up in pain, I failed to notice the quiet hissing sound being made behind me.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" A voice hissed out.
I froze. Rolling over onto my other side, I lifted my head up to see a VERY large snake head staring out at me from where the rest of its body was hidden behind a cluster of trees. Slowly, I sat up to my knees. The snake cocked its head as it watched my movements.
"I can ssssmell the fear radiating off of you, little girl. And my, doessss it ssssmell wonderful," the snake hissed out as a forked tongue whipped out of his mouth several times.
"I-I'm pretty sure what you're smelling is just piss," I commented shakily before standing up and high tailing it out of there.
Of course, I didn't get very far before I heard the snake slithering quickly behind me. I screamed as I felt a rush of wind lash out at me before I ducked out of the way only to find the snake with his teeth latched onto the tree bark in front of me.
I screamed again as it gave me a side glance filled with hunger. Turning around, I ran faster than I ever did in gym class. Which mind you, is pretty fast for me considering that I just usually walk. Behind me, I heard a ripping sound which I assumed was the snake ripping his teeth from the bark before I heard him behind me again.
"You can run, but you can't hide!" The snake called out at me accompanied by a crazed laugh.
"N-Not a chance you crazy asshole!" I cried out in a breathless voice.
I could almost feel my legs turning into jello as I kept running. And I'm pretty sure that the snake could see it too. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, signaling that he was catching up to me.
The trees in front of me thinned out some and before I knew it, the snake had me cornered on a cliff.
"There'ssss no where to run, little girl," the snake hissed out as he slither up to me.
He grinned maliciously, showing off his many pointy teeth. Ok, I admit it. I peed a little bit. I backed up every second he slithered closer to me. Eventually, I was at the very edge of the cliff.
I turned my head a little bit to look down. What greeted me was the rushing and raging waters of a river. I turned my head back around to find the snake right in front of me with its mouth wide open, ready to devour me. That's all it took for me to jump off the cliff to my less painful death.