CYOA Page 181
Sep. 12th, 2013 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12You spend a minute trying to psych yourself up for the jump.
NOT a jump -- a drop, you correct your thoughts. The lower your feet are to start with, the better chance you have of not hurting yourself... ...right? I can't like... roll into the fall to absorb the impact this way, though. But it's not all that far... maybe that won't matter. If I fucking JUMP, I'll probably break a bunch of bones and shit. YOU CAN DO THIS, ELLIE!
When you feel properly psyched -- or as psyched as you're going to get, anyway -- you carefully climb out the window, swing your body around, and extend yourself as far down as you can. Holding on to the windowsill is kind of hard -- painful, even -- yet you can't seem to make yourself let go.
You better just fucking DO IT before someone comes along and SEES you! ...okay... do it, and do NOT fucking scream...
You let go, biting your lip in case a scream wants to fly out.
You land on your feet, just... not exactly... you can't stay on your feet, as the force of the fall knocks you over and--
OWWW!
You must have broken something in your right foot, and you scraped your left hand on something, but you're okay. As in, nowhere near dead or paralyzed!
You have no idea which way to go. You can get your bearings from the sun, but you were unconscious when they brought you here, and you have no idea how far they took you. You could be miles away from Joel! And you're too scared to call for him. How dumb would that be... escape only to call out for my kidnappers to come find me?!
You can't even fucking walk on your stupid foot. You want to just grit your teeth and bear the pain until you can get a fair distance away or find a decent place to hide, but you can't. Like, your foot just will not cooperate. You hop along on your other foot, dragging the gimpy one, but this isn't sustainable -- it's too exhausting! And you feel too dizzy--
You drop to your knees and try crawling instead. This is going to seriously fuck up your already-distressed jeans, but so be it -- you can do it. You still feel dizzy, though. Dizzy and... kind of groggy, actually. Like you could just curl up in a ball and sleep right now.
Except your stupid foot is throbbing, pumping pain up your leg. ...Sorry, foot... you're not stupid, I know it's not your fault... sorry I sacrificed you to get away...
But could you just fucking STOP HURTING!
Your face, too. Your head... wrists... stomach... okay, so at least my stomach feels better! You stop to rest when you're far enough into the woods behind the house that you feel safe doing so. You chose this direction because you didn't want to crawl over pavement, and it seemed like it would be easier to avoid people in the woods than on city streets. Although you wonder now... would it have been better to hole up in a nearby house? No one would know to look for you there. If they come looking for you out here, though...
You don't rest for long. Fear of discovery keeps you moving. The farther away the better... the farther away the better, you chant to yourself. After a while, your mind numbs out the pain and even the fear.
When it's just about completely dark and you've encountered neither your kidnappers nor Joel, you start thinking about maybe finding a place to just chill for a while. And chill you will... you're fucking freezing! Not literally... it's summer, after all... but with the sun going down, and your sweat only serving to make you colder, you're shivering.
The best you can come up with is a very 'busy' patch of land where you can hide in between a bush and a rock, beneath a tree. It feels good to stop, although your foot still hurts like a bitch. You take your shoe off and expect to feel a little relief... if you do feel any, it's negligible. You feel exhausted, but even if you could manage to fall asleep, you don't know that you want to. If someone comes, you need to be ready to either move or defend yourself -- or, ideally, call out because it's Joel!
I'm sorry, Joel... you must be so worried about me... especially if you haven't found the house yet! Maybe he would take comfort in the fact that you got away. He'd have to, right? Joel, I need you to tell me what to do again!
You're worried about him, too. If he does find the house, what then? These guys seemed like... professional kidnapper hunters, not just regular asshole hunters. They must have planned the whole thing. When to snatch you, where to take you... the reverse-locking door, the bindings, even the fucking bandana...
You don't know how long you've been sitting there when you hear a gunshot in the distance.
Joel!
Re-energized, you scramble out of your hiding spot, jerking your foot so severely that the pain freezes you for a moment... and shit, I'm still dizzy? ...but you get underway, with a faster pace than before. -More gunshots! HURRY--
It's pretty dark, but the moon helps you out enough -- after all, you're not tearing through the woods; you're only crawling along like a baby. Or a cripple...
...What if I'm doing permanent damage to my foot? What if I can never walk on it again?
You can't think about that right now. Or if you do have thoughts like that pop in your head that refuse to be ignored, you need to just remind yourself that you're going to find Joel, and then the two of you are going to get the fuck out of here and go to a hospital, where they will fix your foot.
You've ripped some ginormous holes in your poor old jeans by now, and your knees are protesting every 'step' forward, but you push yourself. You're still too scared to call out for Joel until you have more information about the source of those gunshots, though. And the surroundings, like how many hunters...
The gunfire has stopped. You want to believe that's a good thing. But you won't know until--
"Ellie!"
Oh my God YESSSS! He's far away, but if you can hear him... "Joel! Joel, over here!" you yell as loud as you can. "Can you hear me?!" You wait a beat...
"I hear you -- keep yellin'!"
You stop moving forward, because what's the point? Joel is going to cover much more ground than you are in less than half the time, and all you have to do is shout every so often until he can pinpoint your location. In addition to just calling his name, you ask him if he's okay, and he says he is, and he asks you, and you say you are, too, because you're alive and not seriously injured and so soooo happy right now!
"Joel! I can see your flashlight now! You're almost here!" You're so happy you could just cry -- but you won't. You didn't before, and you're not going to now. You won't be able to see him through that harsh, blinding light, but he's about to finally reach you!
When you hear his footsteps, and the circle of light is so close that you know he's immediately behind it, you smile in relief. "What took you so long?" you tease him.
"Are you hurt? You said you were okay..." He closes the gap between you quickly.
"I am okay, if you look at the big picture, but uh... yeah, my foot is broken, I think. I can't walk on it." He crouches to give you a hug, and you throw your arms around his neck. "I'm so glad you're okay! ...right? I can't really see you that good..."
"Just some bumps'n'bruises. Nothin' serious." He pulls back and shines the light in your face, making you squeeze your eyes shut. "What happened to your face?"
Oh yeah... almost forgot about that! "Nothing. It's my foot that's bad... I jumped out the window, Joel. Not jumped, exactly, but dropped, you know? And I landed on it funny. You saw the house, right? I was afraid I was going to break all my bones or something--"
"You jumped out the window?" he marvels.
"Dropped!"
He shines the light on your socked foot, which looks bigger than it did before. "It's swellin' up pretty good. Where's your shoe?"
"...Uh... fuck, I must've left it -- I took it off when I was resting... it's not real far away, I bet we could find it. But I don't think I could fit it back on there."
"No, but eventually you'll need it. None o' them hunters are your size," he quips.
"Did you kill them all? Did you find out what they were gonna do with me? I never knew. How many were there? I heard their voices but I know I didn't see them all, only--"
"Easy, easy... one question at a time. ...You don't look so good."
"My knees are only bloodied up from the crawling, after I ripped more holes--"
"No, you don't look so good. You're sweaty... shiverin'... hard to tell your skin color in this light, but you're clammy... cold..."
"Well, it's cold out here," you reason. ...isn't it?
"I think you're in shock."
"Maybe right after it happened, but it's been a while now."
"Shock can take a while to set in sometimes."
Then you realize he's talking about a physical reaction in your body, not just like... surprise. Ha! "I thought that only happened with serious injuries."
He chuckles. "What would you call breakin' bones? Minor?"
"Kinda... yeah? I'm not bleeding out, or having major organ failure--"
"It's still somethin' very wrong, inside... an' your body knows it. Here, put your arms around my neck again--"
"You don't have to carry me. If you can just help me stand--"
"Put your goddamn arms around me," he growls (affectionately).
You oblige him. "Okay, but... I can walk if you'd just be my crutch."
He ignores your self-assessment and hoists you up in his arms like a baby (except with a little more difficulty, because you're pretty heavy). He starts walking. "The horses are right down here an' you'll ride with me. No arguments."
You don't care to argue that! "What about my shoe?"
"We'll come back for it tomorrow. We can stay in one of the houses here for the night. I'll see what I can do about your foot. Wish the hospital was a little closer."
"We should be there at like... midday tomorrow, right?"
"That was the original plan. But we lost the whole afternoon to--"
"Oh yeah, huh." Duh! "So... tomorrow night?"
"I hope so."
You don't get the whole story out of him until much later, when you're settled in a house several blocks away from your 'prison', cozy in front of a warm, friendly fireplace. (You didn't want Joel to bother with a fire, but he insisted on it to help warm you up, and you're glad he did, because now you're roasting delicious squirrel meat for dinner.) He tells you how he tracked your kidnappers' footsteps as far as he could, until the rain made it impossible, and then he just kept going in that direction until he reached this little cluster of houses... town... whatever the fuck it is. Then it took him a while to find the right place... and when he did, he wasn't sure at first, he just knew it was occupied and he was going to search it. Get you out if he found you.
He didn't have to overhear a lot of conversation to know that he'd found the right place... then he started stealth-killing while he searched. Which worked fine, until it didn't -- someone discovered him, and the shots started flying. He actually did get grazed by a bullet -- so much for being fine! -- but he insists it's 'nothing.' A flesh wound. ...on his thigh, though, which must have fucking hurt... yet still he carried you. Awww!
"When I found that room... an' you weren't there..."
You can hear the shuddering in his voice. "You saw... what, the chair?"
"Yeah. I was hopin' you got away, but then I thought maybe I got there too late an' they moved you already."
"Moved me where? Did you hear what they were gonna do with me? Cuz they never said."
"Not... exactly. No, they didn't say."
...He knows. His expression didn't change much, but you know he knows something. "You got some idea, though. I can tell."
"...Well, it was nothin' good. I knew they weren't just takin' you to some lovin' family who jus' so happens to want to adopt a teenage girl."
You almost laugh at that. "I see your point." You tell him everything, too... everything you can remember, anyway. And you omit the part about the guy hitting you after you screamed, because that would only anger him needlessly, and... it's kind of embarrassing, for some reason? He's not dumb; he knows your face didn't bruise itself. He just doesn't need to hear about it. "I guess you didn't hear when I yelled. Or you would've known you weren't too late."
"You yelled... in the house?"
"Yeah, for the two seconds I wasn't gagged. I was hoping you were close enough." In retrospect, you realize he probably would've had to be super close to even hear you, and if he was already that close, he was going to figure out on his own that these assholes were the ones that took you -- from that point, there were only so many places you could be.
"You didn't yell in the woods, though. Before. I would've heard that."
"When they took me, you mean?"
"Yeah."
"No... they knocked me out too quick. Or maybe it was just one guy. I have no idea. All I remember is... an arm. Reaching around." Which is weird, because if they clobbered you on the head from behind, would you have even seen that much of them? "I think they... maybe held a rag up to my face?"
"I didn't notice a bump on your head -- maybe they drugged you. That could give you a headache, too." He looks pained. "I am so... so sorry, Ellie."
You're surprised... but you shouldn't be. "Why? It wasn't your fault."
"It was. I wasn't watchin' closely enough to--"
"I was peeing!" ...among other things! "What the fuck do you think you were supposed to do? And it was right after you asked if I was okay. I do remember that much."
"I waited too long to ask again. I even had a gut feelin'... thought I was bein' paranoid. Talked myself out of checkin' on you for a few more minutes. Precious minutes... minutes of a head start they got that I could've prevented if--"
"Joel, shut up, okay? You found me. And I'm fine."
"You ain't fine."
"I'm fine!" you insist. "My foot doesn't even hurt as bad now since you fixed it up. And I'm not shocked anymore. Right? You said I look better." You feel better, too. He doesn't answer you, though, so you continue with the verbal comfort. "Things could've been a lot worse. It's over now. We're okay."
He seems satisfied with that... but then glances at you uneasily. "They didn't... hurt you, then. Other than... not after..."
You know what he's asking. "No. They didn't," you reassure him.
He gives you a searching look... like he thinks you might lie about that?
"I swear," you add, meeting his gaze.
"Thank God for that." He stares into the fire, looking pensive.
WOULD I lie about that? you wonder. It would only hurt him. And what good would it do? Well, we'll never have to find out if I would or wouldn't! Enough thinking about that. You pull your squirrel stick out and examine it. "I think it's done."
Joel does the same. "Yep."
It'll be another minute before you can take a bite, though (and you've cultivated a little patience in this area). "So... from now on, are you going to chaperone my bathroom breaks?" you ask lightly.
"Yep," he repeats, chuckling. "I don't think that I could... not do that, after..."
"Okay. I get it."
"I'll turn away, though. I ain't gonna watch you."
"I figured." The listening might be a little embarrassing, but... how different can it be from home? You won't have a door between you, is all. "Can I chaperone yours too?" you tease.
"Of course. We need to stick closer to each other in general," he replies, unteasingly.
"Oh. Right. Yeah... well, nothing else can go wrong on this trip, right?"
He just gives you a Look.
It makes you giggle, just a little. "Forget I said that." You blow on your squirrel and decide it's cooled off enough to eat.
"You still don't gotta go?"
"Nope."
"Prob'ly the shock... all the sweatin'... an' you still haven't drank that much. Drink a little extra tonight, will you?"
"Yes, sir."
You don't realize it yet, but you're going to be very glad that Joel's nearby when you relieve yourself, because you've developed quite the phobia about peeing alone. Hopefully that doesn't last forever!
If you'd like to start another adventure, return to page 1.
Carlos
Date: 2020-06-10 01:43 pm (UTC)Re: Carlos
Date: 2020-06-11 02:10 am (UTC)Thanks for continuing to read :D