WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME

Chapter 6

Nyx's POV

I ran until my lungs felt like they were on fire and my legs shook with every step, but I couldn't stop because Mom's words kept echoing in my head like a broken record.

"Run, Nyx. They found us. They'll come back."

Who were they and why did they want to hurt us and why had Mom been so afraid all these years?

The diary felt heavy in my hands even though it couldn't weigh more than a pound, but it felt like I was carrying the weight of everything I didn't understand and everything I'd lost in one night.

I had nothing else with me because I'd run the moment Mom died, clutching only the diary she'd pressed into my hands and the clothes on my back.

No money, no phone, no food, no water and no plan except to get as far away as possible from whatever had killed my mother.

The streets blurred past me as I ran and I didn't stop to think about direction or destination because all that mattered was getting away from that house and away from the blood and away from whatever was hunting us.

By the time the sun started to rise I was somewhere on the outskirts of town where the houses got smaller and farther apart and the trees started to take over.

My dance shoes were already falling apart from running on pavement all night and my feet were covered in blisters, but I kept going because stopping felt like dying.

"Just a little farther," I whispered to myself, but my voice sounded strange and hoarse from all the crying I'd done while running.

I could see the forest ahead and something inside me told me that was where I needed to go, not on the roads where people could see me and where they might find me if they were looking.

Mom had said to go east and never north, so I tried to keep the rising sun on my right as I left the road and pushed into the trees.

The moment I stepped into the forest everything felt different and safer somehow, like the trees were hiding me from whatever was chasing us.

"Okay," I said to the empty woods. "Now what?"

I had no idea how to survive in the wilderness because the closest I'd ever come to camping was watching movies, but I couldn't go back to civilization and I couldn't stay in one place.

I had to keep moving east and hope I figured out how to stay alive along the way.

The first day was the hardest because everything still felt raw and impossible and I kept expecting to wake up from a nightmare and find Mom making breakfast in our kitchen like she did every morning.

But I didn't wake up and Mom wasn't making breakfast and I was stumbling through a forest I didn't recognize with nothing but a mysterious diary and the clothes on my back.

My stomach started cramping with hunger by midday and my mouth was so dry I could barely swallow, but I pushed deeper into the woods because being hungry was better than being dead.

That's when I heard it, the sound of water running over rocks somewhere ahead of me.

"Thank God," I whispered, and I followed the sound until I found a small stream cutting through the trees.

The water was clear and cold and when I cupped it in my hands and drank it tasted like the best thing I'd ever had in my life.

I drank until my stomach hurt and then I splashed water on my face and tried to wash some of the blood off my hands, Mom's blood that I'd been carrying with me all night.

The sight of it mixing with the clear water made me start crying again, but I couldn't afford to break down completely so I forced myself to stop.

"She told you to run," I said to my reflection in the water. "So run."

But first I needed to do something about my appearance because I looked like exactly what I was, a girl who'd fled from a crime scene covered in blood.

I stripped off my shirt and washed it in the stream as best I could, scrubbing at the stains until most of them came out and the fabric was soaking wet.

Then I washed my arms and face and hands until I felt cleaner, even though I was shivering from the cold water.

My dance shoes were completely destroyed so I kicked them off and went barefoot, which hurt at first but felt more natural as I got used to it.

I put my wet shirt back on and kept walking along the stream because water meant life and I had a feeling I was going to need all the help I could get.

The forest was full of sounds I didn't recognize, birds calling and leaves rustling and small animals moving through the underbrush, but none of it felt threatening.

If anything it felt like the woods were welcoming me and that was crazy because forests don't have feelings, but I couldn't shake the sense that I belonged here somehow.

As the day went on my hunger got worse until my stomach was cramping so badly I could barely walk straight, but I didn't know what was safe to eat and what might kill me.

That's when I saw the berry bushes growing near the stream, heavy with dark purple fruit that looked like blackberries.

I'd picked blackberries with Mom when I was little and these looked the same, so I risked eating a handful and they were sweet and juicy and helped with the hunger a little.

I ate as many as I could find and stuffed more into my pockets for later, then kept walking because I still didn't feel far enough away from home.

By evening I was exhausted and my feet were bleeding from walking barefoot on rocks and roots, but I'd made it through one day and that felt like a victory.

I found a big oak tree with branches low enough to climb and decided that sleeping off the ground would be safer than lying on the forest floor where anything could find me.

It took me three tries to get up into the tree because I'd never been much of a climber, but eventually I found a spot where two thick branches made a kind of cradle that I could lie in without falling.

It wasn't comfortable but it was better than being vulnerable on the ground, and I wrapped my arms around the diary and tried to sleep.

Every sound made me jump and I barely dozed all night, but when the sun came up I was still alive and still free and that had to count for something.

The second day started with more berries and stream water for breakfast, which wasn't much but it was better than nothing.

My wet shirt had dried overnight but it was stiff and uncomfortable, and walking barefoot was getting harder as my feet got more torn up.

But I kept going because what else was I going to do and because Mom had died to give me this chance to get away.

I followed the stream deeper into the forest and tried to stay aware of the sun's position so I could keep heading east like Mom had told me.

The trees were thicker here and older, with trunks so wide I couldn't wrap my arms around them and branches that blocked out most of the sky.

It felt like walking through a cathedral and I found myself speaking in whispers even when I was talking to myself.

"You can do this, Nyx," I said as I climbed over a fallen log. "One day at a time."

But the hunger was getting worse and berries weren't going to be enough to keep me going much longer.

I needed protein and I needed it soon or I was going to start getting weak and stupid.

That's when I saw the rabbit.

It was sitting by the stream drinking water and it was so focused on what it was doing that it didn't notice me until I was only a few feet away.

We stared at each other for a long moment and I felt terrible about what I was thinking, but I was desperate and it was just sitting there like it was waiting for me.

I'd never killed anything in my life but somehow I knew exactly what to do, like the knowledge was buried somewhere deep inside me and hunger had brought it to the surface.

I moved faster than I thought possible and my hands moved with a precision I didn't know I had and before I could think about it too much the rabbit was dead.

I stared down at it in my hands and felt sick and grateful and confused all at the same time.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to it. "But I need to eat."

Building a fire was harder because I'd never done it before, but I found some dry wood and used rocks to make sparks until I got a small flame going.

The meat didn't taste like much when I cooked it over the fire, but it filled the empty space in my stomach and gave me energy I hadn't had in days.

I ate every bit of it and felt stronger afterward, strong enough to keep walking for hours before I needed to rest again.

The third day was when I started to realize that something was different about me, something beyond just learning to survive in the woods.

My hearing was sharper and I could pick up sounds from farther away than should have been possible.

My sense of smell was stronger too and I could track the stream even when I couldn't see it just by following the scent of water and wet earth.

And my night vision was better, so much better that I could walk through the forest in almost complete darkness without tripping over roots or walking into trees.

"What's happening to me?" I asked the empty woods, but they didn't answer.