Chapter 2

The trees were huge and most of them formed canopies that blocked out the sun during the day and the moon at night. There was undergrowth too, flowers of all kinds. The scenery was so captivating, one could literarily spend a lifetime doing nothing but admiring it. There were many Fir and Cedar trees all around. Black cherry, Beech, Elm, and sycamore were all around too. The flowers were countless as they were beautiful and their beauty would rival Snow White in all her elegance. To say this forest was cut out of utopia would be an understatement. The colors all fell in line as though rhythmically. Sheila had gone on taking a picture every here and there. She was so engrossed and her excitement knew no bounds. She had felt alive in the cold that would have numbed anyone else. She would scream at the sight of a flower she hadn't noticed before taking a picture of it, taking care to make it as beautiful as she could.

Sheila had gone on and on for a long while before her flashlight began to flick and dim. Then, she saw for the first time, the pitch darkness she was in. She would have screamed her voice hoarse if there wasn't an ounce of the excitement she had felt before in her but there was and she kept her breath steady and tried to find her way back. The moon was obstructed by the trees and she had a hard time finding where she had trampled on. To make matters worse, the flashlight seemed to have run out of battery life completely. And so in the darkness, Sheila began to prod about in a bid to find a way out. At this point, she was beginning to be afraid, terrified even. Should she find the waterfall and perhaps misjudge its position, might she not find herself tumbling headlong into the bottomless pit below - she thought. With every passing moment, her fear doubled, no, quadrupled. She turned at the sound of breaking branches and a car came smashing through the forest. It was headed right for her. She was so afraid she couldn't move. As she blinked in fear, she found that there was no car, she had been imagining it.

She had to find her way out as soon as possible. There was no guaranteeing what could go wrong in the vastness of the woods. She could trip and fall off the edge of a ravine. She could be found by some dangerous hikers and a lot could happen. She could be attacked by a wild animal. She could go by lots and lots of means. She pulled her scarf around her neck as the cold set in. She was beginning to feel her senses getting number and dumber. She strode through the shrubs staggeringly. She got a scratch here and there and her legs were bruised. She began to curse the adrenaline that had pushed her to one to conquer the forest in the first place. Then she cursed the trees for obscuring the sun. She blamed the flashlight too, mumbling and grumbling to the woods. As if in response, she heard a creak somewhere. She turned around sharply but there was no one, just her. Figuring it was probably her mind playing tricks on her again, she turned in the direction that seemed to her to lead back home and she began to saunter on.

“Sheila darling, how are y...?” Camelia stopped short at the emptiness of the room. The bed was ruffled, evidently slept in. The window was closed and the room was warm. Sheila's night clothes were still in their place. She must have slept in the afternoon and probably she snuck out when the diner had been fully occupied - Camelia concluded. The thought that Sheila might have snuck out amused her but she kept that as a working theory, she would have to examine that later. For now, she had to be sure Sheila wasn’t in any kind of danger because it wasn’t like her to sneak out. Getting her phone, she dialed Sheila but she got no response and that got her worried. She thought about what to do. She couldn’t call for help if she wasn’t sure. If it turned out that her ward had gone out on her own, she would have been the lady that shouted wolf. So she called Eva and they met in the diner. They got jackets and flashlights. They would check the forest first while making sure they didn't go too far. If they don't find her, then they would put a call across to the police station.

The creature stood upon the tree branch and watched the two groups. One had two people and the other consisted of a lone ‘wolf’. The creature as though having a mind of its own watched them take completely separate routes and it snarled in celebration. Food would be plentiful for it to feed on. It was winter but it didn't hibernate yet, it was still roaming free. Its fur had the same grizzly appearance as every other grizzly bear. It had seen Sheila lost, tired, and afraid going deeper and deeper into the forest and it had seen Eva and Camelia headed out of the woods after searching around for a while. It had settled for the easy prey. It would hunt Sheila down. As the grizzly bear climbed down the tree, a wound in his side scraped the tree and it almost went insane. It clawed at the tree, pain evident in its eyes. The wound was a bullet wound, one probably left there by a careless poacher. After the bear had settled down, it raised its head and sniffed. It turned about the spot for a while before stopping probably after finding what it was it had been searching for; Sheila's scent. It trudged in the direction she had gone stopping once in a while to sniff and check if it still had the scent.

The man at the counter looked at the two women for a long while. He wore a smirk on his face and looked upon them condescendingly. Eva was the patient type and she stood with her eyes showing none of the eager expectations of an answer that Camelia wore.

“So tell me again madam, what did you think happened to your friend?” he asked facing Eva.

Camelia turned red as she realized the patronage of the cop but she kept mute. Eva told him again what had happened in the afternoon before and Camelia’s deductions from the state of Sheila’s room.

“So you think she might be lost in the woods based on someone's speculations, right?”

At this point, Camelia couldn't take it anymore. She rapped the table for attention. “I'm the missing girl’s wa...”

“And why do you think she's missing, she could be with a boyfriend having fun at the moment.”

It was Eva that answered him this time as she saw that Camelia was becoming red in the face with each passing moment. “She doesn't have any.”

The man doubled over at Eva’s words. “Every teenager that old has one,” he said, still laughing hilariously as though Eva had just told a very funny joke. Even Eva was slightly irritated. She looked the man over and thought the title of the janitor befitting of him compared to his present position.

Looking from Eva to Camelia, the man saw that Eva was serious. He sucked up his laughter and took down some notes. After a couple of minutes, he redirected the duo to another agent. The man, Jacob Books was tall and handsome. He had a disarming smile and he was blonde. He gave off the vibe of someone who knew exactly what he was doing. He also seemed like someone humorous and yet serious. Eva found herself lost in his eyes the instant they were introduced.

“This is agent Jacob Books. Tell him all he needs to know and he’ll be able to get a solution to your problem,” the man at the counter had said before heading back to his post. Camelia watched him go in disgust. The mere sight of him made her want to puke. She turned in time for the introduction and she saw the look in Eva’s eyes as she shook hands with the agent. After the introduction, the man took down more notes. He called a few people and thanked Camelia profusely for her intuition and speedy response to the issue. The prospect of kidnapping was then eliminated and a search party was organized. The woods would be ransacked.

Sheila went on trudging through the forest. She didn't notice the flowers not the trees anymore. She had left her jacket and her bones were frostbitten. She had hallucinated a couple more times since she continued to walk or so she thought. She had imagined hearing voices that sounded like Eva’s and Camelia’s in the distance. She had heard them coming closer but she couldn't call out to them. She was so cold, she couldn't speak above a whisper. She had heard them leave and she had assumed she was hallucinating. As she walked on, her senses still numbed from the cold, she heard the sound of creaking trees, breaking twigs, and snapping branches. She thought she was hallucinating as she had for the car so she didn't wait or turn, she kept on her journey. As she walked on, the grizzly bear came charging toward her through the trees. At first, she held her ground, completely convinced it was unreal until one of the broken twigs came flying and fell against her face. She ran just in time as the bear sent his claws flying dangerously near her throat.

Sheila stood transfixed for a moment. She had to think as fast as she could. What did she know about bears? - she thought. She didn't even know bears attacked humans unprovoked. Perhaps she had done something to upset it or maybe she was at its spot for hibernation. She saw the gaping wound by its side and she got a pretty clear image of what would happen if she didn't make up her mind in time. Its eyes were bloodshot and extremely scary. Turning so swiftly the bear was impressed, she showed the bear her tail lights. Seeing a challenge, the bear set its head down and began the chase.

Sheila ran until her spit became as cold as water left on a windowsill in Russia. The bear had not been slowed down by its size or her speed it was catching up to Sheila. As Sheila came near the waterfall, the noise nearly deafening her, she turned just in time to see another creature attack the beast. She kept her speed and ran off. The new predator had bought her time. She hadn't seen the new predator but it had been huge and with the way it had joined the fight, it was agile and fast. She didn't have any strength left in her legs and she was hyperventilating. If the new creature happened to win the battle and decided to give her a chase, she might not be able to hold out as she had done with the bear. Despite being extremely fatigued, Sheila pushed herself onward. She couldn't afford to die, not now that she was ready to have fun. Not now that she was beginning to heal. Not now that she was ready to leave the past to the past. She ran on till her lungs seemed to be on the brink of collapsing. She rested her back on a tree and tried to catch her breath. She should be out of the danger area - she thought. She had been running for a long while without stopping. In an actual sense though, she had only been running for a while but her fatigue must have caused her to overestimate the distance.