Cardboard mattresses

[chapter 5]

The low humm was such an incredible noise, June had to slap herself to be sure she wasn't hallucinating. She slowly dragged her sorry body up out of the sand, holding onto a large rock for support as her knees threatened to give way beneath her.
"Motherfucker" she groaned as her leg brushed against the rock ripping at the edges of a nasty gash and reopening it, the warm crimson liquid spilling down her skin and she cried out in pain. A tear involuntarily fell and dripped onto the dirt below her feet.

June hadn't realised how grateful she was to have her cargo boots on, she highly doubted she'd have gotten so far barefoot but then again, when scared the body can do some pretty mad shit.

Pulling herself back up again she hobbled carefully in the direction that the plane was travelling in.

It was an excruciating walk, she had to count in her head the steps as she took them,

One,
Two,
One,
Two,

Over and over for at least a couple of hours. The other thing besides the excruciating pain that burst inside her like a bomb every time she moved was the cold. The wind had began to pick up, swirling around her half naked body, her skin turning red and blue. But if there's one thing that you have to learn about Juniper is that she's the most determined motherfucker you'll ever meet.

She breathed slowly, in and out. She'd read an article once about a man who was able to regulate his body temperature just by breathing and mind control which she'd found wildly impressive that someone can have such a good grip on the inner workings of their mind, the opposite of her, she'd spent most of her life trying to escape her mind.
In this moment though she wished so badly that she'd somehow mastered this technique too.

Pretending to be this man she, continued on, breathing slowly in and out and in her best British accent narrated her very slow voyage as if she was David Attenborough. "The wild Juniper makes her way along the banks of this random river" she said "her body pushed to all limits and her mind on the very fucking edge" she cursed suddenly as a red hot spike of pain dissipated through her body, she felt like screaming, but right now she needed to find out where that plane had landed and if perhaps it was in a place with food or even just a roof at this point would be lovely, the other reason she didn't scream was because she was absolutely terrified that that man had followed her and was just metres away from grabbing her helpless body and finishing what he'd clearly wanted to do.

Even though the plane brought a sparkle of hope to the girl she definitely hadn't forgotten what had happened last time she discovered shelter, quickly shoving this thought to the dusty back corners of her mind she contained on.

Suddenly almost out of nowhere a large structure poked its head out of the tree line, June started to shake with relief, oh my god, shelter. this shelter at least looked a hell of a lot less dodgy.

Somehow she plucked up the strength to speed up, now grabbing onto railings, she could see a road looping round the trees and into the facility. And the thing she was happiest about was that it looked quiet, unlike what she'd immediately expected a warehouse to be like, she couldn't see anyone. The jet that she had seen those hours ago was parked on the lawn.

Very carefully June slipped in between the railings. Immediately feeling much safer. There was no way in hell that man could fit through these bars she thought to herself, a smile almost appeared on her face but she quickly beat it away.

Assessing the building she stuck to the hedge line in order to avoid any unwanted attention, which in her books was all attention. Her plan was simple, sneak in, get food, maybe clothes or at least something to keep her a bit warmer and asses the situation inside. At least in her mind this was simple, the issue was that she had no idea that the building housed some of earth's mightiest hero's.