Fantasy

30 - Marie

"Abby!" Sarah and I call in unison, "Abby!" It must be around two in the morning, but I force my feet to keep moving. It gets harder as my adrenaline rush wears off, but I have to find Abby. I keep walking until I just collapse.

"C'mon, let's take a break," Sarah tells me.

"But..." I try to argue. I'm frantic at this point; where is my sister?! If something happens to her I'll never forgive myself.

"Sit," Sarah commands, pushing my shoulder down. My knees give out and I collapse onto a sideways log. She rips out her phone, switches it on and shows me the screen. The time is 3:31 AM. "We'll rest here for the night. In the morning we can go to Dad's shop and wait for Abby."

"Sarah, please, let's keep looking, just for a couple more hours..." I beg.

"Marie, you said it yourself, this forest is huge. She could be anywhere..."

"It's really not that big," I say desperately. It's just a good sized chunk of land in between two roads covered with trees.

"It's big for people on foot! Our best chance of finding Abby is to go to the shop; now rest." She plops down beside me and leans her head against an upright tree. Almost in the same instant her eyes close and she's asleep. Suddenly the woods seem a lot more menacing; I don't get a wink of sleep all night. Each time I almost drift off an owl hoots or an acorn falls and I snap back awake. At the first rays of sunlight I rouse Sarah. She's rather grumpy when she wakes, partly because it's still kind of dark out and partly because she's hungry. My own stomach has been growling for the last hour or so, but I don't complain. We survived the night without any attacks and we've made it this far; that's a blessing. It's killing me not knowing if Abby's situation is as good as ours. I sure hope so.

"Come on, the shop isn't too far away from here. I want some food," Sarah announces. Clinging to the tiny scrap of hope that Abby will be there, I trudge forward with Sarah. I call out for Abby every once in a while, but Sarah and I are drained. We don't hold a conversation; we just walk relatively southeast. All I can focus on is the monotonous cycle of picking up one foot, taking a step, and then picking up the other foot, and taking a step. Crunch, crunch, crunch, my sneakers crush the twigs and fallen leaves that are decomposing on the forest floor. As the day drags on the sun rises higher in the sky and its rays beat down on us through the trees. Near the edge of the forest, where I can just make out the road, a green object the size of a lemon suddenly lands next to us. "Grenade!"

\"EHO