On the Run

Chapter 4

-I wrote this Chapter!!!! ~A~

It was cold. Dylan could feel pressure in his ears. Opening his eyes, all he could see was murky brown everywhere. He had landed in what seemed to be a body of water.

Relieved. Dylan relaxed, then quickly realized he was running out of air. Which way was up? He didn't know. Dylan had learnt trick a while ago when he was younger for this exact situation.

Letting some air out of his lungs, Dylan watched the air bubbles go what must have been up.

Dylan looked past the moving air bubbles but he could barely see the surface.

He started to panic. Kicking as hard as he could, Dylan slowly progressed towards the surface. He could feel the burn in his lungs and his legs were starting to go numb with exhaustion.

He kept going.

Keeping his eyes looking up, searching for the surface, he saw a ripple of sunlight.

With renewed strength, Dylan kicked harder. His vision was blurring around the edges and he felt limp because of the lack of oxygen.

His legs moved slower and slower as the seconds slipped by. His throat was contracting, trying to avoid inhaling the water.

His head was pounding and Dylan's vision was spotted black and red.

With one final surge, Dylan forced his head to the surface.

Dylan took a breath. It was the best breath he had ever taken in his life. Then he took the second one.

If he was on solid land he would have fallen over. His head felt as if dozens of needles were drilled into his skull. His vision was fuzzy and his whole body was numb.

Without the energy to hold himself up, Dylan slipped back under the water. In excruciating pain. Dylan fought his way back to the surface.

This time, he wasn't paralyzed from the pain. It was still painful, but less.

Now, Dylan realized he had actually fallen in a river. It was narrow. He was lucky to have landed here of all places.

The current was sluggish so it shouldn't have been hard to swim to the edge, but in the state that he was in, it was the hardest feat of his life.

Two more times, Dylan sunk back under the water. Two more times he got a painful headache when he took his breath. Two more times did he get a rush of adrenaline to get him back to air. Two more exhausting moments before he finally made it to the edge.

The water must have been lower than normal because there was a three feet wall of dirt that Dylan had to pull himself over.

When he finally got under the forest trees and out of the water, Dylan tried to stand but his legs wouldn't hold him and he collapsed.

A protruding branch caught his arm as he fell. Dylan tried to grab it but missed. Instead, it's sharp end cut from his elbow to his shoulder.

Dylan was not lucky, for he had been falling in the direction of the branch and the tip broke off into his right shoulder.

Dylan hit the ground, trying to roll so he wouldn't land on his injured arm.

Lying on the ground, Dylan screamed. The pain from both his swim and the branch finally hit him. His legs were burning. When he moved them they felt like lead. His shoulder sent pain down his arm and the right side of his back.

Dylan felt hot and clammy. He was vulnerable to anything that came his way. He couldn't handle this. He was stranded in a giant forest, starving, injured and alone. He wouldn't survive.

Not saying he wouldn't try, but it had probably been about five minutes and he was already dying. How had he gotten himself in this position.

He tried to ignore the pain and the hard ground but he couldn't. The exhaustion from swimming had slowly gone away but the pain in his arm just got worse.

There was a puddle of blood by his shoulder. Because he couldn't take out the piece of wood, the wound didn't scan over very quickly. Dylan was bleeding out. He felt lightheaded and dizzy from the loss of blood.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Dylan fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~one day and a half passes

Dylan woke up. He had opened his eyes for a few minutes some time before but he was too tired to stay up for long. This time he didn't feel tired at all.

Dylan was still lightheaded but as he looked at his shoulder, the bleeding had basically stopped. Although the pool of blood had grown.

Dylan realized the danger that the giant splinter posed for his arm. If it stayed when it was done healing he would probably lose use of his right arm and live in pain forever. At least it wasn't infected.

Dylan stood up. His muscles didn't ache. He walked two steps before he got dizzy from the blood loss. His vision went fuzzy and he leant on a tree for support.

Dylan shook his head ,willing for his sight to return. After some time it came back and Dylan could finally walk.

His stomach cramped painfully. How long had it been since he had been taken from home?

Looking at the sky through the leaves, it looked like it was the evening. The clouds were pink and yellow and the sunlight was coming from the east. Either Dylan had already been in the forest for less than a day or a day and a half.

Dylan knew that he could sleep for a whole day so he bet it had been a day and a half.

Walking over to the river, Dylan drank some of the clearer water where the current started to pick up a bit.

Once he had parched his thirst, he went off to find some food, and maybe some medical attention.

It had been hours and Dylan still hadn't found any signs of human activity. It was only trees, trees and guess what, MORE TREES! It was difficult for Dylan to walk because of his ravenous hunger.

Soon, he was limping and holding his stomach. Every step caused pain in his stomach.

Dylan fell to his knees and heaved what little bile he had in his stomach. The taste made him dry heave even more.

When he finally stopped, he leant against the nearest tree. He was sweating and was exhausted. Hunger continued to claw at his stomach.

He was starting to slide down the tree to sleep, as it was the middle of the night, when he heard a sound.

Had the death eaters found him? Was that a bear? Dylan didn't wait to find out. He cautiously got up, making sure to be quiet.

He hurt everywhere but that wouldn't stop him. Dylan ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could. The first few steps were slow and he stumbled but eventually he got the hang of it.

Dylan heard crashing footsteps following him so he ran faster.

He ran until he assumed the animal or whatever it was had either fallen behind or gave up. Then he kept running.

There was nothing in his stomach to feed his need for energy. Soon his legs were almost too heavy to lift. But he kept running.

Dylan was making a lot of noise. Anything within a mile radius could probably hear him coming.

Right as he was about to collapse from exhaustion, he saw a fist fly out from behind a tree, hitting him hard in the jaw.

He saw stars, then happily fell into a void, able to escape his aching body and tired mind.