Random Story

The Lost Friend

It was a few weeks of holiday, and three of my friends invited me to join their mountain hike. We decided to do it in a slow pace since we got a lot of time to spare.

But one of my friend, Verona, went missing. After a discussion, we decided to go to next mountain post and wait for her there.
Upon arriving, we saw her sleeping bag, laid out on the ground. I gently put my hand on it. It was warm. She was sleeping on it not long ago.
Relaying that information to my friends, we got into a debate. They wanted to just wait her, thinking she went for a nature call. I voted for a search because her bag wasn't there and there's no way someone would bring their bag but not bothering to fold and bring their sleeping bag with them.
"If you want to go find her, then go." Kaine said, sitting down while sighing heavily.
"I'm sure she'll be fine. Let's just wait for a bit." Suggested Anne, looking at me with a resigned expression.

Having a bad feeling about it all, I decided to look around, bringing my flashlight just in case.
It was around sunset when I finally gave up and went back to my two friends, Verona's water bottle in hand.
Now concerned Kaine and Anne agreed to help me out. Making a map of the terrains, I pointed out the location of the water bottle, a few feet in distance, right near a cliff.
Too far for just a natural calling, too near to get lost from our position.

Deciding it's too dark to do any more investigation, we made guard duty shifts and call it a night.

Morning comes, we ate breakfast and Kaine—the first on guard duty—spoke up, "Did you guys hear anything last night?"
Anne and I shook our heads, confused. Kaine then said, "I thought I heard Verona's voice last night."
I started thinking, what if it was her?
So I asked Kaine, "Which direction did you hear the voice come from?" He answered by pointing to a direction, then I voiced my thoughts.
After that, we packed our things and walked towards the source.
To find a torn piece of clothing.
Verona's.
With blood spatters around it.

And upon walking to the same direction, we found another clue. Her shoe, next to a tree root, which has squashed leaves right in front of it.

I started putting things together.
She left things behind, not bothering to pick it up. The squashed leaves meant she tripped over the root and fell, losing a shoe. Combine that with the ripped clothing and blood we found, she must be wounded in places.
Yet we haven't catched up to her, so she didn't bother to do any first aid either.
"Is she running from something?" I asked out loud.

Just then, we heard leaves rustled and looked up.
At Verona.
Clothes torn in places, breathing heavily, looking at us shocked.
Taking a deep breath, she screamed, "RUUN!!"

And we just then realized the sounds of wild boars.

Needless to say, we never reached the summit and we didn't hike for a long time.