She tried once again to search her brain for answers, but it only made the throbbing in her head more incessant. She took a few tentative steps and found that her legs were okay. She felt weak and she wasn’t sure how far her legs would carry her when she was swaying dizzily, but she figured she should try and get as far as she could before she blacked out again.
With no evident sense of which direction to go in, she began stumbling through the darkness blindly. She had to keep stopping every few seconds as her body registered another injury. Within minutes, she was breathless and sweating even though the night was cold. She began to fear that she’d die out there in the dark, all alone. No one would ever know where she was or why she’d been there…
It occurred to her suddenly that perhaps she should’ve stayed where she was. Maybe someone was coming back for her. But that thought was both comforting and terrifying. If Jake was going back for her then it would be okay. But if whoever had caused her to be so badly injured was coming back to finish her off, then she was lucky to have got away…
She leant against a tree to try and catch her breath. Her ribs hurt as she took in big lungfuls of air. She experimentally lifted her shirt to see the damage underneath. The moonlight sliced through a space in the trees to illuminate her stomach which was battered and bruised. She couldn’t figure out what would do something like that…
And then she remembered.
She remembered how she’d been thrown out of a moving vehicle. She recalled how they’d been chased out of Dent by two men with guns. She remembered saving Jake from the flaming wreckage of the car, even as her own body was dealing with the effects of the crash. Megan had been there too. There had been so much blood...so much pain...so many flames reaching from the car up to the sky…
And then her memory was blank.
She couldn’t help letting a sob escape her lips. She’d felt so much pain - both physical and emotional - in the past few days and now it was catching up with her. How was she supposed to process all this grief alone? How was she supposed to be glad that she survived it all when she was alone and afraid, unsure of whether she’d actually make it? Looking around her, the darkness terrified her. There could be anything or anyone waiting for her out there. Her sobs turned to wails. She knew she should be quiet, but somehow, she couldn’t stop the sounds of misery escaping her.
She cried for some time, her arms wrapped around herself. The night around her was the only thing she had for company. She began to whisper to a God she didn’t believe in, hoping for guidance, hoping for a way out. But if God existed, then she was certain he’d abandoned Earth. Why would he let something like this happen otherwise? It was too cruel an act to seem true, and yet it was.
As she stopped crying, Aby managed to muster the energy for her own personal pep talk. She was whimpering as she began to talk to herself.
“Come on, Aby...this isn’t like you,” she muttered, ignoring how raw her throat felt. “Pull yourself together...you’re no coward. You’re no idiot...if you get your head on straight you can find a way out of this.”
She considered her options. She could retrace her steps and wait to be found...but what if she was found by a foe and not a friend? Not an option…
She could stop and rest. She could try and sleep until the sun came up, and then she’d be able to see where she was going...maybe it would even give her body time to recharge. But she didn’t fancy lying back down on the cold hard ground and giving in...and she secretly feared that if she shut her eyes again, she might never wake up…
Then there was the other option. To keep walking and hope that she found someone who could help her. Maybe she’d never find Jake or Megan, but if that was out of the question, she might find someone who could nurse her back to health. Maybe life wasn’t worth living without Jake...the love of her life...but she felt like the gaping mouth of death was going to swallow her whole at any moment, and she’d do anything to run away from it. It was survival instinct talking, but she couldn’t ignore it. She had to try...Jake would want her to, no matter what.
She carried on through the dark. It was slow progress when every part of her body seemed to have alarm bells screaming, willing her to stop, but she pushed through the pain. She had to believe there was something worth fighting for at the end of her journey. She had to believe that since she’d made it that far that she could make it all the way.
And then she saw it. The beacon of hope in the distance. At first, she thought she might be imagining it, but as she drew a little closer, she could see flames licking up toward the sky. Someone had made a bonfire. In fact, if she looked harder, she could see bodies huddled around it and hear the hum of voices talking in the distance.
She held back for a while warily, trying to see if she recognized any of the voices, or if she could even tell what sort of people they were by the tone of their speech, but they were too far away. She knew that approaching them might be a matter of life and death. On one hand, they might offer her friendship and protection. On the other more sinister hand,
