Number 5

Chapter 19

FINALLY AN UPDATE!!! WOOOO!!

I can't tell you quite how many times I've written and rewritten this chapter. I knew where I wanted it to go but I wasn't quite sure how to write it. But I have now so yeey.

I've had such an amazing response to Number 5 over the past couple of weeks and it is amazing how many people are enjoying it. If you want to share it with your friends...please feel free! I'd be delighted if they enjoyed it too:)

So here is Chapter 19. Please vote and COMMENT if you enjoy (don't forget to let me know your opinions and what you think!)

It feels as though every breath I take scrapes against my rib cage; the air scratches provocatively against my throat. I have precious little saliva to renew my mouth's moisture and my head begins to the throb violently from my water deprivation.

Once again, I find myself in the absence of both food and water. However, this time I have my freedom.

The vast evergreen glades stretch into the horizons; this is nothing like the mountains that I am listless scour for. The blazing mid day heat beats down against my skin as I walk through a clearing of trees. Walking; my primary activity for the past day and a half. The enormous trees provide shelter from both the sun and protection from the night predators; the branches are large enough that I am able to climb off of the ground and lie down on back. I have no option but to take to the trees; I know little about the outsides of dwellings but I have heard stories about the beasts that lurk outside of civilisation. The lack of a rope or anything to secure and fasten myself to the tree barely crosses my mind.

If there are any creatures in this forest, they leave me alone in the day. Perhaps it is due to the scorching heat that makes them groggy. However, the other thought that springs to my mind and manages to fool me is that I really am not worth the trouble; I lack any real meat or nutrition content.

I swallow deeply, my throat parched. My last stop at a lake in the early hours of the morning was a good while ago. Now, I feel enervated and incredibly grouchy.

At least I'm alive though. If it hadn't be for Octavia....I shudder at the thought.

As I pass back out of the clearing and back into the trees, the instant cool of the shade provides me with intense relief.

As the sound of a crack echoes throughout the still trees, I find my strained legs running to the closest tree. I scale it quickly, climbing high enough so that I am out of both eye sight and dangers of a floor beast. My arms prickle as my eyes search the ground.

What if they have found me? They'll drag me back to that horrendous cell. Then I'll never be able to find Grayson again.

No - they can't have. I'm in the middle of nowhere. I may almost go as far as saying as I would prefer the noise to have been made by one of the floor beasts.

What will one of them look like? The way my father always described them in Ana and I's bed time stories fills me with dread. Apical canines, monstrous growls, fur as black as night and an appetite for little girls. Though I know my father only told Ana and I those stories to frighten us, they may hold some truth. At least they're the only resource I can my fear on.