NIGHT TIME

She woke up with a lurch. It was dark, pitch black. Her head ached and there was a buzz in her ears. She tried to sit up, and banged her head against something really hard, right in front of her face. Her head ached even harder. Using her hands, she felt around her and concluded that she was in a wodden box of some sort.  She felt for the pockets on her shorts , that was when she realized that she was naked. She struggled to breathe, it was so hot in the coffin. “NO, not coffin,box”  she couldn’t bear to think that she  had been buried alive.

She was weak… Then she remembered Manny. The last thing she remembered was walking manny at the park. Manny is her aunt’s lhasa dog. She remembered being grabbed from behind, and a foul tasting cloth stuck inside her mouth. That was all she remembered. She needed to get out of here. She raised her knee, and hit the lid of the box, again ad again until her knee bled.
She could feel it giving way, after about fifteen minutes of trying. The wood was obviously rotting. She hit harder until she created a hole. No sand pouring in, was a good sign. She wasn’t under the ground….YET.                                                                                                                                                                                                      


Thirty minutes later, she had pulled her way out of the rotting box, and found herself in the middle of nowhere. She slowly got to her feet, and all her joints cried out in pain. She had scraped her knees so badly, and she could feel the stickiness of blood beginning to clot on her knees and elbows.                                                  
   She needed to get as far away as she could, before her abductors returned. It was very dark, and a repulsive stench assaulted her nostrils. She took a step forward, tripped and fell to the ground.  Her hand came in contact with something soft and putrid.... decaying flesh. She shrieked when she realized that it was a rotting corpse she had tripped on. She crawled away and from it, and felt yet another. So she stood up and ran away in no particular direction. She saw a glimmer ahead of her, and she ran towards it, she came out of a cave, and could see the sky. There was hardly any stars and so it was still very dark.


She looked around her, and all she could see for miles were trees and bushes. She was frightened and the sweat had dried on her body, making her chilly. A bird called out, and another bird responded. She had no idea what she was doing or where she was going.  She crouched low under a tree, trying her best to divert her mind from snakes and other harmful creatures that could harm her in a forest. That was when she heard it…. Voices
She crawled slowly, and her heart beat faster. Her eyes played tricks on her, as the shadows around her took different forms. She preferred being here, than in the cave filled with rotting corpses.  After what seemed an eternity, she came to a clearing and the sight before her, made her blood ice cold.

There was a fire, and a pot was over it. A young girl of not more than sixteen, was tied to a stake, naked. Her chest heaving up and down, were the only indication that she was still alive. Her wrists were tied above her head, and had been slit, blood flowed from them into two containers that had been strategically tied to her arms, to collect the blood. On a large table, two men were at work, carving out the body parts of yet another girl. She had been dismembered, and from time to time, a part of her was thrown into the pot. About twelve other people, danced around the clearing, dressed in red, chanting something in a language she could not discern.

She felt like screaming, but she knew what that meant. So she silently crawled backwards, back into the forest, trying not to make any noise so as not to drag attention to herself.  Then she stood up and ran right into a man. She was so startled she let out a scream. The man tried to hold unto her, but she hit him on his crouch and escaped him while he writhed in pain. He blew a whistle, and started chasing her. From other parts of the forest,several more of such whistles were blown. So the chase began.

She was frightened, and couldn’t explain what exactly she had seen. Cannibalism? Unbelievable. She was tired, but she had to keep running. She scratched herself several times, on thorns and her feet bled from stepping on different sharp objects, but she couldn’t stop… not with so many people searching for her.  She was thirsty and out of breath, and she got right back to the clearing again… this time she screamed, and a hand gripped her tightly from behind. The giant of a man, carried her into the clearing, like she weighed nothing. She bit and scratched him, but he didn’t let go. Then he dumped her  on the ground like a piece of wood, and looked around for something to tie her with. The dancers continued dancing, not even paying her any attention. The butchers at the table, continued their work without a backward glance. But the girl tied to a stake, opened her eyes and looked at her, RUN!!! She said to her before closing her eyes again.


That was all she needed. She stood up and ran off again, pushing one of the dancers to the floor. The big man was the only one that ran after her. She fell down just as she got back into the forest, and when she stood up, she realized she had sprained her ankle.  She couldn’t run so fast, so she decided to look for somewhere to hide until dawn. She half limped , half ran, then she got the idea to climb a short tree. She looked for one that was short, and had many leaves.

She sat on the tree for about three hours, and she received numerous bites from soldier ants that lived on the tree. she watched different men run by, apparently searching for her. When the sun came out, she had never been so happy to see a morning. She waited to make sure the men had given up their chase, before she slowly climbed down from the tree.
She roamed around the forest for five more hours, before she found herself at a highway. She lay on the floor half dead, and cars sped by her, nobody stopped. Some took her for a corpse, others took her for a lunatic. An elderly couple were the ones who stopped to see if she was still alive. When they realized she was almost dead, they put her into their vehicle and drove her to a hospital


Three months later, the police concluded that the girl must have been on drugs. Even though the hospital didn’t trace any in her system.
“Cannibals do not live among us” they said                                                                                                                                                   “We have combed the area, and we found nothing”
The case was closed. The memory of that night, lived and died with the girl.