MOST CRINGEWORTHY... DX I called this "Forest Fights"...
chapter1I walked carefully through the woods, being sure that my tracks were untraceable. I had been sent on a mission to discover how well defended for B1 was, but now I had to make sure that the Girl’s leaders knew. They needed to make a battle plan.
I stopped abruptly and dropped to the ground as I saw a boy walking the rough path that led between several of their forts and had a shortcut off to the girls fort S1. Fortunately, I had been smart enough to stay just off the trail.
When I was sure he was gone, I stood up quietly, then continued my journey through the woods. I prayed silently that they wouldn’t see me. I stole from tree to tree as quiet as possible. Unfortunately, the boys are smart enough to set tripwires, and I accidentally set one off.
I couldn’t breathe. When I finally looked down, I realized that this wire in particular was out of battery. There were no flashing lights and no blaring noises.
I breathed a sigh of relief and continued down the trail. Suddenly I heard metal unsheathing three times behind me. I bounded away quick as a deer, but the one of the boys got in front of me. I tried to dash to the left, but there was a huge ditch that would indefinitely break at least my leg. I dodged to the right, but one of the boys jumped in my way. Great. Now I had armed boys to my front, back, and right, and a dangerous ditch to my left.
I tried to jump the ditch, but one of the boys grabbed the back of my shirt, and I was swinging over what was a much deeper ditch than I had expected.
I groped for the ledge, but then the boy holding the back of my shirt stepped on my hand.
The other two boys grabbed my arms and held them tightly. The first boy let go of my shirt and brushed himself off. They practically dragged me to their fort, which was only a little ways away, but they eventually had to grab my hair to restrain me from biting their now red hands.
When we reached the fort, I noticed another, better armed boy inside. Apparently this was one of the bigger teams. It had four boys instead of three.
The boy that had been inside, obviously the captain of the team, looked at his men (well, boys).
“Who’s this?”
“Don’t know. Saw her walking alone down by the trail, so we got her to see what she was up to.”
The captain leaned towards me.
“What were you doing in boys’ territory?”
“Passing through,”
“To where?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but one of the boys answered instead.
“She was heading towards Fort S1.”
The captain eyed me suspiciously.
“What were you doing headed there?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the captain just laughed and asked,
“Are you a spy?”
I did my best to portray anger, which wasn’t that hard, as I shouted “No!”
He stopped laughing, but he had an evil smirk.
“Tomorrow I’ll take her to fort B1.”
The boy that had grabbed the back of my shirt coughed. “Um, sir, wouldn’t it be best if one of us went instead? I mean, you’re the captain, and if she is a spy, she probably has backup.”
“I am not a spy!”
“Sure, sure, you take her. I’ve got better stuff to do,” he answered, no one paying attention to anything I said. “Until then, she’ll stay in the cellar.”
The two boys holding me shoved me roughly into a small room underground and slapped the trap-door shut. I heard the jingling of keys as the door locked. I was trapped.
Chapter 2
I woke up the next morning to the slamming of my trap-door. I jumped.
“Good morning, sleepyhead! We’ve got a long trip ahead, so get out here!”
After three failed attempts at climbing out on my own, he grabbed my arms and hoisted me up out of the little prison.
He led me outside and shoved me up on a horse, closing and locking the special stirrups around my shoe and up my shin a little. After tightening some handcuffs around my wrists and the reins and tying and locking a chain between the two horses, he jumped up on his horse and started to trot, me following closely behind.
It was completely silent as we rode through the woods. Every now and then we would stop and he would shove the horses down out of sight from teams of girls that passed by. As he hadn’t thought to gag me or something, I was simply biding my time until I would scream for help from a team of girls bigger than one or two.
Finally, my chance came. A group of five girls was walking by. Unfortunately, he managed to muffle my cry. Fortunately, they heard it. The captain signaled for them to search the surrounding bushes. The boy unlocked everything in an instant and dragged me along with him rapidly away.
I tried to jerk free, but he was way too strong. That’s the one thing that usually brings boys out on top. Their strength. I took advantage of the fact that one of his arms was shoving away branches and the other holding my wrist. I screamed.
The girls had surrounded us within moments. The boy jerked his leg forward. At first I thought that he was trying to scare them, but then I saw a trip wire on the ground. It was a wireless.
Within seconds a group of boys surrounded the girls and us. As full battle waged between the boys and girls, the boy tried to sneak away with me, but I used my free hand to grab the back of his head and flip him over. Then I joined the girls in fighting the boys.
It was a losing battle. All the girls were caught, and the boys were leading us somewhere, but it was a safe guess that the destination was Fort B1.
That night we camped in a little clearing a little ways from the path. We girls slept all chained in a circle, and the boys slept across from us, behind some bushes.
Chapter 3
The next morning, the boys shook us awake. They shoved us up a ladder and into a flying wagon. They closed the lid and I heard the click of the rusty lock.
I looked at the other girls. Of the five, two were injured. The rest of us all had scratches and all of us were sore from sleeping in chains. I saw the circles under the eyes of the girls and assumed I had them too. Fortunately, I didn’t feel really tired. I listened to the boys driving the wagon above the heavy lid.
“So let me get this straight: We have six girls. Two injured. One a suspected spy.”
“Yep. And the one we think is spying can really hurt.” I recognized the voice of my escort.
There was silence for a minute, then, “Do you really think she’s a spy?”
The voice was sweet as honey. If I could bet, I would’ve bet that the boy who had said that was the cutest boy in the forest.
“Why wouldn’t she be? And even if she’s not, she was caught. In our territory. Period.”
The rest of the ride was completely silent. The wagon stopped and the lid opened. The boys yanked us out. I heard one of the injured girls cry out and fall. I tried to run for her, but I was chained up. I could hear her cries of anguish as she dangled from a broken arm chained to the next few girls, who were struggling to pull her up. I saw one of the boys, my previous escort, grab some keys and walk towards her.
“No!” I cried. If she dropped from here, she would be crushed. But he didn’t seem to care. I impulsively stuck my teeth in the lock of my chain to try to unlock it. It worked! I lept towards the boy, but one of the others reached for me and grabbed. I tried to pull away, but he held tight. He grabbed my arms and started chaining them again, but I wasn’t paying attention. I fell to my knees as I heard her screaming as she fell. Tears streamed down my face. I didn’t even know her, but it wasn’t right. I sobbed quietly. I reluctantly stood as the boy pulled me back onto the tracks. Finally, I looked into his face. He was the most handsome boy I had ever seen in my life. His expression was… unexplainable. His brow was furrowed and his face was hard, but I saw a touch of compassion, a hint of sadness in his eyes. A moment later, it had disappeared. We walked over to another wagon, where they shoved us in, no less roughly than earlier. They closed and locked the lid, but the wagon didn’t move. ‘All the better,’ I thought, and I fell asleep.
As we walked to the fort, I decided that my best course of action was silence. If I don’t talk, they can’t prove anything against me.
Oh, I’m so stupid! They don’t care if they have proof or not. They’re merciless.
As I started to slow immensely, the boy picked me up and carried me. I curled up into a little ball and thought about the girl. I had discovered that her name was Cindy. A few disobedient tears rolled down my cheeks.
We walked into the fort and he set me down. My shaky knees buckled, but he caught me and stood me upright. As soon as I could walk, he led me into a back part and into a doorway. There were 7 chairs up in the front of the room and one on my side. I sat. He moved back into a corner and stood. Seconds later, seven boys filed in and sat in each of the chairs. ‘These are the leaders of the boys,’ I thought.
I shook as the boy in the very center opened a scrap of paper.
“You have been charged of suspected spying, is that correct?”
As I said nothing, the boy in the corner stepped forward.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you believe this?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“I don’t care what you know, I want to know what you think!”
There was silence for a few seconds as he looked at me. “No, sir.”
“And why is that?”
The boy bristled. “First of all, she has nothing on her. Not even a weapon. Second, the person who accused her of this has a disability. Third, does she look to you like the kind of person who would SPY?”
The judge grinned maliciously. “Are you a traitor?”
The boy answered, “No, sir.”
“Then how on earth do you see any girl incapable of doing something like that?”
Now I bristled. Before the boy could speak, I blurted out, “Since when are boys better than girls?!”
The boy lept to my side and put a hand on my mouth before I could say more. The judge’s smile faded a bit.
“I will speak with some others. We will have a decision by the end of the week.”
What day was it, anyway? If I didn’t get the information to S1 by Thursday… no. I wouldn’t think about that.
The boy nodded and led me away. He led me down a hall and into a little room already crammed with girls. As soon as I was unchained, I walked over to the corner; where I curled up and wept.
Chapter 4
The next morning I woke to mysterious footsteps. In the wall behind me. Human footsteps. I shook myself and put my ear to the wall. If there had been a hallway there, I would have known. But the wall was dirt, so that wouldn’t make sense.
I drilled a little hole with my finger and looked through. It was a thin passage, completely dark and undoubtedly secret, yet it was well kept. I looked around the room. All of the girls were asleep, and I could hear the guard snoring in the hallway. I silently dug a space big enough to crawl through and crawled into the passage. I packed the dirt back, as if nothing had happened.
I stood and started walking. Behind me was a wall of concrete, to either side walls of dirt that led to who knows where, but straight ahead the passage loomed on. I stepped carefully, being sure that I didn’t set off any alarms. Finally, the passage started going down. Underground. Down here the walls and floors and even the ceiling was concrete. I reached a large room.
I started walking around, but I had barely taken three steps when I heard running footsteps coming my way. I tried to go the other way, but I could barely see, and I almost ran into the wall. I could hear footsteps coming from several directions, all aimed at me. I dropped down low and tried to crawl away, but one of the things heard me and grabbed the back of my shirt. Someone turned on a flashlight. There were a bunch of boys, and the one holding me was the handsome one.
Strangely, they all looked at least worried, some scared. I tried to wriggle free of the boy’s grip, but he held tight.
“Let me go!” I blurted. Instantly there was duct tape on my mouth. I fell to the floor. I started backing away, but three of the boys came and grabbed me. They yanked my hands behind my back and wound duct tape tightly around them. Same went for my feet. A trap-door opened in the floor in the corner and they tossed me in. It was only about 4 feet deep, so I had to duck fast before the door hit me.
I heard the click of a lock. I groped around for something to help me, but there was nothing. Tears started to roll down my cheeks. I heard them talking in whispers somewhere up in the room, but I didn’t even try to listen. I wept silently. I had completely. I couldn’t escape from anything. As my tears rolled down into the dirt, I realized something. The little box was dirt!
I carefully managed to get my hands around my feet and in front of me. I yanked the tape off of my mouth and used my teeth to unwind the tape around my hands. Once that was done, I untied my feet. Then I started digging. I dug furiously. If I could reach the surface, I could escape. There was only one problem: I was not digging very fast. At ALL. Unfortunately, the door swung open and a boy lifted me out.
I heard a chuckle from one of the boys. I glared at all of them, but most were smiling. Including the cute boy. He was SO handsome with that cute smile! I couldn’t help but stop glaring and possibly show less hostility with my eyes.
The boy carried me over to a chair and sat me down. The boys all stood in front of me.
“What do you want?” I asked shakily. I hoped that my earlier tears didn’t show. Of course they did.
“Don’t cry. We’re kind of… an undercover group.”
“Like spies?” I worried more by the second. If they were out to prove that I was a spy, I was dead meat.
“Sort of. But we thought that was what you were.” The boy looked into my eyes as if he could find the truth there. I hoped he couldn’t.
I curled up and said, “No.”
One of the other boys stepped forward. He was carrying something. Or someone…
When that someone stood up, I jumped and ran over to her.
“Cindy!” Even though we didn’t even know each other, we embraced like old friends. It wasn’t until I felt a hand on my shoulder that I let go. I turned to see who it was. My joy faded as I remembered that I was still among enemies.
Even though all those enemies were smiling.
The cute boy who had grabbed my shoulder now tightened his grip. My expression almost instantly went from joyful to scared.
One of the boys chuckled. “Don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you.”
Even if they were telling the truth, I still shook. Cindy spoke.
“Listen, they don’t want to hurt you. They want to help you. Like they helped me. Please trust them.”
I relaxed a little, but I was still tense.
“Help me how?” I asked.
The cute boy stepped forward. “One – help you get out of here. Two – help you deliver a message to S1. Three – help you recover.”
I was about to ask what I needed to recover from, but I stopped. It was obvious. My shirt was torn in the back from the incident back at the ditch, my shoes were ruined, my pants were ripped to shreds up to my knees. My hair was a straggled mess. I had plently of scrapes and bruises.
But one thing couldn’t be passed up. “Deliver what message?”
“Whatever message you were delivering, of course.”
I still didn’t know if I could trust these boys, so I persisted. “I was not delivering a message. And second, who are you?”
The boys hesitated, but finally, the cute boy stepped forward and said, “I’m Jonathan.”
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