“We’re at a village called Mangan, a small town near the border. There are only a handful of households around these parts, and they don’t even have proper roads. You girls will be taken across the border. What happens next depends on what the sellers plan to do with you. I’m not too sure myself.”
His words came out vague because he was mumbling, and then he got on top of me.
I had run out of excuses to stall some more. I tried my best to come up with some ideas but my mind went blank.
I panicked, but I tried to contain myself. Forcing a half-hearted chuckle, I said, “Mister, it’s no fun if we just go straight to the main event, don’t you think?”
“F*ck!” he cursed. “City girls are such a bother!”
I wanted to grab something for cover, but I could not find anything useful around me.
I struggled a few more times and eventually got my hands on what felt like a brick. I narrowed my eyes, determined to use it as a weapon.
But before I could lift my hand and strike him with the blunt object, the man on top of me suddenly stopped moving.
I called out tentatively, “Mister?”
He did not budge.
A moment later, I pushed him off me, still unsure how he turned out like that.
I reached out my hand to test if he was still breathing. I was relieved to find that he was still alive. He must have been temporarily knocked out.
“Sienna!” Nora’s voice rang from outside.
I ran out to meet her. The other women had escaped too. Nora had a knife in one hand.
She turned to me and gave her command, “Go!”
There was no time to think as I joined them on the run, following the mountain trail.
About an hour later, several women could not go on anymore. One by one, they began to stagger and drop to the ground. “Hey, let’s take a rest!”
Nora, who seemed none the better, turned to the women behind her and nodded. She called to everybody, “Alright, girls. Take five.”
There were no roads in the mountains. We had been relying on what little mountain trails we could find.
I had been tensed just now, because of the situation we were in, back at the wooden house. But I was free now, my mind no longer occupied by danger. I turned to ask Nora, “Back there, why have they suddenly fainted?”
Nora wiped away the mud and weeds on her shoes. Then, she gave a surprising answer. “Oh, I poisoned them.”
I could not help but frown. “When did you do that?” I did not remember seeing her dealing with any poison, and I had been constantly by her side.
“During our shower!” She exclaimed. Then, she looked up at the sky, her brows furrowed. “It’s getting dark. We have to get out of here as soon as possible.”
I nodded, got up, and stuck close to her. Still confused about the whole thing, I wanted details. “How did you apply the poison when we were in the shower?”
“I dropped it in the shower gel!” she said, as a matter of fact. “Knockout drops. Pretty rare. We apply the shower gel on our bodies, and when those men come into contact with us, they’ll faint.”
Her answer left me puzzled for quite some time. It was certainly shocking, and after that, I had nothing but mad respect for this young woman.
There were no proper roads here. The five of us kept walking for what felt like hours.
Eventually, we reached the top of the hill. What came into view was a mountainous landscape. I almost yelled game over.
In other words, we were basically surrounded by hills and mountains, with no end in sight.
“Damn! How are we going to get out of here? It’s a sea of mountains!” One woman exclaimed in shock.
Nora looked at the hill range that seemed to go on forever. Holding onto her forehead, she was probably starting to feel restless, just like I was.
Nevertheless, she sighed, “Let’s move on. There’s no way we can’t find our way out.”
Easier said than done. We went around in circles for who knew how long, moving from one hill to another.
The sky got darker and darker while the women got worried. “I think we should find a place to rest. If we continue walking like this, I’m afraid we may bump into some wild animals that live here. That would be bad.”
That was not an unreasonable request. At first, everything seemed fine, as we were able to identify traces of human passage. But after walking for several hours, as we ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, I realized there were almost no traces of human beings left.
Nora turned to face us. She went silent for a while and eventually agreed. “Okay, let’s find a place to rest for the night.”
We had no means of making fire. We had made our impromptu escape without bringing along extra clothes or food.
Fortunately, after walking for a little while longer, we found a large and sturdy tree with a giant hole underneath its roots. Someone must have dug it out some time ago. The size of the entrance, however, was barely accommodating.
As women, we were relatively petite in size, so we had little issue crawling into the hole.
The sky had gone completely dark by the time we entered the hole. Night had fallen. Each of us reluctantly found a safe spot and sat down.
There were five of us in total. Besides Nora and I, the names of the three other women with us remained unknown.
As we huddled in the hole, we began to make introductions. The other three women came from different places.
One of the thin, dark-skinned women was Tabitha. She came from Xenhall. The other one was called Laurel, who lived along the coast. She looked to be in her mid-thirties and was on the chubby side, which might be due to hormonal imbalance. Her cheeks had been visibly covered in acne for quite some time, especially along the jawlines. Some of them had formed pus and turned white, while a few had reddened and looked about to pop.
Another woman hailed from a farming village in the southwest. Her name was Tessa Dixon. She was a bit plump with medium-length hair. Her eyebrows highlighted her forehead wrinkles, which made her seem at least ten years older than she actually was.
As we talked, I got to learn about their situations.
In the beginning, I thought the crooks were targeting young and beautiful women only, but it turned out not to be the case. Perhaps they just wanted women. Any woman would do. As for what they wanted us for, we would never know.
After a short chat, we laid down in the hole to get some rest. I heard Tessa reciting some prayers close to me, but I could not make out what she was saying.
The forest was largely empty. Her chanting was not exactly loud, but in the quiet forest it sounded eerie and frightening.
Tabitha and Laurel were understandably scared, but they stayed curled up in the hole, hugging themselves tightly and not saying a word.
But Nora did not hold back. Her brows arched, she told Tessa what we were all thinking about. “Hey, we all know that you believe in God, but can you please recite your prayers in your mind, and not say it out loud? You’re going to attract wildlife if you go on like this.”
Tessa, annoyed by the interruption, produced a furious retort. “God will only protect us. He will not bring us harm.”
Nora did not argue with her. Instead, she rolled her eyes and, when the chanting resumed, said, “Look, if it means so much to you, please do it outside.”
Tessa went quiet after that. The mumbling stopped.
Tabitha and Laurel exchanged glances. Neither had anything to say. Shrouded in darkness, all of us remained silent.
Luckily for us, nothing happened during the night. We lived to see another day.
The next day.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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