The Memory - Part 2

Travelling through the forest for a few minutes, the voice starts to get louder. The only possibility for this is that she must be getting closer and heading in the right direction. With renewed determination she continues onwards, likely into danger, towards the voice.

Continuing her journey towards the now louder voice, she suddenly hears a couple of voices nearby. Freezing in place, she quickly turns off her light and crouches down. Looking around, she pears through the leaves and sees a man walking through the bushes. One man turns to two and two to four, with the final tally coming to seven men wandering around in the forest. While Octavia may not be known as a genius, even she realised that with someone calling out for help in the middle of a forest, these guys could either be a search party, or have bad intentions for the victim.

It became a lot clearer as to which is correct once she saw the guns they were holding.

Trying to make herself as small as possible, so as not to be shot by one of said guns, Octavia slowly moves away from the men and towards the victim's voice.

While more dangerous now, it doesn't mean she is just going to give up on saving someone.

Upon walking away, she is able to make out some of the conversation.

"…is the point of all this boss? We are set for life after that last job. Why did we even take this one?"

From the group of seven men, a short stumpy man, who looks very much like a stereotypical henchman asked this question. Looking towards his 'boss', a much taller thinner man, in quite a fine-looking outfit rolled his eyes and started to reply back.

"We took this job because we had too. I don't expect your puny brain to be able to comprehend this, but while we may be set in terms of money, pulling this job off will make us gods. But, failing will end with us being erased from the history books. Now shut up and find that snake. She is around here somewhere; the blood trail we found led off in this direction."

"Yes sir."

Bzztt Bzztt.

"Bravo Team to Alpha Leader. Come in Alpha Leader. Do you read me."

From what Octavia can see as she slowly moves away, the 'Boss' sighs and quickly takes out his walkie talkie.

"I read you Bravo Team. I said radio silence unless absolutely necessary. What has happened."

"We hijacked a call that came through to the police. GPS puts it as originating from the west forest gate. From the sound of her voice, we assume it was a young girl. She called about hearing someone calling for help in the forest. We told her to remain where she was and that a unit would be coming to her. When we arrived, there was no one at the gate. Her current whereabouts are unknown."

A grimace forms on the 'Boss's' face. "Damn, I hate complications. I didn't expect anyone to hear her and come running. How did you not reach her in time?"

"Well sir, there were some complications from our end, roadworks and traffic delayed us from reaching the gate in time. What are your orders sir?"

"Remain where you are in case she returns." he practically seethed down the walkie while gritting his teeth. Taking his finger off the button he muttered, "Idiots" And proceeded to turn towards his men. "Ok troops, there may be a young girl in the forest. It is possible that she just went home, but being the good soul that she is, she is probably searching for our target. Keep your eyes open and remember there can be no witnesses."

Moving his hand to the walkie, he informs whoever else is searching in the woods of the new situation. Octavia tries to put two and two together but ends up getting five.

"Ok, they said find the snake. Is that code for something? I already knew it was likely a girl from the voice and it looks like it was a good thing I left when I did. I wonder if that van was them turning up. He also mentioned becoming gods. Must be part of some deluded cult or something. Also how did they know I went into the forest, a good soul, I guess that may be true, but how would they know." She thought to herself trying to figure things out.

Still pondering what all this means, she continued to slowly walk towards the cries for help.

"Ok, lets pause all this, and just find the girl." she quietly muttered to herself while shaking her head, trying to cut off this train of thought.

*Snap*

…

…

Looking down, she sees the small branch snapped in half under her foot. Given that the group has stopped talking in favour of searching the woods, means the branch breaking felt like it could be heard from miles away. Looking towards the group, through the bushes she can see two of the men turn their heads sharply in the direction of the sound. While she is still low to the ground and behind foliage, it's only a matter of time before they find her. All the while the first thought that comes to Octavia's head is, "how cliché was that, I feel like I'm in some bad horror movie."

Looking at options on what to do, she uses the bad horror movie knowledge to her advantage, picking up a rock, and throwing it in the opposite direction when the men weren't looking. The sound causes all heads to turn in the new direction, where after a few hand signals from the leader, they start to head towards it. Seeing the opportunity, Octavia quickly makes her way away from the group and towards the cries for help.

.

Several minutes of walking later, the location of the voice suddenly changes direction. Realising this must mean the person has moved and given how sudden and fast it was, they must be quite close to each other. With the voice being practically at its crescendo and feeling like its bouncing all around her, Octavia decides to slow down her pace and searches around.

Spotting only a large amount of dense shrubbery, multiple trees and some gloomy plant life, she crouches and begins to sift through the bushes in hopes of spotting the person in trouble.

"It's ok, I'm here to help" she calls out quietly hoping the stranger in trouble can hear her, lest she end up drawing some unwanted attention. Annoyingly, she gets no response, and the voice calling for help suddenly stops.

Realising something must have spooked the victim, either herself or someone else, she slows her pace to pretty much a crawl, but still searches the shrubbery. As she reaches into one of the bushes, a cry suddenly rings out.

"Ahh."

Followed by an even louder cry coming from Octavia, as she pulls back her hand quickly out of the bush.

"Ahh! What was that!" Looking down at her hand, two puncture marks can be seen on the top and two on the bottom. "Arggh, this stings so much." She says as she grits her teeth, fighting back against the throbbing pain. "This is what I get for following the cries of some stranger into a forest."

"Did you say following my cries."

The pain in her hands suddenly subsides, and all her attention is on the voice that called out, not one metre or so in front of her.

"Oh, I finally found you. Its ok, your safe now. Apart from whatever bit me that is. You can come on out. The men in the woods are far away searching in another direction. Let's get you out of here."

All that returns from the stranger is a sigh, and the words. "Sorry about that. Try not to freak out when you see me." Followed by a rustling from the bush in front.

Waiting in anticipation of finally seeing the person she had been searching for, shock takes over when a snake pops its head out.

"Ahhh", jumping back, or more like falling back on herself, Octavia tries to crawl away, lest the snake bite her again.

"Hey, stop… stop you idiot. I said don't freak out. I won't bite you again. Like I said, I'm sorry for that. I was scared and it was a reaction when your hand reached for me."

In the midst of crawling away, Octavia quickly searches around for the person who spoke again. Looking around, she sees no one, and so turns to face the snake.

"…"

"You're not going crazy. The snake is the one talking."

*blink* *blink*

"Well say something. Your being rude." An annoyed voice calls out.

"Err. What-" Octavia manages to mutter out. "How is a snake talking to me. Is this some sort of prank, are there speakers or a phone somewhere?" She asks after a brief silence.

The snake just looks down in annoyance. "No, no. No prank, this is happening. Look, I will explain everything, but right now people are looking for me." Looking left and then right, the snake continues. "So, I need you to get over this whole being shocked thing, pick me up and take me somewhere safe. Can you do that?"

Not sure what to do in this situation, all Octavia can do is rapidly nod and try to break through the fog of confusion she is facing.

"Ok… I can do that…The only place I can think of is my home. Get in my bag and I'll take you there."

"I heard voices coming from this direction. All units form up."

Amid shuffling the snake into her shoulder bag, voices of the hunters are heard in the distance from the direction Octavia had travelled. Picking up the pace, she quickly puts the bag back over her shoulder with the snake inside and hurries away from the voices.

Using the map on her phone, and a little mix and match of sneaking and sprinting, Octavia is able to make her way to one of the other entrances to the forest with little to no fuss or run ins with the hunters. The trouble started as she reached the gate.

Upon nearing the exit, a man dressed in construction overhauls holding an assault rifle suddenly moves through some dense shrubbery out of the corner of her eye. Spotting this, panic takes over and she drops to the floor as quickly and quietly as she can. The figure slowly walks in her direction, and all Octavia can do is cross her fingers and hope that he didn't see her as she dropped to the floor.

The closer and closer he gets, the more sweat falls down her brow.

…

…

All of a sudden, the walkie crackles to life, pulling the figure away from where he was travelling. Stopping to take the call, he turns away from Octavia's position and starts to head in the other direction while talking to his colleagues.

A pent up sigh is released and Octavia all but collapses, her body going limp from the stress and strain she was under.

The silence though, was broken by the voice of an annoyed snake.

"Look, I know that was tense, but you need to get moving. You can relax when you get home, not in the middle of a hunting ground."

"Argh, I get your point. Its not much further till we are out of the forest. Let's go."

Only a short distance left, she manages to make her way to another entrance of the forest. Like with where she originally came through, this side also has a small clearing, which was transformed into a small park, filled with a couple basketball courts, a jungle gym and tennis court. But unlike the other entrance, she is able to clearly see the group of men huddled suspiciously around an electrician's van just a short distance away from the entrance of the park. While unlikely they would know what she looks like given no one has seen her yet, seeing a young girl walk out of the park on her own is likely to raise some alarms, especially given what the boss already told his men.

Looking around she tries to figure out a plan of action. The fencing along the park is much too high for her to climb, and the barbs at the top wouldn't make it any easier if she did manage to reach it. Travelling to another entrance of the forest would just take too much time, and the entrance would likely have the same problem. There is also the possibility of capture travelling through the forest.

While in thought, she notices a small family of four heading towards the gate. Seeing this, an idea pops in her head and she quickly realises this may be her only chance. Given that the men are likely looking for a single young girl, Octavia quickly joins the back of the family and follows them out, close enough that she looks part of the family, but not so close that the family would be worried and cause a scene. Just the perfect amount.

As they pass through the gate, Octavia keeps looking forward, struggling not to look towards the group of men to see if they are following her. Trying to avoid suspicion she continues to follow the family, where the eventually end up at their car, causing Octavia to break away and continue pass them. With quite a distance from the park entrance she looks back, and thankfully, no men are following her.

Finally, being free and clear and after taking a massive detour, Octavia reaches her shared home, rushes inside and enters her room. Taking her bag off and laying it on her table, the snake slowly crawls out. With all the stress of the situation, fatigue finally catches up to Octavia causing her to flop on the bed.

"Wow… that was horrible. Who knew sneaking and subterfuge was so stressful? I feel like I could just sleep for a week."

The snake quickly looks around the room, then to her saviour and her hand. Looking down, she quietly mutters out the word "Sorry", just loud enough for Octavia to hear.

"Huh, Sorry? Oh, for the bite. Its fine, you were scared, I understand." Octavia replies, ending with a yawn.

The snake shakes its head. "I don't mean sorry for that. Well, I do, but I mean about what's to come." The snake turns its attention back to Octavia, seeing her close to nodding off. "Don't worry, I will make this up to you and explain everything when you wake up. Rest, relax, and again I'm sorry for this."

"Ok", is the last word Octavia mutters out, as her eyes completely close and darkness encompasses her, falling into a deep sleep, not realising how deep of a slumber it actually is.