I scamper about a metre away from the hole where Bea last disappeared until my back collides into a tree trunk, and I land on the floor with a dull thud.

Blood pounds in my ears, and I can't think straight. I can only look at where Bea once stood before the ground swallowed her whole.

I know I can't leave the situation not investigated for long. So, heart thumping in my throat, I creep on all fours, feeling the wet soil sticking to my skin, and peer down the hole.

It's pitch-black; devoid of all light, save for the daylight above me that illuminates nothing but dark soil. The hole is about one metre in diameter. I probe the edges of it, feeling to see if the soft earth will give away but thankfully, it doesn't.

I call her name tentatively a few times, but it's no use. There's no reply, and my voice only seems to fall flat in the silence. I glance around from my position on the forest floor, gazing at all the trunks that rise like giants' feet.

Subconsciously, I wrap my jacket tighter around my body. My hair still hasn't dried from the bathing in the river earlier, and there's a slight chill on the nape of my neck. Soon it transforms into a shiver that passes through my whole body.

Night begins to fall. I return to the pile of wet wood from before but Bea's comment soon comes to mind. You're doing it wrong. You've picked all the moist wood. We want dry wood.

I scavenge the area around the hole for any signs of the lighter in case Bea dropped it, but I don't see it anywhere. She must have had it on her when she fell through the ground.

I flop back onto the floor in despair. I have no quality wood for making a fire, no lighter for even attempting it, no light to see where I am, and no shelter to keep off the chilly wind.

I watch as the sun sinks below the horizon, and then it hits me.

I'm going to die here.

I wasn't that far off when I thought I'd die from starvation back when Bea and I separated. Turns out I would die, but just a few hours down the road.

My breathing quickens. I can't feel where my body ends and the forest begins. The darkness swirls around my head, and soon it's so pitch-black that I can't even see my hand in front of my own face.

Cold, lonely, and desolate, I curl around the hole, pulling my jacket over myself in one last attempt at keeping warm. It doesn't help; a shiver passes through me again.

I don't know how long I stay like that. Succumbed to nature, willing for Her to take me away.

Nature will always win over us in the end. She picks us off one by one, so subtly and carefully that the others are left drowsy with false hope before they realise that She is coming for them too.

I am numb, delirious, but ready.

And then a voice speaks.

"Métete."

I peek out of the top of the jacket, but darkness only welcomes me.

"Métete," growls the voice again, somewhere to the right of me. I turn my head in that direction and I can see a faint outline of a figure advancing towards me.

The voice is deep— definitely male.

Métete. I know where that's from. Bea said it after she jumped into the river. That seems like days ago.

The man is telling me to get in.

Get in where?

Then a hand on my collar yanks me upwards. I gasp, trying to fight the hands, feeling the fabric cutting into my throat. Another pair of hands grab mine, squeezing them together before binding them with a thick roll of tape. A third grabs my hair by the roots, yanking my head with a snap so that my neck tingles in pain before something musty and rough is thrown over my head.

I thrash around, trying to squirm from the grip of the hands dragging me along the floor, trying to scream from behind the rope that snags on my teeth. The tape bites into my wrists, the wondering hands pinch my skin, the bag of cloth over my face smells like undried washing. This is what a wild horse must feel like when it's reigned in, a bit shoved into its mouth, a saddle thrown on its back.

I tilt forward, my squeal of surprise muffled.

Then I'm shoved down the hole.