After a brief hiatus, Heartland of Fear continues!
By Emilie Hines
Complete silence reigned as Elina, Grace and Tina walked back to the valley. They had found the river now, and were quietly following it back to where they had started. The boys had taken their refusal to join them surprisingly well, and had not even offered a second time, before saying goodbye and running off. Elina was expressionless. Tina was shaking. Grace was frowning. When dawn arrived, the girls had still not reached the valley. Birds sang, and the sun shone happily through the undergrowth. Elina called a halt by the stream. Tina immediately fell asleep on the bank. Grace ran off to use the facilities. Elina surveyed the area. Once again, there was nothing to see but green.
All of a sudden, Elina saw a hunk of burnt metal on the opposite bank of the river, almost completely covered in vines. Elina crossed the river to inspect it further. It was a part of one of the wings from their plane. Elina breathed deeply. She was now on the opposite bank of the river. Tina was still asleep on the other side, and Grace had still not returned. Guilt and curiosity began eating away at Elina. She knew how much she had failed as the leader of this group. She’d phased out for the best part of a week, leaving an unstable Anna to take over. She hadn’t stopped Anna from running off to her death with the group’s only weapon and utensil. She hadn’t helped Grace and Tina look for Anna afterwards, and had nearly got them all killed; twice. Yet, despite all this, Tina and Grace were still relying on her to get them back to the valley that they had started in; and to work out some way of getting them home. Elina couldn’t even remember her home now. She seemed to recall a blond-haired woman called “Mum” who never came home until 6PM and who always forgot that Elina was 16 and not 14. Grace returned from her trip and waved to Elina from her side of the river bank. Elina waved back.
“What are doing?” called Grace from across the bank. Elina called back,
“You stay with Tina. I’ll be back soon.” Elina started walking back down the bank. Grace yelled at her,
“Where are you going?” Elina turned her head.
“I’m going to go and find the rest of our plane”. If Grace gave a response to that, Elina didn’t hear it. She crawled over rocks and clambered over roots. She didn’t know how long it took her to find the plane. When she did, it took her a minute to figure out where the door was. It took her five minutes to break down the door. It took her 10 seconds to muster the courage to step through the door once she had broken it down.
The stench inside the plane was horrible. When Elina had been inside the plane for no more than 30 seconds, she was feeling nauseous. However, despite this, she pressed on. She found the other flight attendant. She took her pocket knife. She entered the cockpit of the plane. She took the first aid kit. She found five dead girls with clean clothes. She took the clean clothes. She then found two packets of water bottles that had somehow survived the crash. She tugged them both out of the plane. She slammed the door of the plane, and slowly made her way back up the bank. She hadn’t gone far before she became aware that she was being followed. Elina breathed deeply. She put her stuff down on the bank and pulled out the penknife. An endless minute passed. Suddenly, a figure jumped out of the green and pushed Elina into the river. Elina violently kicked against the current, pushing herself heavily against the bank. She hoisted herself out with great effort, and it was a while before she realised that all the supplies she’d gathered were gone. Elina got up slowly. She was now all wet, and self-pity and anger were now eating away at her. She knew that she was a failure. She had let trauma take control of her, causing her to phase out for nearly a week. She played the tough girl when she knew she was very fragile. She had cried in front of Tina and Grace just to try to break free of the trauma. The humiliation was unbearable. On top of that, she’d let herself get pushed in a river by some lone scavenger. The anger took control. How dare some puny scavenger steal the stuff that she had endured so much to get? Why did she have to be suffering from trauma anyway? Why did she have to be an outsider? Why did Charlotte have to have mental issues? Why did her plane have to crash? Why was she still alive? Why was she in this forest chasing some lone scavenger for supplies? Eventually, the anger lost control, and Elina realised that she had run into the forest, supposedly after the figure with the supplies; and that she was now lost. Elina groaned in exasperation. Slowly, she turned around, and followed what she assumed to be the trail she had made from her running. After about an hour of following that, she finally concluded that she was really lost. Elina stopped in a clearing, and fell asleep. When she woke up, it was sunset. Elina identified the pole star, and started walking away from it. It took her fifteen minutes to find the river again. She’d been walking up the bank for an hour before she heard the first gunshot and the scream following it. Elina couldn’t work out whether the scream came from a girl or a boy, but it was enough to send her into a run. She passed the wreckage of the plane that she had raided earlier. After a brief investigation, Elina concluded that there wasn’t a living thing there. She then heard the second gunshot and the second scream. Elina started to panic. She ran frantically back up the bank. When she arrived to the spot where she’d left Grace and Tina, they weren’t there. A third gunshot ran out, but no scream accompanied it.
