Aileen moaned in her sleep, her eyes moving rapidly underneath her closed lids. She could feel herself waking up, but her body and mind were screaming she hadn’t had enough sleep. There was a loud crash outside her tent, and she fought her instinct to wake up and jump out of her sleeping bag. There was nothing wrong. Maybe some small rodent had found their camp and was going through the pots they had left around the extinguished fire because they had been too tired to clean them and put them back into the bags where they belonged.
Another loud crash, then a piercing scream. This time, Aileen snapped her eyes open, but didn’t dare move. She focused on the noises coming from outside. She recognized Josh’s voice, then the screams became muffled, as if something was covering his mouth. She bolted upright, struggling to get herself out of the sleeping bag. Just as she was crawling towards the exit of her tent, Nadia’s blonde head peeked in.
“Run,” Nadia whispered. “You have to go now!” She pointed towards the back of Aileen’s tent.
“No!”
“You have to!”
Nadia grabbed Aileen’s shoulders and shook her hard, as if that was the way she could make her understand she needed to follow her order.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re being attacked. At least three men. I have no idea what they want, but I heard them say your name.”
“They want me? Why?”
“You have to run, Aileen. Please, run!”
Aileen shook her head. She was thinking of pushing past Nadia so she could see for herself. She looked around her tent, trying to find something she could use as a weapon. Then, Nadia screamed as she fell on her face, her legs being pulled from under her.
“No!”
Aileen grabbed her assistant’s arms and tried to pull her back inside the tent. It was no use. Whoever had Nadia’s legs, they were pulling her out with much more force than Aileen had. Nadia’s blue eyes fixed on hers.
“Go!”
For a second, Aileen was paralyzed. Nadia turned on her back and started kicking at her attacker. Aileen rummaged through her things to find some sort of weapon, a knife, anything, and her eyes fell on her leather hip bag. She had no idea where her knife was, but it wasn’t there. She didn’t have time to look through her other backpack. Nadia was right. There was nothing she could do to help her friends, and she knew the man who was currently trying to hold the blonde down would come for her once Nadia was subdued. Her survival instinct kicked in.
Aileen grabbed the lower edge of the rough fabric of her tent and pulled until it gave in. She crawled outside, then scrambled to her feet and started running towards the woods. She didn’t know where she was going. It was still dark, and her mind needed time to adjust to the circumstances. At this point, it was impossible for her to stop and figure out which way was north and in which direction it was better for her to run. It probably didn’t matter. If the camp was being attacked by more than two or three men, then one of them would surely be on her track in no time.
She ran blindly, tripping over roots, and using her hands to protect herself from running into trees and branches. She had managed to wrap the leather straps of her hip bag around her right wrist, so at least she knew she had the tear-shaped bottle and the scroll with her in case the attackers were looking for those.
“No, they can’t be looking for that,” she thought. “No one knows I have them. No one knows they even exist.”
In fact, there were two other people who knew about the clear liquid in her bottle, and about the prophecy: her mother, and her grandmother. The secret had been passed from one generation to the next, and only to the women in her family. It had been the decision of Aileen’s ancestor. Feared by many, from Ancient Greece to the modern world, Medea still ruled over the consciousness of the Callas family. Aileen wasn’t going to be the one to break the sorceress’ rule and let the artifacts she had left behind fall in the hands of the attackers.
She ran and ran, doing her best to breathe evenly and pay attention to her every rushed step. Images from awful horror movies were playing in her head, the sort of movies where the silly blonde girl tripped over a root and was dead in seconds. Except, Aileen was not blonde, and she had also been smart enough to grab her boots before exiting her tent. She had run only in her socks for a few minutes, but then she afforded to stop for three seconds to pull her boots on. She hadn’t had time to tie the shoelaces, so she had to be extra careful not to step on them. Now, that would have been a stupid move.
She was panting too hard, and her heart was beating too wildly in her chest and ears for her to be able to hear what was going on behind her. She tried to focus and figure out if she was being followed, but there was no use. She needed to stop for more than three seconds to listen carefully to her surroundings, and she couldn’t afford to do that. It was too much of a risk. For now, she would run until her legs gave out.
When her hands, which she was holding extended in front of her, failed to meet the trunk of a tree for what seemed like a few minutes, Aileen stopped dead in her tracks. Her whole head was pounding with the sustained effort, but she noticed how silent the night was. She squeezed her green eyes into tiny slits, trying to make out where she was. It was so dark, and the moonlight didn’t even peek from between the branches of the tall, rich trees. She wished she had had her flashlight with her. That was when she remembered she kept her phone in her hip bag.
“Come on,” she whispered to herself while she struggled to open the bag, and dug in for her phone. It was turned off. “Come on!”
The screen flashed to life, and it was enough for Aileen to realize she was in the clearing they had found before calling it a day. She was right in the middle of it, and if she took a couple of steps to her left, she would reach the grove and the opening of the cave. She turned the flashlight on her phone on. A shudder ran up her spine, making her swallow heavily. She hadn’t been afraid a couple of hours ago, but it was probably way past midnight, and this place looked terrifying in the dead of the night. The last thing she wanted was to go inside the cave.
As she was considering her options, a noise came from the direction of the forest. Aileen immediately turned her flashlight off.
“Shit!”
It was clear now that someone had been following her, and they would be in the clearing soon. The man, or men, had surely seen the light of her phone and knew exactly where they would find her.
Aileen eyed the dark, threatening opening of the cave again, then looked back towards the trees.
“Shit!”
She really didn’t want to go inside. There was something about the cave, now. It looked scary, even though it hadn’t a couple of hours before. Like there was a presence that hadn’t been there when she had first found the clearing. She had no choice, though. She couldn’t start running again, as her legs and soles were already protesting. She couldn’t run forever. Also, she was pretty sure a woman couldn’t outrun a man, or more men, who were bent on catching her. At this point, the cave was her only option.
Aileen took a deep breath and stepped carefully towards the black hole of the entrance.
“There’s nothing there,” she whispered. “It’s just dark and cold, but there’s nothing there. Just a cave. You’ve explored caves before, Aileen.”
She tried to ignore the small detail that the caves she had explored before had all been especially prepared for guided tours. She stopped in front of the opening and peered inside. She would have given anything to be able to use her flashlight again and see what was waiting for her in there, but she couldn’t afford to let herself be spotted by her pursuers. If she wasn’t afraid to enter the cave, then why would they be? She had to use it as a place to hide, not point them right towards it. Another noise came from behind her, and it sounded closer than the last one she had heard. It urged her to take one last deep breath and step inside the darkness.
“There’s nothing here,” she thought. “Nothing here.” Those two words became her mantra.
It was weird how just a couple of hours ago she had actually wanted to find something here. An empty cave would have been such a disappointment. The Guardian, the Golden Fleece, anything! Now, as she was stepping deeper and deeper into the darkness, Aileen wished there was no Guardian and no Golden Fleece. Or, well, okay… if she could find the artifact without having to deal with a Guardian, that would have been just dandy.
When she was sure she was far away from the entrance, she used her hands to feel the wall on her right. The stone was cold but, fortunately, dry. She allowed herself to fall to the ground, where she wrapped her arms around her knees and starting rocking back and forth in an attempt to calm herself down. The “nothing here” mantra was still playing in her head.
Soon, Aileen heard someone stepping closer to the entrance of the cave, stopping, then pacing a bit, reluctantly. She held her breath, afraid any noise she might make would give her position away. Her lungs had started to burn when the stranger decided to walk away. From what she could hear, there were probably two men. They either thought they had lost her and she would have never had the guts to seek refuge inside the dark cave, or they knew she was there, but didn’t feel comfortable going in after her.
“Smart guys,” she though.
When she was sure they were far away, she allowed herself to breathe normally. She looked around the cave, trying to figure out how tall the ceiling was. There was no use. It was so dark that she could barely see one foot ahead. She didn’t dare turn around and look inside the cave. Now, with her pursuers gone, she could take out her phone, turn her flashlight on, and take a good look at what lay behind her. The prospect of doing that paralyzed her with fear, though. No, she couldn’t do it. She would simply sit there, curled up in a ball, and wait for the sun to come up. Actually, she would even move closer to the entrance of the cave. The moment she felt some of the fresh air hit her cheeks, she stopped and decided it was the best spot she could find. She took a few minutes to tie her shoelaces and secure her bag around her hips, then leaned against the wall and started counting to 100, then back to 1, just to fill her mind with something other than worries about her team and what might lie hidden deep inside the cave.