-behind her. Human or animal? She didn’t know. She heard struggling over to her right. She was more than nervous now. She couldn’t see, she didn’t know where the boy was; if he was even all right.

The sound of the fight continued with an occasional growl or stifled yell as she tried to back out of the line of fire. She decided to open her eyes. Slowly. The pain started immediately, seeming to spread down from her eyelids to her cheeks. Her eyes started watering profusely as the stinging in her face was overruled by the need to know what was happening. She started to see a little blur of light through her teary eyes that were now half way open. She heard a loud ‘thwack’ and then a whimper coming from a little farther away to her right. Her eyes were fully open now, but it was more difficult to see through the strangely warm tears clouding her sight. She heard the boy’s voice off to her right say “head towards the path over there!” and then he gestured in the direction he meant. A lot of good her eyes were!