Never in her life did M imagine herself begging for a stranger to pick her up from the side of a remote highway. The sun was setting fast, she had no food or water and fear of what hid in the pitch dark forest was rising in her stomach. She swore she could feel the temperature drop by the minute and was in no way dressed for the freezing conditions that would take place tonight. It was either die for certain out here in the wilderness, or take a 50/50 chance of getting murdered or not by whoever would be crazy enough to pick up a hitchhiker, especially right now.

She was certain that her captors were far behind on the highway and unaware that she had escaped, otherwise she would have seen the canvas-topped army truck coming back for her by now. She planned to hide in the trees if she saw any vehicle driving from that direction just to be sure. Chills ran up her body thinking about the terror she felt as armed men cornered her in her house and forced her into the back of their truck. A man with dead eyes and rotten teeth smiled at her as he tied her hands behind her back and secured her rope to a bar that was welded to the truck bed. She didn’t scream or beg or plead with them. She knew it would do no good. These kind of men were common now and she knew she was doomed to live out the fate of so many that had been captured lately: slavery.

Her stomach dropped when she realized there were 6 more women in the back of the truck with her. All of their eyes wild with horror, shivering and crying silently. Nobody dared to talk.

She had been in the truck for what she imagined was 8 hours judging by the sunlight she could see through the holes in the canvas, listening to the muffled sound of the men yelling and laughing in the cab. A couple of the women couldn’t hold their bladders anymore and urinated through their clothes which made them start to cry again. After some time passed, she tried to shift her weight since her hands were going numb and she noticed that the constant, violent jostling of the truck seemed to loosen the knot that Dead Eyes had secured her with. In the end she was able to escape her bonds and jump out of the back as the truck slowed to make a sharp turn, apologetically looking back at one woman who watched her with pleading eyes. That stare would haunt M for the rest of her days, she knew. But there was no time to save them all. She ran frantically in the opposite direction toward the setting sun.

All she could do now is put one foot in front of the other and hope someone with a shred of decency would see her.