The sun was now fully behind the mountains, only the edges glowed with the remaining daylight. The endless trees started to take on a dark presence, a warning.

Just moments ago, the golden hour illuminating half of their trunks and shimmering on the frosty pavement made M feel like she might actually be dreaming. She felt weak from the amount of fearful adrenaline that had been coursing through her body for hours, and to see her last bit of precious warmth diminish behind the horizon, a new panic set in.

The immense weight of how alone she was was palpable. This kind of silence was wholly different from what she had experienced before. She was about to be swallowed in complete darkness.

Thoughts of wondering if she should have escaped or not swam through her head. Would her fate have been better as a slave than to freeze to death out here tonight?

No.

It gave her a small amount of peace to know that she had chosen correctly. She knew what happened in those camps. She would rather nature take her life instead.

What seemed like ages passed, M just kept putting one numb foot in front of the other. She focused on watching her feet follow the dim line of paint on the highway which put her into a trance. She didn’t notice the headlights far ahead in the distance. She thought she heard a far away hum of an engine but was certain it was her brain playing tricks. But it got louder. M snapped out of it and looked up to see a car was headed her direction. It was so dark that they wouldn’t even see her unless she was right in front of them when they passed her. She had no choice but to stand in the road and hoped they would see her in time and not run her over. She stood in the opposite lane and put her hands over her head waving wildly.

Her heart leapt when the car’s brights turned on and slowed down as it approached. She prayed that they were good people. Please be a woman, she thought. The window rolled down to reveal the faces of a man and a woman illuminated dimly by the dashboard. They looked shocked to see anyone out in this vast wilderness.

“Are you ok?” The woman asked. M shook her head no but couldn’t make any words come out. The woman opened her door and rushed to M with a blanket. She wrapped M up and rubbed her shoulders. “Come on, dear, get in the car and get warm.”

Without hesitation M got in the backseat, hoping with all of her heart that charity wasn’t completely dead in these godforsaken times.