I froze. I felt my knees buckle, my feet curl as I felt like crumbing right there. This can't be, no, this was impossible. None of this makes any sense. I didn’t belong here. It must have been a dream. The strange man, showing his age through wrinkles and sagging on his face, stepped closer and pulled out a shaggy rope from his shawl.

"Grab her," he demanded, laying the rope out flat on his palms. A woman beside me snatched my wrists before I could even react and held them against the rope as he began tying.

"Please, this must be a mistake!" I cried as the rope dug into my skin.

"No mistake, you wear foreign clothes. You are like them," he said, placing another rope through my arms and tying it against my restraints. He then tossed it to another man in their group. "Follow," he commanded, "Or you will get dragged."

"Please believe me!" I cried, thinking about how low my chances of being found were if I had followed them to another location. I didn’t want to be tortured or killed. I just wanted to go home. Back to my family. Back to doing shenanigans with Nicole.

When they started to move, they moved quickly. I tried to move as slowly as I could, scanning for any signs of a boat or a plane. I needed any sign of people like me that would come to save me. But other than the path, which was just dirt, void of vegetation, there was none other than these strange, remote people. As I continued to look for help, I felt the rope tug, then a jolt of force yanked me to the ground. My knees stung after they broke my fall, and my wrists burned from the rope friction. As I followed the rope, I was greeted by the man at the other end of the rope. His eyes cut into me like razors. 

"Get up or be dragged!" he growled before speeding off to follow the others a ways away from us. I quickly got up, feeling a slight tug on the rope again and fearing another fall, I followed their pace, traveling up a dirt path up a hill. My knees ached as we traveled, and I wished that they would take a break, but a part of me knew it was the first segment of my torture. Do they want information from me? Do they want to kill me because they’re against foreigners? If I were them, would I be scared? If it was the first time seeing someone, would I assume they were dangerous? What would a scrawny girl like me do? But after thinking it through, and a part of my anxiety subsiding, I thought about what the old man said. Another one? Like them?

"There are others," I told myself. "I'm not alone."If they really wanted to kill me, they would have done it back where they found me. My mouth isn't covered, nor are my eyes. At least I am alive if they keep me prisoner. I can talk to them. I can fight for my freedom.