Dead End

At this point, Jean was burning with rage. He then clicked his tongue out of annoyance as he withdrew the cell-phone from his ear. He then stared at the screen with a hint of dissatisfaction.

Despite his efforts of convincing the stranger to return the cell-phone to Axel hitting a wall, he still felt the urge to try again.

Without a second thought, Jean redialled Axel's contact and called once again. But at that moment, he frowned.

To his surprise, the call didn't go through this time around.

'So, this rascal decided to switch off the cell-phone after realising that I was relentless in my efforts…'

Jean thought with an annoyed face.

Though the stranger was arrogant, he didn't anticipate him switching the cell-phone on him.

If Axel could have been his last hope, he could have already collapsed on his knees out of despair. But since he had an extra option, he remained composed and calm. And just as he was still preparing to take his next step, the cell-phone flashed a battery low warning message.

Immediately Jean saw this, he knew he needed to act first if he was to avoid getting stuck in the area.

In the next moment, he continued advancing towards the forest.

A couple of minutes later, Jean had dialled his mom's contact and without any delays, he put through the call.

The moment the call connected; Jean gasped out of anxiety. He couldn't wait to connect with his mom after many hours of separation.

He knew very well that telling her what had transpired during these hours of separation would startle her, but he didn't have a choice as he dearly needed her help to evade this whole situation.

A few seconds after, the call was received on the other end. And in a blink of an eye, Jean started the conversation.

"Hello mum!"

"Hello, is that Jean?"

"Of course, it's me, mom. It is baffling that you recognised my voice in such a short span."

"How could I forget the voice of my only son, isn't that criminal?"

Suddenly, the duo burst into laughter on either end of the call.

A few moments later, Jean calmed himself and tried assuming a reserved state.

"Why did you call me from a different line, is there a problem with your own cell-phone?"

Natalie asked out of curiosity.

For a moment, Jean was finding it difficult to select the correct words to answer Natalie's question.

A few seconds passed in tense silence.

After realizing that Jean was somewhat reluctant to respond to her question, Natalie immediately sensed that something was amiss. And without further delays, she added,

"If there is something wrong at home just tell me."

The moment Jean heard this statement from Natalie, he felt the pressure of having to explain the huddle at hand to her lessen.

From Natalie's statement, it was clear that she was not yet back home. And that implied only one thing, she might be still at work. This was to tell that Natalie was yet to realise Jean's disappearance, and that was what calmed Jean to some extent.

'She is not in a dire situation after all. But I need to tell her about this if I really need to get out of this situation unscathed.'

Jean thought for a while.

Moments later, he steeled his mind and decided to let the cat out of the bag.

"I can't tell you anything about home because I am not at home."

Jean said in a neutral tone.

"Then where are you right now?"

Natalie asked out of confusion.

Despite Jean trying so hard to hide his nervousness, Natalie was still able to detect it in his voice. She knew Jean more than anybody else, so, there was no way Jean was going to deceive him with his fake calm voice.

Moments later, Jean responded.

"I am in Milen right now, I don't know if you know of such place in Lent?"

With that, Jean waited for the response, but to his surprise, Natalie remained mute.

The moment Jean noticed this, he immediately added,

"Why are you still silent. Could it be that you know the place?"

Jean asked out of confusion. But the moment he realised that Natalie was not responding, he immediately sensed that something was wrong.

With that thought in mind, an ominous thought sparked in his mind.

'The cell-phone…'

With that thought, Jean immediately retracted the cell-phone from his ear and pulled it closer to his face. The moment his sight caught what was on the screen, he shuddered.

The screen was off, and in an instance, Jean seemed to understand what had happened.

'Did it just go off.'

Jean thought as he immediately pressed the power button of the cell-phone in order to confirm his speculations. And just as he anticipated, the cell-phone was off.

This sudden realisation startled Jean as he immediately stopped in his tracks. For a moment, he felt helpless as his feet struggled to support his weight, he swayed to the side as if on the verge of collapsing as a hopeless look surfaced his bloody face.

For a moment, he was consumed by despair, but the moment he recalled Marr's last statement of him being found by Marr's accomplices, he felt a surge of adrenaline through his aching body as the tiredness and the body aches that were running through his muscles dwindled to a noticeable degree.

Gritting his teeth and locking his eyes on the forest ahead, Jean exerted himself as he lunged forward and headed in the direction of the forest.

Now that all the alternatives were off, the only option at hand that could somewhat guarantee his survival, was entering the forest. And since Jean understood this, he was not going to be easy on himself.

He limped on his left foot as he used all the might that he could muster.

Just as he was a hundred and fifty meters away from the forest, he heard a familiar sound from his right.

'That sounds like moving water.'

The moment that thought manifested in his mind; his gaze fell on the piece of cloth covering the gruesome wound on his left foot. Suddenly, Jean's eyes widened in bewilderment.

He was surprised to notice that the piece of cloth he used to cover the gruesome wound on his left foot, was dyed red. And this scene made Jean dreadful.

Since he covered the wound a while ago, he had been busy trying to find solutions to his current predicament to the point that he didn't notice that his wound had been bleeding all this while.

Since he knew that the sound that he was hearing could be originating from a river, he decided to take the risk of confirming this.

His decision of confirming the presence of a river in the surrounding was influenced by the fact that he needed water to clean the bloodstains on his face and also was the stained piece of cloth that was covering his wound.

Three minutes later, Jean was standing at the banks of a small river that flowed from the forest deeper into the grasslands. The surprising thing was that the waters of the river were extremely clear, that the rocks, sand and gravel under it were visible.

The moment Jean noticed how clean the water looked like, he immediately felt the urge of having a sip of it. But since he wasn't that thirsty, he decided to leave the matter and proceeded with what brought him there.

After a few moments of hesitation, Jean vigilantly scanned the surroundings and gently lowered himself to the ground. He then slashed water on his face and washed away the blood stains on his face. During this moment, Jean found himself subconsciously gulping some water in which he swallowed some in the process.

This was the moment he realised that he had done something that could be detrimental to his wellbeing.

This was the first time after a very long time that Jean was drinking water from a river. The last time he did this was when he was still in Celta and it was in one of the rivers within the village that was famously known as Azure River.

This was the river that mainly supplied the village with water for domestic use, since its waters were considered clean by the village elders. So, nobody found it strange drinking water from the river.

Although the waters in this river were considered clean, that didn't mean that the rest of the rivers in the village too provided such clean waters.

'What if the waters of this river aren't that safe?'

Jean thought feverishly.

Despite him realising his mistake, he decided to let the matter slide. He then vigilantly untied the piece of cloth from his wounded foot and studied the wound closely. The wound was currently bleeding, though at a slower rate.

A few minutes later, Jean had cleaned the piece of cloth and covered the wound once again to stem the bleeding.

He then struggled to get to his feet before heading in the direction of the forest after moving away from the river.

The moment he was barely a hundred meters away from the forest, he realised that the sound of the flowing river had died down. This was a clear sign that the river was not within the proximity.

As Jean saw the forest becoming closer with each moment, he pressed forward though his body aches and numbness were tormenting his whole being.

At this point, Jean had reached his limits and his thoughts started to become hazy as his vision grew blurry. He tried hard to progress forward, but the more he tried, the more his feet grew heavy with each step. He swayed from side to side as he struggled to move forward.

At this point, his feet started to tremble as they struggled to support his weight.

Suddenly, Jean stopped in his tracks as he eyed the forest that was barely sixty meters away from where he was currently standing with despair.

"I want to do it but the body is unwilling…."

Jean muttered under his breath.

In the next moment, he collapsed on his knees. But with utter determination, he gritted his teeth and crawled forward. As he crawled, the piece of cloth covering his wound on his left foot dropped to the ground. Jean just gave it a side long look and continued crawling forward.

After crawling for about forty meters, Jean collapsed to the ground head first and became motionless. In the next moment, his world was enveloped in darkness.

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