By Janet
The terrified girls clung to each other until the dazzling, bright light disappeared, and blackness surrounded them. As their eyes grew accustomed to the dark, they made out the shapes of stone structures emerging from a vast, open rocky landscape of dry scrub bushes and dusty, sandy soil. Overhead, the ink-black sky was filled with twinkling stars, and a white moon loomed large and round. All was quiet, apart from the occasional high-pitched howling sound of a wild animal in the distance and the rustling of insects, which unsettled them.
“Where are we?” Jess whispered panickily.
“I don’t know,” Hannah replied, trying to be calm, suppressing her own panic to reassure the younger girl, “but we need to find somewhere safe to wait until morning.”
Keeping close, the girls moved slowly and quietly towards the skeleton of a house, careful not to draw attention to themselves; they didn’t know what was out there watching them.
“We’ll shelter here until light,” Hannah said, “hopefully, we’ll be able to get a better idea of where we are by then.”
Inside the derelict structure, crouched into a sheltered corner, they huddled together, wrapping their waterproofs around them to keep out the cold. Like this, they slept fitfully until the first rays of sunshine penetrated through the open roof of the house, gradually warming them.
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