When Magee finally came back to the cave, he brought some food with him. But he didn't find Emily there, so he searched the whole cave but found no trace of Emily everywhere.
"Emily? Emily!" Magee called her name out loud but didn't get a response. Only the echo of his voice bounced back to him and surrounded the empty cave.
'Where on earth did you go, Emily?' Magee started to feel anxious.
He put down the food and left the cave to find Emily. He looked around and tried to trace the possible path Emily took, but he realized it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
'Perhaps Emily went out to look for me. She must be worried, otherwise, she won't go out on her own. I should have come back early. No, I shouldn't have left her alone in the first place. What was I thinking?
She is weak and injured. What if she slipped and fell over? What if she fell unconscious in the woods? What if she encountered a beast? No one was there to help her.'
Magee tried to focus himself on finding her, but he couldn't stop thinking of the worst case scenario that could have happened to Emily. The thought of her getting into trouble made him panic, 'I shouldn't have taken her here in the first place.'
"Emily! Emily!" Magee kept shouting.
Suddenly, he heard a response from somewhere not too far. "Sir!" It was his guards. They traced the route and found Magee.
Magee was frustrated with them for showing up too late, but he would rather save his energy to find Emily. He clicked his tongue and said, "Listen up! Emily is missing. Go and find her! Move now! Whatever it takes, just find her!"
"Yes, sir!" The guards were tired and would like to rest for a moment, but when they sensed the anger in Magee's tone, they dared not to say anything.
They knew that the only thing they could do right now to pacify Magee's anger was to find Emily.
Magee followed his guards in searching for Emily. She was injured so she couldn't have gone too far, but they still couldn't find any trace of her.
"Sir, look at this! This looks like a footprint from Ms. Emily!" one of the guards suddenly said when he spotted a footprint.
"Let me see it." Magee took a step forward and checked a fresh footprint on the muddy road.
It was the same mark as the shoes that Emily was wearing. "It's hers. She is not far away. And there's a trail here. Let's go. Follow them!"
"Yes, sir!"
Magee was hoping that these footprints would eventually lead them to Emily, however, some of them were lost in the puddle.
They already reached a dead end of the trail and they lost track of Emily again.
Magee was hopeless and desperate. He couldn't even find a phone signal in this area. They had no choice but to look at every possible place in this area to find Emily.
'God, please keep her safe until we find her. I won't be able to forgive myself if something bad happens to her.
I need to bring her back safe and sound, ' Magee told himself.
...
Meanwhile, in village head's house.
Mr. Yang could not keep Emily out of his mind. He wanted to see her, but he was afraid of his wife that he didn't dare make a move.
Emily knew that she was just temporarily safe, so she needed to befriend the silly boy Donny to get more information about the village.
The village was like a secluded area. It was far away from the main road and the city which was why the villagers here didn't know anything about the outside world. Mr. Yang became the head, and the biggest bully of the village.
The villagers lived here for generations and no one had the chance or the courage to leave the village and see the outside world. They had been living the way they were and didn't know about other ways of living. The male outnumbered the female population, that was why most males didn't have female companions and the population started to diminish.
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