I looked at her up and down to make sure that she wasn't crazy.

Fortunately, everything looked normal. Only then did I relax a little.

“What happened, Melany? Brian's gone berserk. Why didn't you inject him with the tranquilizer?"

MeLany stopped, wiped the sweat on her forehead, and explained calmly, "It was a little difficult to get him to cooperate. I dropped the tranquilizer when I tried to get close, so I had no choice but to tie him up in the meantime."

That was when I noticed all the scratches on Melany's body, which she likely got from subduing Brian. She probably lost the tranquilizer during their kerfuffle.

“I'm just glad you're okay. Come on, let's go back."

Caleb came over to help control Brian.

Melany practically collapsed as soon as she handed the rope over to Caleb. It seemed she had used up the very last of her strength, and like a deflated ball, she almost crumpled to the ground.

I hurried to catch her.

“Watch out!"

Caleb could tell that Melany was exhausted, so he said, "Go help her, Debra. I'll take care of Brian."

“But your arm"

My eyes lingered on the deep gashes on his arm.

With a calm smile on his handsome face, Caleb interrupted me. "It's okay. It's no big deal. I can handle it."

But I was still worried. "No, you're injured. If you lose too much blood, it'll be even harder for us to get out of here. Let me handle Brian."

Caleb found himself unable to argue, so he agreed reluctantly.

Together, we headed for the edge of the forest arm in arm. With Caleb's guidance, we soon found the exit.

There seem to be a lot of people from the search and rescue team right outside the forest. We were still in the thick of the trees when we started hearing the hustle and bustle of police sirens and ambulances in the distance.

Debra's POV:

The sweet sounds of those sirens were like music to my ears.

I was so excited that I started jumping up and down, waving at the rescue team and shouting, “Hey, we're here!"

Everyone turned to look in the direction of my voice.

They all breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they saw us.

It was as though we had finally reached the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. We could finally leave the horrors of the foggy forest behind.