Her body was cold, still, and wet. Her glossy eyes showed tears that had trickled down her cheeks before. Her neck showed purple and black splotches from where the grip of the man, strangled her pleading yelps away. There was frozen blood creeping down to her hands, clogging up the rips and scratches of the animals who had later feasted upon her scrawny body, showed evidence of life before. Her clothes, soaked and torn open, were lying beneath her body. Her unlaced shoes, torn with holes from overuse, were lying beside her head from when the man had beaten her with them. Her hair was long and tangled. It was covered in pine needles and leaves, which had gotten there from falling countless times, running away from the man. It used to be blonde, bright as day in the sunlight, but was now brown and red with spots where hair had been ripped out from her scalp, seeming to match her remaining skin. You could see her ears, torn apart from where her earrings used to hang, before someone came and ripped them out.
      But her lips, cherry red with a faint tint of purple, were like nothing like the rest of her body. They were completely untouched, almost perfect. Then I remembered, yet only in little bits, when I had first met this girl. A few years ago, she was lost in the rain. You could tell because she was soaking wet and was franticly looking around the houses, completely confused. I had offered her a lift home, which she accepted. We talked the whole drive there, discovering each other's secrets that we both had told no one before. When she left, we gave each other one of our earrings keeping them until we met again. Years flew by and we never saw each other again, until this day.
*          *          *
      "Hey Sami! This way!" Marcus shouted, "Here's a great spot!"
      "Okay, I'm coming," I chuckled. "I can't run with all this stuff you know." Today Marcus and I are wandering around town to take his senior pictures. He wants a variety of backgrounds to choose from so we have been almost lost for hours. We have been to bridges, meadows, and rivers and none seem to please him. But now he is leading me to his favorite spot, the miniature forest. It's small and mysterious, with a bark-covered trail wrapping around it. With my handy rubber boots on my feet, I treaded through the weeds and mud after Marcus. I found him already posed on a tree, ready for his picture to be taken. I shoot away: him hanging from a branch, flying in the air, hiding behind a bush; his hysterical excitement growing with every shot I take.
      As Marcus was trying to balance on a slick log, he lost his balance and fell to the ground, opposite from where I was standing. I heard the muffled groans of Marcus and then a scream. "Sami . . . Sami . . . come . . . come here!" he cried. I hurried over the log to find myself frozen by the sight before me. It was the girl, from that night.