Attempted escape

Seventh chapter:
Attempted escape

She was held captive in the cave for a few days and was always guarded by several gargoyles. Every day Jáy came by and grinned maliciously when he saw her tied up and with a dark or desperate expression on her face. She was given some kind of stuff that she should eat and that tasted just as disgusting as it looked and smelled, but she ate it, otherwise she wouldn't get anything. Fortunately, at least she got water and not something like the food.
But at some point her leg and the injuries healed and she was able to walk without the splint again and Jáy asked that fifteen Gargoille and Jessica should look for the dragon spirit diamonds again. The Gargoille tied their hands together with a rough rope of leaves and something like straw, and flaked them in front of them. They went through many corridors and after about ten minutes Jessica saw daylight. Her eyes had got used to the dim light in the cave for so long that she screwed up when they went outside.Jessica took a deep breath. The air was so pure and fresh. She had completely forgotten how she was because in the musty stone grotto the air had been salty and very stuffy, but at some point she had stopped paying attention and got used to it.
The surroundings were very green. Lots of colorful flowers bloomed on the edge of a clearing in the forest, which looked like a plantation, because many trees had fruit and some of them were more or less in rows.

Jessica would have loved to look at the area even longer, but one of the Gargoille showed with his bony and disgusting green-brown claw what should mean that she should go further.

The sun was high in the sky and beating down on them. The gargoyles didn't seem to mind, but after half an hour Jessica was sweaty and weak. She would have loved to lie in the shade of a tree all day, rested and dozed off, because she felt completely drained.It was no wonder, because she hadn't been outside for a long time; she was only held captive in the cave and often tied to a rock wall. The Gargoille had to realize that they had to take a break!
"I'm thirsty!" Jessica shouted exhausted and stopped. The Gargoille that had run in front of her also stopped and turned around. One looked around and saw a river below in a kind of valley. He spoke to the others using the strange sounds in their language. One answered him and they went down into the valley.
Jessica dropped to her knees on the bank of the river. Her hands were freed from the rope so that she could scoop up water with them. She kept scooping water and gulping it greedily from her hands. She felt like she was about to die of thirst. She had been given some water the day before, but not that anymore. She wondered what time it was meanwhile and how long she had been trapped in the cave when a thought occurred to her: "You have untied the rope and so I could run away now!Shall I try? I could wait a little longer and gain strength. Then I could quickly run across the river and escape. If I'm lucky, don't tie my hands back together right away, but if I kneel here too long and drink, you'll likely force me to move on. That means I have to hurry up and gather my strength quickly! "
She tried to collect all of her energy. When she thought she couldn't wait any longer and had enough strength, she briefly looked over her shoulder at the gargoyles. Some just stood or sat around, talking to others or just looking around, bored. "If Jáy knew that they were just sitting around and not taking care of me, he would surely freak out! They are probably too stupid to think that I could try to escape!"
But one of them was standing one or two meters behind her and didn't take his eyes off her. "Now or never!" Thought Jessica and jumped up.She jumped off the bank with little run-up and her foot landed splashing in the water. She was lucky that the river wasn't that wide, because with the next jump she had already reached the other side. The Gargoyles got up, frightened, and ran after her. They were very fast and nimble, but it had taken them too long to get across the river, because Jessica had sprinted quite a bit and was getting faster and faster, but she knew that she had not much stamina left and could not maintain this pace for long. She had no choice: Either she would let the gargoyles recapture her or she had to find a hiding place somewhere to protect her from them. She looked around, looking for something to hide in, but she also had to be careful not to let the Gargoille catch up with her. But every time she turned, they'd caught up more of a head start. She had probably really slowed down, and not just imagined it to be.She was already out of breath and had a stitch in her side, but of course she couldn't stop walking. Normally she would have run 20 kilometers at this pace, but since she had lost a lot of her stamina, she probably wouldn't even make four; normally she would have drank and eaten a lot, too, but during the time she was trapped she had only had three drinks a day and half a stone bowl with the disgusting food once a day.
The sun tormented her further and her side stitches grew bigger and bigger.
"Don't fall down! Don't fall! Don't think that you are dying of thirst and starvation! Don't think that the sun is almost burning it up! Don't think that green monsters are running after you and will soon catch up with you !!! !!! "
Of course she knew she didn't have much time left, but it was her only option: she ran into the woods. When she turned around and could no longer see the edge of the forest, she went to the next best tree and climbed up on it.Strangely enough, the Gargoille were not yet in sight, but they couldn't be far, as they had only been a short distance behind her. She had already reached the next larger branch when she heard the loud Gargoille. They had split up to look for her, but Jessica couldn't understand why they hadn't seen where she had run. She hurried up the stairs so that she could quickly hide behind the leaves of the treetop. There wasn't a better hiding place at the moment. She hoped that the Gargoille weren't smart enough to look in the treetops either, because then she would be discovered and couldn't and wouldn't even make out what would happen to her then.

Finally in the crown of the tall tree, hidden between the leaves, she was breathing more calmly. She heard the sounds of a Gargoille very closely. Hopefully she hadn't seen it!
She was still waiting. At least three quarters of an hour had passed, but the Gargoille still hadn't spotted them.She heard their sounds again, but then they were silent. She waited another ten minutes, then came down from the tree. She was right: they were gone!