Run away and abandon her friends.

"I'll get help," Gilly whispered. "I'll get help, I promise!"

She turned around and ran back along the path they came from. Mud splashed and she stumbled several times before she allowed herself a glance back. She saw the silhouettes of both her friends in the distance, both standing still. It looked as if Katarina and Ysdella were both completely covered in vines.

It's not an animal, it can't eat my friends, Gilly thought. If I get help quickly, we can cut them out. So she turned away once more and continued to run. Tears rolled down her cheeks, because deep inside herself, she blamed herself for abandoning her friends. She was a coward! She was a coward, and she knew it. She should have tried to help them. Maybe it would have been enough to somehow drag them out of the reach of the strange plant.

Gilly stumbled once more and landed in a pond, water splashing. She remembered the strange effects of the storm earlier and rose quickly. Who knew if the water in these ponds was not rain water from the storm?

She ran until her lungs seemed to burst and her legs burned like fire. She was not meant to run through a swamp. She was a plump and pudgy baker's daughter with big swinging breasts. Back at the village, that was enough to get the boys swooning over her, but out here in the wilderness, she was extremely unfit for the task of helping her friends.

Gilly looked around. She suddenly realized that the Danudon river was nowhere to be seen. The river that was supposed to be her landmark and the only indication she had for the right direction.

She had lost her way.

Gilly sank to the ground and started sobbing. It was all pointless. She had abandoned her friends with the promise of getting help, but where and how would she get help? She couldn't even find her way out of the edge of the swamp.

It took all her effort to rise again after a while and drag herself onward. She didn't know which way she was going. She just hoped that somehow, somehow, by walking on she would reach the end of the swamp.