Tim was in front of the body, blocking the exit with his back. The fox had fallen asleep and warmed up to him a little and allowed Tim to pet it. "I'm scared." He said to Jake, "Why did you have to leave me alone with all my problems? And most of them appeared after you left, so it is your fault."
He sighed before jumping as suddenly a light came through the holes on both his sides from the tunnel. His movement woke up the fox and he jumped to the side to not be seen by the person holding the light.
Down the tunnel echoed a voice, it was barely audible. Scared, the fox bolted up the tunnel and attacked the person before running off. The light shone down the tunnel one more time, almost lighting up Jake before vanishing with the voice.
"Oh god!" He muttered, "Who was that? How did that person find the hideout?"
Waiting for a few more minutes to make sure the people had left before he would climb back up the tunnel he tried to steady his breathing and relax his lungs. It would do him no good to die of a heart attack or something similar before he made sure Lina was safe and sound.
Finally, having relaxed and being sure the person( or people) had left, he cramped his body back into the tunnel to crawl out: "How do cave divers do this on a daily basis?" His voice was muffled due to the cloth he had put around his mouth to reduce the smell, "Or semi daily… This is a nightmare!"
Back outside the hideout he tried to hide the entrance better before coming to the realisation that somebody else already found it, so why bother?
Dropping the leaves again he turned his back to the tree the hideout was under and decided to walk back home. His clothes were drenched in sweat and the juices of the earth. His shirt had multiple small cuts all over the place and little droplets of blood were covering the cuts which made it through the shirt into his skin.
Tim could already imagine how mad his mother would be at him and how much it is going to burn once she would apply disinfectant on his cuts. He continued through the woods for a while before reaching the end. "Where could Lina be?" He asked himself.
Leaving the forest, he saw a squad of policemen walking along the forest edge, two of them with dogs. He did not know what they were doing but noticed one with a flashlight seemingly giving a report to another one.
"Did that guy find the hideout?" He muttered, staring at them.
He waved at Tim before leading half a dozen other policemen into the forest, taking the dogs with them. Two of the policemen staying outside the forest waved Tim over, concern all over their faces. They obviously had seen the cuts and bleeding wounds on his body as he stumbled out of the forest.
Tim slowly wobbled over to the two of them: "I—" He tried to speak before being cut off.
"Are you okay? What happened to you?" The older one asked. The younger one had grabbed their first-aid-kit to disinfect the wounds and close the wounds.
His eyes filled with tears: "Two days ago," He cleaned off some of the tears flowing down his face, "I had an argument with Paulina and haven't seen her since. And today when my teacher said she was missing I got worried and went to our hideout in the woods."
"Are you… wait a moment." The older man said and took out a phone, "Tim Ostfrucht?"
"Yes." His gaze was lowered to the floor. He contemplated if he could get arrested if they found the body in the hideout. "I… I found a tunnel there." His voice was weak and he forced himself to puke by imagining the odour of the tunnel to make it seem that he had to puke because of what he found, not what he had smelt, "I heard noises and was scared Lina was stuck down there so I climbed down through the small tunnel and…" He puked onto the floor a little more, his legs giving in and dropping to the ground, "I think I found Jake. He… He is the boy who went missing a few weeks ago."
The policemen shot each other glances with worry and sorrow for what the boy was telling them. What did the poor boy have to see? The younger one patted him on the shoulder and picked him back up before sitting him down into a foldable chair and cleaning his wounds.
"Could you continue your story?" One of them asked hesitantly.
He nodded. "I didn't find Lina, but a fox down there and suddenly a light came down the tunnel. Oh god, I thought whoever trapped him down there came back to kill me." He looked the younger one into his eyes, "I was so scared. I… I should have found him sooner!"
His cries continued for a while before the other policemen came back, reporting their finds in the hideout. The dogs had carried out human remains from the tunnel Tim had described.
They sent Tim for the night but made him promise to come into the police station the next day once he felt a little better.