Purple | Cole Stewart -VERSION DISCONTINUED

Chapter Four: "shopping"

Based on the clock on the dashboard, I had been driving for almost an hour, and by some miracle I had yet to encounter another vehicle on the road.

But I was starting to fall asleep at the wheel, and the van was getting really low on gas, so I decided to start looking for a place to dump the van. I was hoping I would be able to find a place to sleep for a while and maybe clean up my injuries before moving on on foot.
I found an abandoned Walmart that I deemed acceptable, and spent an embarrassing amount of time hiding the van in the loading dock on the back of the building. 
After that I headed inside to do some shopping. 
The first place I went was the pharmacy area at the back of the store. I grabbed gause, rubbing alcohol, a shit ton of band-aids, ibuprofen, and a pre built first aid kit to save for later. Then I jumped over the pharmacy counter and looked for any names that I recognized as antibiotics or painkillers I took when I got hurt as a kid.
Then I sat down on the floor in the middle of the pharmacy and tried my best to clean myself up.
Next, I headed to the hunting and camping section in hopes of finding a good backpack and maybe a sleeping bag. I had luck with both, and attached the sleeping bag to the space on the backpack that it was supposed to go on. As I was walking along the aisles I saw a bunch of glass on the floor, and went to investigate. The glass had come from the protective case that held a hunting knife display. There were only a few knives left in the case, and I had no idea how to choose a knife, so I just chose the first one I had seen, and grabbed its sheath as well. By the time I left the camping section of the store, I had also found a flashlight, an emergency survival kit, and a  reusable water bottle. 
I moved onto the clothing section, brushing past almost full racks of dresses, and towards the barren shelves that used to hold jeans. After sifting through the piles of denim on the ground and trying on more pairs of pants than I ever wanted to again, I found 2 pairs that fit me well enough.
By the time I reached the mens section to look for some suitable shirts, my luck had definitely started to run out. All that was left were the very largest sizes of a few graphic t-shirts. But it was better than my camp uniform, so I picked out three that I liked the most and packed them into my bag with the other supplies I had already picked out. 
I found the pair of shoes I wanted in the electronic section for some reason, but I didn’t feel like questioning it, so I moved on and gathered all the food I could carry.
After that, I wandered around the store some more, feeling too on edge to try and sleep yet. After a short search to find a toothbrush and some other hygiene stuff, I found myself wandering through the cosmetics section.
I stopped as I found myself staring into a broken mirror that had fallen to the ground. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. The last time I had looked in a mirror had been the morning that I was taken to Thurmond.
Before I was taken, my face was pretty round. Now, I could see my cheekbones clearly, and my face seemed to have changed to a more oval shape. My cheeks were sunburned from working in the gardens for so many hours, and there were huge dark circles under my eyes.
As I scanned the unfamiliar face in front of me, I realized just how terrible my hair looked. If it had been untangled, it probably would’ve reached my lower back. But it was knotted and grimy, and it was sticking out in all different directions. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to fix it. There was a very real possibility that I would have to cut a lot of it off.
Up until this point, I was proud to say that I hadn’t cried at all. I had held it together throughout hours of being restrained and alone in the dark, and through numerous injuries. But this- this broke me.
I sunk down to the floor slowly as my eyes filled with tears. All of the emotions I had been feeling all day were crashing down on me.
I sat there and cried for what felt like hours. When I finally pulled myself together and stood up. The sun had set while I was crying, so I used my flashlight to get back to the back of the store, where I had set up a tent to sleep in for the night. When I got there, I collapsed into my sleeping bag and fell asleep in seconds.
For the first time in ages, I didn’t wake up to a siren and 19 other girls scrambling to get dressed before we were punished. It was almost enough to make me start crying again.
I packed up the belongings I had collected, brushed my teeth, and headed towards the store’s entrance. That was when I found my most useful item to date- a bike.
It wasn't anything special- just a plain black bike with a platform on the back for my backpack, but it was loads better than traveling on foot.
I ran back to the sports section excitedly, tripping over my slightly too big shoes in the process. I quickly found the aisle that had bike accessories and grabbed an attachable light, a front basket, and a helmet.
Then I ran back and grabbed the bike, heading out the broken sliding doors of the store, grabbing a pack of gum as I passed the checkouts.
I was finally free.

Word count: 1015