estranged

3. russ

3. russ

I did not want to come here, and i certainly did not want to stay. But i deserve this, ive broken father's trust yet again and disappointed him. I should not have looked up, not at him. I am to stay here, so that is what i will do. Maybe for longer, i have to prove that he can trust me again. I will not speak to him if he dares to come back. I will not even look. In fact, i will make myself incapable of looking, and i suppose it means father can just take me home without trouble.

The day started off relatively normal; I am woken by dahlia; my sister, who drags me out of my too-small bed , i already know what the problem is. No one really bothers to wake me up unless i have to hunt. I sigh and walk downstairs, picking up our father's gun near the door and i leave . I know we will go without food this morning. But if i get enough now, We might be able to have dinner or even lunch for the next week .

I will be back in an hour, as not to disappoint father and make us late for the meeting. I make my way through the trees , stepping carefully over the metal traps hidden in the undergrowth and listening for any rustling up ahead. Ive gotten rather good at sneaking ,despite my size. I find a good bush after a while and settle down to wait.

My face still hurts from yesterday, all the more reason not to make father more angry with me. I'll probably get another black eye if i do. After 15 minutes there has been no sign of anything, i sigh, stretching the weariness out of my body and walk deeper into the forest. Eventually, i hear something. Crouching down, i peer through the bushes and see a little brown rabbit. It's better then nothing. I carefully take a knife out of my back pocket and slowly creep towards the rabbit. Of course it hears me immediately. "Shit.." Luckily im close enough now and i jump out and grab it's leg just as it's skittering away. I pull it back and bring my hand to it's neck. One quick flick of my wrist and it's dead.

This wont be enough to feed us , but im sure there will be more around here. I'll just have to be careful that i dont step in any traps. There's a lot more out here and barely any of them are marked . i think i remember where most of them are though, but there's always the threat of loosing a leg if i misstep . To be honest im more scared of what father would do if i came home missing my leg then loosing the leg itself. But, i know father cares about us. He's just hard on me so i can be like him, and make good decisions and things . he dosent want to hurt me. It's just To toughen me up. He dosent want our family to seem weak, because we are not. But i suppose a small part of this is so i'll be ready to fight if there's another 'war'

I arrive back home with one deer, three rabbits and am quite pleased with myself. It's not as much as i wanted. But it will do. I dump them on the table and go back up to my room. It seems like seconds before i am shaken awake and dragged downstairs by father . then we line up, and march out the door and make our way to the meeting hall. Father has three rules for the meetings; 1:do not look at anyone but himself , unless you are directly addressed by the leaders. 2: do not talk to anyone, especially him and his family. And 3: do not dare to embarrass yourself or father , or you will be punished. I have failed all three today. I'm going to have to work extra hard to make up for this. I hate making father mad .and now im stuck behind the hall, sitting on concrete. i sigh and look back up at the sky , closing my eyes and letting the night surround me.