Runaway

Chapter 3

'My name is Laura Hobin. I am 16 years old.' I repeat to myself as we make our way through the overgrown Forest. 'I used to live in the 2nd quarter. I am on the run from everyone apart from my parents, who are somewhere I don't know and by friend Theo. These are the only people I have left. I don't want to loose them. I've only just found them.'
It seemed a long time before the first gunshot fired. It probably was due to the fact that I was daydreaming the whole time I was sprinting through trees and bushes, getting berries caught in my long brown hair. The daydreaming helped stop my mind from wandering to where we were going or where they were driving us and the searing pain in my thigh that was growing with every step.

The gunshots and Theo's screams were the only thing that could have woke me from my little dream. That and the fact that Theo had stopped. He was lay on the ground. Unmoving. Still. A pool of blood surrounding him, and a bullet stuck out of his shoulder. This was the first time in my life I have screamed. I've always kept it hidden inside me, away from anyone who might think I'm weak for screaming or crying. But I'm not like that anymore. I'm not a farmer like my dad and my mum. I'm free from quarter rules. I'm not anything. I'm everything.

Several pairs of bony hands wrapped around my shoulders, digging their nails into my skin, drawing blood. I grit my teeth through the ever-growing pain in my left and right shoulders as they drag me and the limp Theo away to an unknown destination. At first I didn't recognise Theo, all the colour has been drained out of his skinny face and his arm is stained with blood. His blood. Luckily the gourds had some sense and had used a white strip of material to halt the bleeding. Why shoot him just to heal him? They obviously don't want to kill us or they have to not kill us, on orders. But whose orders? The 1st quarter government? A leader?
I don't know for now I've just got to concentrate on not seeming weak to our attackers. My jaw set, I carry on, one foot in front of the other.
"I have been caught, I don't know where we are going, I hope I find my parents." I whisper under my breath.
"Tell me where were going." I demand for the third time.
"Just shut up and keep walking, you'll find out when we---" he was cut off by me, shoving my clenched fist into his jaw at the free moment while he was talking to me and slipping away into the darkness of the forest. Away from them... And Theo.
I will find him. I promise myself as I fled through the identical trees forgetting my plan to keep track of where I was. I suppose I abandoned that idea a long time ago. Maybe I new I wouldn't be able to keep that up. Like many other things.
My legs were already aching from sprinting along through the forest. I can already feel scratches all over my arms and face from the branches that smack against any bare skin every few seconds. Eventually, after a long mental debate, I decided to take a break. But not after I had run/joked at least 2 miles from the scene. I quickly push the image from my mind of Theo hitting the ground with loud thump, and my heart plummeted to my feet. How can one sound signify something so big.
Did he make it? Did he get taken away? Where is he? I ponder over all these questions as I find a decent tree to climb up. All of a sudden a thought pops into my mind: Where am I? What's going to happen to me now I don't have anything? No map. No backpack. I have only one choice left to survive. Get to the Centercity. Fast.