ILLUSION, ELI HALE

fourteen | the hunted

Nadia went vegan when she was fourteen years old. It was during her ninth-grade year, right before spring break. She'd watched a documentary in her Health class about Animal Cruelty in the Food Industry and was disgusted to the point where she swore off animal products.

She stopped eating meat, dairy, and anything that contained a trace of animal products. Nadia was having salads and eating fruits constantly because she was sure that she was helping the environment. And she was.

Her very ethnic mother was surprisingly on her side. Her father, Mark, was a child of immigrants who moved to California from Guyana. Nadia had never met her grandparents who lived in Asia, but she felt connected to them when it came to the cuisine. Her mother was the granddaughter of immigrants coming from India, so traditional cultural home-cooked foods were always in demand in the Porter household. That's why it was quite confusing at first as to why Nadia wanted to stop eating animal products.

When Nadia explained to her mother about the cruelty towards the animals, her mother began to agree. She'd changed recipes from sausage to tofu, replaced egg dishes with noodles or rice, and bought more nuts and berries—doing all she could to support her daughter's choice. And for the time that her vegan era lasted, it went well.

Unsurprisingly, the vegan era lasted a good three weeks before Nadia caved in and had an ice cream cone at the beach. However, the quote at the end of the documentary stayed stuck playing like a loop in the back of her mind. "Could you imagine being hunted for food? Because this is a daily phenomenon that farm animals have to face."

Could you imagine being hunted?

At the time, Nadia had imagined it in a more jarring way. Almost as if she was a gazelle in a field being chased by a tiger for food, or a chicken locked in a crate on the back of a truck unknowingly living out their last moments before turning into a handful of nuggets the next day.

She'd not imagined being hunted as hiding behind a rack of metal tools in Hale Auto, holding Eli's hand with her left and forcing her right hand over her mouth to stop the psychotic assassin from hearing her whimper in fear. She'd not imagined having to hold her breath because if not an arrow could fly into her eye socket. No, that hadn't been on her bingo card for this eventful Friday night.

This woman had busted through the door with ease. One of her arrows did in fact shoot through the air and right into the glass embedded into the door. Nadia closed her eyes in terror. That had just happened. Then, the lady reached through the glass shards left as debris on the garage shop door and unlocked the front door.

Whoever this woman was, whatever she wanted Eli dead for, she was willing to go through a lot to make it happen.

As the woman stalked through the front of the room, armed and ready for a fight, Nadia could feel her heart about to jump right out of her chest. Tears were threatening to peek out through the corners of her terrified eyes. This was real life. This was actually happening. She could feel Eli's hand tighten in her grasp as her hands continued to shake in fear.

The woman peered through the windows of a red Camry, owned by the Peterson's, an old couple who lived on the rich side of town and always gave out the big candy bars on Halloween. She stalked through the windows, seeing if the two children had been hiding out inside there.

Nadia's whimpers were masked by the firm grasp she had on her mouth, afraid if she made any noise, the next arrow that woman shot would be at her. With the woman's back to them, Eli slowly let go of his grasp on Nadia's hand. His lips went to her ears as quietly as he could as the woman was preoccupied with her murderous hunt.