Crazy In Love | Buggy

t w e n t y - o n e

Once I had begun running into the jungle, I couldn't stop myself. I just kept running and running. As I did, branches from the jungle trees were smacking me across my face and body. The force would have normally been strong enough to knock me over, but I was running with such determination that the hits didn't even slow me down one bit.

Behind me, I heard the sound of Buggy yelling after me. The sound only caused me to speed up. I didn't want to be anywhere near him. The sight of him made me physically sick, mainly because I was attracted to him. I felt ill at the thought that I had just made out with him. What was wrong with me?

Then, suddenly, after what felt like an entire lifetime of running from him, I felt his fingers tangle themselves in the back of my outfit. I was yanked backwards, hard.

I fell to the ground with a thud! Everything in me screamed to get back up, to continue running away from him. My body was running on such strong adrenaline that I probably could have. Yet, I laid there, limp. My whole body ached from head to toe.

My face hurt from the slaps of the branches, my legs from the intense running, and my back from the fall that I had just taken. I wanted to cry, but the tears never came.

Instinctively, I looked around for Buggy, surprised that there seemed to be no sign of him whatsoever. Had it been him who had grabbed me? I had been sure of it. Maybe I had snagged myself on a tree branch. But it had felt like a hand grabbing me.

That's when I noticed his hand. It was completely detached from his body, floating up in the air. The sight of that never got any less creepy, no matter how many times I saw it. It was still so bizarre to me that he had the power to do that, to detach his body parts and make them float.

After another twenty seconds or so, Buggy finally emerged from the trees. He was running so quickly that when he saw me, and attempted to stop, he almost tripped over his own feet doing so. It was unusual to see him so....ungraceful. his entire body was coated with sweat, his clown makeup even more smudged than it had been previously.

He doubled over, heaving and panting for breaths, standing with his hands (well one hand) on his knee for balance.

"You... ar... are... a nightmare!" He yelled out at me through strained breathing. "What's...wr - wrong w-ith..."

"I just wanted to be as far away from you as possible," I told him bluntly, my voice coated with venom as I spoke.

"Isn't that nice? One second, you're all over me, and the next, you're literally running away from me. You're sending mixed signals, baby."

I could tell he was trying to joke with me, but there was real hurt, or anger maybe, laced in his voice. I didn't allow myself to feel any guilt about that. He didn't deserve it.

He didn't feel guilty for what he had done to those people back in that town. He didn't feel bad for what he did to the people in my town. He didn't feel bad for kidnapping me. No, screw him. He deserved anything bad which happened to him.

"Go to hell."

He gave me a bemused look at that. "You're luckily that you're so valuable to me."

The map. If it wasn't for that stupid map, or for him destroying it, none of this would be happening right now. I'd be back home on my island, with my family. I'd be safe, and away from him. That's all I really wanted. I felt my heart ache at the thought of it. Was my family safe and okay?

He had left some clowns behind. For all I knew, they could have already killed my town and the people in it. In fact, going off of how destructive they were in general, I'd be surprised if my town would still be standing by the time I got back to it.