✔ Run Baby Run ✖ punk hood au

xxxviii - options

g w e n:

My dream was so beautiful that I didn't want to wake up. It felt so real that every image was vivid. Despite the simplicity of its content, the dream was nothing less of wonderful. It was a sunny day, warm and I could feel the rays kiss my skin. I was at a park laughing and enjoying life with all my friends and family, and like an angel, Calum walked into the scene. With a ear to ear grin that filled my heart up with joy, Calum took me in his arms to kiss me tenderly. I smiled into the kiss, as did he, and all was perfect.

But then I woke up.

There was a loud crash that jolted my entire body with fear. My beating heart was ignited and before I knew it I was forced to come face to face with a reality so disturbing. The other girls around me bursted into screams, into cries, and the most terrible of all: hopeless pleas.

"Single file line!" The guard roared at the top of his lungs, banging against the walls with a metal pole.

The clamor was enough to cover our ears as we all followed direction. Isra stood behind me, and when I turned around to look at her, fear coated her dark eyes. She knew, I knew, and several of the others knew what this all meant. The heavy, metal door that barricaded us from freedom was wide open. But it wasn't salvation where these guards and Fiora were taking us; we were in for a fate worse than death.

Surrounded by Fiora's men, we filed out of the concrete room I came to know as my home for the last several days. It felt so odd, so surreal to be out of that prison but I knew in my heart that I was only walking towards another cell. The dim lights above us flickered, casting eerie shadows on the concrete walls as we sauntered through the narrow halls.

I felt like a pig for slaughter; walking to my death and there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted to turn around to look at Isra, but I was scared. We were surrounded by four of Fiora's men and I knew they had no soul. One tiny mistake on my end, and I could possibly die - but I'd be lying if I didn't consider it. Death would be a much better option than the fate I was about to face.

"Up the stairs, hurry up!"

I hated being screamed at; evil voices reverberating off of the walls and hitting my heart with great force. We all climbed up a metal, spiral staircase, towards another metal door that seemed oddly familiar. Once we approached it, the barricade swung open and it was in that moment did tears begin to well up in my eyes again.

"Oh God no," I breathed, covering my hand to my mouth in utter shock.

I couldn't believe it; I refused to believe it. I stepped through the door and entered a room so familiar that I wanted to kick the wall. It was a room I knew so well because it was a room so close to home. While it rattled my brain thinking that I was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, my soul shattered the moment I was surrounded by these four walls.

On one side was a metal shelf of paints, another were stacks of plastic crates, another had paper, and another contained a door - a door that lead straight into the Outreach Center. I had been home all along; right beneath the people I called family and it broke my heart. All this time I thought I was in some far away country, when in reality I was here.

I couldn't control my tears, though I knew I'd get punished for them. I didn't care, and part of me wanted to get punished. I was missing for so long, still in Sydney, yet no one had found us. Every day volunteers would come into this very room, Evan included, probably gathered supplies for the kids and not once would it have crossed their minds that I was right under their noses.

"Shut up!"

I was slapped in the face for crying and the area on my cheek was burning like hot, prickling knives. I couldn't control my emotions - not when I was so close to home, yet so far away.