The Girl Who Flees

Chapter 2

Running had always been my special skill. It was the reason I had survived so long on my own. And even before I was forced to fend for myself, I had enjoyed morning runs in the woods behind my house. It was one of the many ways I found to escape from this crappy world.

It was when I was running that I could feel calm and safe, I could think and be at ease with myself. It made me feel like I wasn't stuck in my problems, like as long as I moved forward I could somehow fix them.

Of course, those feelings would always end as soon as I got home.

And here I was again, running. Lately, the reasons had changed for my running. Usually, now I was running from the cops or someone who caught me stealing. Although that last part didn't happen as much anymore, my skills of thievery had improved as of late.

This time, however, I was running from something strange.

I had been sleeping next to my campfire that was now out when I woke up to loud rustling sounds and stick breaking. Not taking any chances that it wasn't an animal, I sat up, shoved my sleeping bag into my backpack and shoot off.

I had been running for about a minute when I heard shouts from what seemed like a group of men, probably finding my empty campsite. Not looking back I continued to run. 

Which considering that it was still in the middle of the night, was quite hard.

As I ran I had to try to avoid tripping and running into trees and branches. If I used the flashlight I would probably get caught. Anyways I didn't actually have one at the moment now that I think about it, having chucked mine at a cop trying to get away a couple days ago. Basically tripping every few feet  would have to do. 

I started to really regret not have that flashlight as I tripped over a fallen branch, falling face first to the ground, hurting my leg in the process. I quickly got back up after hearing dogs barking off in the distance, which was way too close.

Great, they've got dogs, that's new.

 I continued to run, a bit slower now after  running for so long and tripping. I knew I wouldn't last much further, I might have good speed, but my stamina wasn't my strong point.

My breaths came out shorter, as I tried to gasp for air. My mouth was dry, my lungs felt as if they were going to explode, and my legs began to feel heavy not wanting to take another step. I continued to push forward, now in a messy jog, bound to fall over the next branch on the ground.

My pursuers didn't seem to be having the same trouble as they seemed to only get closer, the shouts of men and barks of dogs urging me to go faster.

Ahead of me, I could faintly make out the outline of a lone boulder. I came up to and decided to hide behind it. I quickly walked around it and found a little spot to hide where the rock made a little shelf to hide under. Grabbing a branch with leaves still on it, I sat in the alcove and positioned the branch to try to hide me a bit.

I tried to calm my breathing and slow my heart rate down as I waited for my pressures to come closer. My heart was still beating hard, it felt like it would just jump out of my chest at any moment. As I sat I began to realize something weird. The cops had never used dogs before, and I happened to know that the towns of the surrounding areas had little to no police dogs, so why were they chasing me, a girl on the run?

I didn't have much time to think about it though, as the people in question finally caught up.

The dogs arrived first, sniffing around and barking when they found me. Or should I say howl, because now that I was close to them, even in the dark I could tell they were wolves. What kind of police had wolves?

I was suddenly blinded by the sudden light and roughly taken out of my hiding spot by a giant hand that had grabbed my forearm. As my eyes adjusted I looked at the strange bunch of men who had caught me.

While they seemed to range in age they were all really big. What was even stranger was their clothes. They all looked like they were from the middle ages, wearing leather boots and jackets.  Some of them held wooden torches, which from what I could tell were just thick tree branches lit on fire. The last thing I notice before I was roughly shoved to my knees was that they all carried the same sort of  weapon, a long silver sword, a bow and even some sort of bat with big scary spikes. There had to be around ten of them and I wasn't too happy that I was surrounded by so many hostiles with pointy weapons.

They began to speak in a strange language, one I couldn't understand or even recognize. The man holding my arm began to tie my wrists together behind my back with a chain.  Which was a good choice for them considering a number of times I was able to slip out of handcuffs (having small wrists was really handy). However, it wasn't good for me.

I tried to wiggle my hands around trying to loosen the chains but to no avail. All of a sudden I was abruptly stood up and pushed forward as the big dudes with swords began to move.

None of them spoke as we walked, not as if I could understand them anyway, but the silence was almost deafening .  As we continued to walk through the forest the men surrounded me, cutting off any chance of escape.

I tried to seem calm, at least on the outside. But on the inside, my mind was racing with questions. What did they want with me? Why would they go to these lengths to find me, I was pretty sure no one had known I was in this forest.  How did they know I was here? Were they looking for me specifically or did I just fit the bill of 'puny girl in woods'?  Where were we going?

Questions kept swirling in my head making me even less calm than before, as my active imagination thought of increasingly horrible situations.

My legs already tired from running earlier felt like they would give out at any second. I was immensely tired from the lack of sleep, as well. I tried not to show any weakness, but that made me even more tired than before.

We had walked for I'm sure was a good hour, until we stopped at a strange clearing. The first thing I noticed was that it was lighter here. Trees were positioned to make the clearing a perfect circle. In the middle were spherical rocks lying in the bright green grass, were placed in strange patterns. And in the center, hovering above the ground was a pool of what I assumed to be water. If you looked it straight on, the water was so thin that you couldn't see it at all, but as we moved closer I was able to see what it looked like from above. It seemed as though there was no bottom, only water.  The even weirder part was that it seemed to be the source of light in the clearing. The water was kind of glowing, which really freaked me out.

I hadn't noticed that I had stopped walking until I was pushed forward. And guess what, I was pushed forward towards the freaky floaty water.  As we got closer, stone stairs appeared out of nowhere, giving us a way to get up to the water.

I decided that there was no way that I was going up any freaky stairs that appeared out of midair. So I did the only thing I could think of. I sat on the ground criss-cross applesauce style, refusing to move any closer to the evil water. Childish I know, but I couldn't think of anything else.

This obviously didn't faze them as they soon picked me up and lifted me off the ground. I opened my eyes to see that we were now standing (or at least they were, I was held above the ground kicking my feet and repeating "no" a thousand times in protest) next to the pool of magical water.

And before I could do anything else they had stepped in the water. I gasped for a breath of air before my head went under and we were pulled into darkness.

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Yup, so that's the new chapter! Yay! Feel free to tell me your thoughts about it, and if I made any errors!

~ Lucelia = )

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