Broken Crown

Taken

Casper ran. He ran and ran, not stopping for his bike. There was no time to grab it. Who knows who had seen him? Crisp night air shot into his lungs and burned as it left, spreading the flames throughout his body and down into his legs. Out of the city and into the woods. The scarce, precious light the moon cast was far too dim, only outlining the scolding trees whose branches struck his face and whipped his stomach. Pain shot through his feet with every step as they smacked the ground that was doused in sharp rocks and sticks. He couldn't think straight. His whole body pulsed with every heartbeat.

Then, like a swelling wave, darkness consumed him.

His head ached like it was stuffed with cotton and his surroundings were blurred and strange. Was that the sound of his heart pumping? He couldn't tell. He knew he was sitting, the hard oak against his back, under him, and to either side. His fingers brushed against the wood and traced the frail line of light the closet doors would let slip in. The cold metal pressed and chilled the skin around his mouth and under his jaw, the contraption meant to keep him as silent as possible. Muffled laughter sounded from outside his wood prison. Company must be over. He must be quiet for they wouldn't like him to bother the adults. The coarse fabric from his over-sized shirt scratched and irritated his skin, his muscles tired and cramped from being kept in the same position for so long. The intensity of the hunger ripping inside of him signaled he had been in there for at least three days, the average amount. He heard from Luke that people could go weeks without food, so he should be fine. Stay quiet, stay quiet, stay....

"Ugh..." His voice didn't sound like his own as he forced himself awake. The wet, soft ground beneath him breathed its gentle scent of damp leaves and earth and insects buzzed their sweet songs in the cool morning air. I'm still in the forest. This is good... this is good. As he forced his tired limbs to extend, they moaned their soreness and were as stiff as dry wood. Scratches and tears in his skin from the countless trees itched and stung worse than whippings even though very few were deep enough to draw blood. It was strange, the idea that nature's punishment could cause greater discomfort than man's.

"Okay. I'm in a forest. Let's start there," he muttered to himself, not actually knowing why he was talking aloud. There was no one around and he knew talking to oneself was a making of insanity. Eh, just one more thing to add to the list. Knowing the whole city was built in a deep valley between two mountains, he just had to find which mountain his house would be against. Simple enough if he wasn't stuck in a forest. Might as well just start walking...

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

After hours of wandering, lots of backtracking, scolding sassy rabbits, and fighting countless low branches, Casper was finally home. Like a looming cloud of guilt and worry, the events of the previous night blanketed his thoughts. He hadn't been seen. It was completely self-defense. It wasn't his fault. Just let it hurt you now and soon it will fade. Like your past embarrassments and regrets, they stay in your mind and you don't think you'll ever live it down, but within a week you see it's not so bad... He took a deep breath, tugging leaves and sticks out of his hair. He had killed a man. Now, looking in the mirror, he could see the ruddy brown spots splattered across his face and the stains on his clothes. He had forgotten how much that man had bled. 

With a sigh and a swallow of emotions, he grabbed a spare change of clothes and walked out towards the small stream that ran off of the mountain by his shack. The forest was quiet around him but it was still a strange feeling to strip down in the open. He waded into the waist-deep, slow moving water and goosebumps prickled his skin. Even in the dead of summer, the stream was always a frigid cold. He honestly didn't mind it, the cold letting his mind wander. Did I really kill someone? It could've just been a bad dream... Bad dream? What was he thinking. He had blood splatters. People don't just wake up with dried blood splattered across themselves.

A twig snapped. All of the sudden his senses went into high gear and his muscles went stiff. The blurble of the stream seemed to be the only sound around him now. There. He could've sworn he'd seen a shadow escape behind a tree. The raven inside his chest started to twitch awake as fear dug its tendrils into his mind like ivy's spindly fingers searching for a hold on a wall. There's a reason ivy is so difficult to remove, its tiny vines laced into the smallest cracks and faults of a building. Fear was the same, and no matter how hard he tried to calm himself, his mind choked the sense and flew through every devastating possibility. He could die. This could be his final resting place. A lone stream in a nondescript forest with no one to miss his presence and no one to find him. 

What was he doing? No one knew where he lived, let alone be able to track him after he had wandered the forest. Maybe they already knew where I lived and were just waiting for me to become vulnerable? Oh great... I'm going to be murdered in a stream while I'm butt naked. Just great. He was doing it again. He was freaking himself out when all he had actually heard was a stupid stick and the glint of a shadow. It was still a bit strange, the feeling of being watched itching the back of his mind. 

With a sudden prick on the back of his neck, his vision swirled and everything twisted and grew dark. He felt himself falling until the curtain of crisp water consumed him. Everything went dark and numb, a single thought swimming in his drowning mind: I'm sorry, Luke. I tried...