Anonymous

Chapter 1

It's quiet. All is still, except for the occasional breath of wind, tousling the girl's long, straight blonde hair teasingly in the air. Her face is cold, and numb. You can see her light brown freckles, adorning her face like stars. Freckles that she covers up with products whenever she gets a chance. And her full, pink lips. She moistens them, but they remain dry. She wants to go home. But there is no place for her to go back to. Not anymore.

The sky is grey. No empty patches of blue sky, no clouds, no sun. Just grey. The girl blinks-once, twice-three times. Her deep green eyes graze the sky, lost. They are not soft, or mesmerizing, or light. They are harsh, and filled with sadness.

She looks beyond here, perhaps at nothing, or perhaps at everything. There is no telling.

She can sense it. The draft in the air. She knows she can't stay. Not for much longer. She never does.

The girl turns her head. Shifts her feet. Looks to the sky once more. She can't tell when the sun will set. The time is emotionless, and blank like her. She breaks into a run, but not before shakily leaning down and tying the laces of her beat-up flats. There is no warmth that reaches her while she runs. She can't feel the ground. Or her arms, or legs or face. It's just the familiarity of the coldness, numbing her body and mind.

Somewhere along the coldness, and the running, the girl must have collapsed. She is lying in a patch of grass, faced down and golden hair spread around her. It reaches her waist, then stops. Her legs are stiff, and her shoes are on tight. She wakes with a start, a muffled scream into the grass. Only the scream is never sounded, because it doesn't reach the end of her throat. She jerks her head to the side, sucking in the cool night air. She knows it is night because of the dark. There are still no stars. She can feel their loss. She doesn't remember what they look like anymore. If they still exist.

The girl lays there, limbs stiff and exhaustion making her weak. She tells herself she will continue running until she is safe. Both are lies. She never gets up. And she never will be safe.

When her eyes flicker open, after timeless hours of stillness, the girl's breath and the atmosphere around her, she is not in the same patch of grass she fell asleep in. In fact, she is not in a valley, or meadow anymore. Her fingertips graze a rough, almost rocky surface. She can't tell what its familiarity is. But she's felt it before. She felt lots of things before, and the surface of her skin remembers it. Her fingers help her see things in a different way. Her hands tell her what they really are. Because she doesn't trust her eyes anymore.

The girl hears voices, out of her left ear. She can't hear out of the other one. The bomb ruined that for her when it sounded, making her half deaf. The voices are very faint and vague, but they are still there. She sits up carefully, and runs a hand through her knatted hair. She feels a stickiness to it. Blood? Did she cut herself or fall along the way? Her hands trail down her legs, and she feels the scratches. But no wounds. She lifts her hands to her ears, which are bleeding. The blood is dry.

She tries to call out. But her throat is swollen, and her vocal cords must be damaged. She cannot croak a single word. Her eyes search the surroundings. She's still outside. Somewhere high. She can't tell where. Everything is still blurry. She doesn't have her contacts.

"Hello?" someone calls out. It's a male's voice, and his tone is deep.

She freezes. Maybe they have found her. Maybe they have been following her along, only to capture and trap her here to kill her. Maybe the pain would go away, she remembers thinking. But she still doesn't move. Not one muscle. Not for 120 seconds. That's a whole 2 minutes of cramped limbs, limited breathing and the pain tearing into her back, making her eyes water. The tears never fall, and she never releases her breath.