Saving Andrew

04. The Encounter

◆ A N D R E W ◆

     IT WASN'T THE BEST TIME to settle down. The police and the cops were on his tail, even if their eyes were blindfolded from the sight of him, the eyes of people were still wide open. What a shame that he was neither invisible nor invincible.

     It felt as if the guns that were once light were getting heavier and heavier. It made Andrew think that if a bullet was set spiralling through his head, it could've been lighter and it wouldn't have troubled him as much.

      He marched his way to a clearing, and he started noticing that the concrete and tar were slowly turning into sand and dirt. As he looked up, buildings out of pine wood and oak were filling up the space, and he sucked in a deep breath. He could manage surviving here a couple of days before the news spread.

      He set his duffel bag on the ground, and he felt himself giving in to the tiredness that laid upon every inch of his body. His eyelids felt heavy, his knees buckling and his shoulders felt like it was broken in half.

      He wasn't the strongest person in school. Emotionally, yes, since he was so used to peer pressure and social expectations, along with the things that people call him. Unfortunately, physical strength wasn't something that he possessed. It would be one of the many reasons why him murdering someone with a revolver sounded highly unlikely.

       Even though his knees were shaking, he kept on walking. The hotness of sun beating on his skin, sweat trickling from his temples to the sides of his face, the heat pouring on him. His head spun, his throat dry; he felt gross.

       But as he kept on walking, he was met with a glorious sight.

       It was a shady little cottage, or at least that was what it looked like. It had leaves all over, and it somehow looked like the ideal treehouse. It was purely out of wood, and he was tempted to go inside with the sight of a door that was ajar.

     The temptation to commit such crime overwhelmed him, and he felt himself giving in. Soon his fingers were pressing against the door, hearing the satisfying creak of the rusted hinges and forgetting about his troubles. It was cozy. Hot, but cozy.

       He felt as if he were Goldilocks in the home of the three bears. Except, there were no three different chairs, no three different bowls of anything. All he saw was brown, some daggers, more wood and a some wooden sticks that almost accurately resembled a set of  arrows.

      Andrew felt curiosity surging through him, as adrenaline rushed in his veins. He felt excited but at the same time, scared. He felt paranoid but at the same time, careless. He felt unconscious but at the same time, wide awake. Maybe that was why some people do things that they aren't supposed to do.

     Because they were addicted to the foreign feeling.

     All Andrew did was trespass someone else's territory but now he has a growing instinct that he might be familiar to the feeling soon enough.

      Andrew felt himself turning submissive towards his burning desire to lay down and rest. He wanted to curl against the door, trapping it shut and fall into the deepest of slumbers. He wanted to close his eyes and never have to open it against his will ever again. He wanted to feel back at home and by then, the pathetic straw ceiling and the earthy scent emitting from the cottage walls managed to suffice.

       And then his eyelids shut close, his mind wandering off to a deep slumber.

◇ R Y A N ◇

     She noticed that it wasn't her who's controlling her thoughts. She tried refraining herself from walking out of the suburb, away from all the people that hurt her and poisoned her past, and to just stay wherever she once called home, but she couldn't.

      She kicked the ground for the many times that she couldn't count, and it sent grains of dirt flying everywhere. Some caught in her fishtail braid, but she couldn't care less.

     "Why?" Her voice cracked, her whispers frail. She felt so vulnerable and weak.

     She must get out.

     She gasped and got ahold of her head. She picked up her whatnots and was ready to leave the place, only this time, forever.

    She wiped away the tears that grew stronger, fighting her urge for controlling herself. It had to be specifically on her birthday, or else it wouldn't really work its magic. She had contemplated her reason of life during the miserable hours of her community service, as if she was a goddamned crime committee begging for release.

     She silently thank her lucky stars that only worked once in a lifetime for making her confident about this idea. Yes, she will bring all her belongings to another country, perhaps living on the outskirts of a grand city, even if it meant her being homeless. She had to admit, this wasn't much of a home, anyways.

     She marched her way towards the tiny cottage that shamelessly stood with its door ajar, just the way she left it. She was confident that no sick, desperate maniac of this society would be breaking into it with the sincere intentions of accommodating it.

      The last time someone was in the cottage, they were about to steal her daggers. She was confused as to why the heck would anyone steal a wooden dagger that could potentially break if you actually attempted to stab someone, and just to clear some things up, what they stole weren't even daggers. They just stole some goddamned sticks. Sticks. As in, the ones that she used to make fire out of, not play a dangerous game of tag with.

    God, she wished people would appreciate intelligence as much as she did.

     So, she stepped inside the familiar room filled with all sorts of lethal but still not as deadly stuff. All wood and yarn. No steel or rock.

     She was placing her daggers and bow onto the ground, finding anything that could fit all her stuff. She pondered around until she finally found what she had been looking for. She sighed looking at the duffel bag, a bit relieved that it wasn't so heavy.

    Then, she realised.

    Duffel bag? Since when did she have a duffel bag?

    "Not again," she groaned. She wasn't even emotional anymore, just pissed off. Some guy had probably just filled his own duffel bag with more sticks, she guessed.

    "Who's there?" She shouted. The cottage had nothing but one spot for everything, and one spot was all she needed - especially in this situation. She looked behind the door, revealing no one. She looked under her table, no sign of people under there.

     But how could on earth could she hear quiet snores just within her range?

     She spun around, walking quietly towards the sound. What she saw next had definitely freaked her out, and the fact that she had never saw someone quite like him was a plus.

     She held onto the sleeping guy's collar with one hand and examined his face. "Who the hell are you?" She quietly questioned, entirely ignoring the fact that he wasn't even listening. His face seemed so unfamiliar to her. Could it be that he was a sightseer in the suburb? Still, there's nothing to sightsee here. Well, if one could count the orphanage and the market as an interesting place of experience, maybe they could have a solid enough reason to come to the dreadful suburb.

    She shook him a bit, lifting him just a bit. He would've weighed at least a hefty 150 pounds. It took her the energy of lifting a bull to lift his shoulders up.

    He groaned and wiped his face. When his eyes slowly flutter open, Ryan said her normal dialogue casually. "That's enough sticks to steal for today, boy."

     He was struggling to focus, but as soon as he does, he yelled uncontrollably. "Who are you?!" He shouted. "What the hell are you doing in my room?" He looked at her and back to the ground as he backed out and away from her. "What have you done to my room?!"

     As weird as he was, he might just be her perfect strategy. She just knew it.