My heart skips a beat and I jump back in alarm. My first instinct is to run- to sprint off into the closest cave of darkness I can find. But then, my brain interferes. Be smart. I turn around and walk off at a normal pace, casually pulling the hood of my black jacket over my head.
Once I've reached a safe distance, I glance back at the store nervously. My eyes search all around me, sight piercing into every crevice of every object within a quarter mile radius. Even when no suspicious signs are visible, I can still feel the loud pumping of my heart echoing through my whole body. I barely dare to breathe, afraid that the loud sound of my ragged breath will deafen me from any warnings of enemies ready to pounce.
$20,000? No one had come looking for me after I ran away. People forgot me because they didn't know about me in the first place. As a poor only child struggling desperately against domestic abuse, I kept as low a profile as I could at school. I avoided friendships as they usually ended in torn up shreds. No one noticed me. No one cared.
And when both parents disappeared, the little 11-year-old girl, damaged both physically and mentally, left in an empty rage without looking back or wondering what had happened. I refused to let myself be taken to the orphanage or sent off to a foster home where even more pain could be inflicted upon my injured soul and body. Despite the everlasting mystery that my parents had left behind, I've tried despairingly to forget them, to leave them behind in the sea of anguish that had consumed my childhood. My family, along with all the memories they brought with them, was a part of my life that I would rather erase, but the past doesn't just vanish into thin air.
I bite my lip and glance back at the picture of the teenage girl taped to the door. Who wanted to find me? Was it my parents? Were they still alive?
But we were poor. We couldn't even afford two meals a day, and I often ended up sneaking leftovers from the cafeteria at school: a few dry flavorless morsels for dinner.
My parents wouldn't have $20,000 just lying around, and they sure wouldn't use it on me. Besides, why look for me now, after 4 whole years?
But then was it someone else?
Maybe someone my parents knew. Someone tracing the thin string that still tied me to my family.
A shiver runs up my spine. Someone is coming after me.
YOU ARE READING
Storage Room
Gizem / Gerilim"I walk up to the gas station shop, intending to furtively slip some food into my jacket, but my hand freezes on the ice cold handle of the door. I stare paralyzed at a half crumpled sheet of paper taped to the glass door. Barely visible under smea...
