Running with Wolves

The Beginning

"Kay, Kay you need to wake up honey. Wake up!" I opened my eyes sleepily.
"Mama? What's the matter? Is it my birthday yet?" For as long as I could remember, mama and papa had always woken me up at midnight on my birthday. I was going to be six years old this time!
"No sweetie, it isn't, but you need to listen to me. Get up, you need to get up." I did what she said. Light from the hall streamed into my room, illuminating the silhouettes of my mama and papa.
"Listen to me Kay, you need to hide, and no matter what happens, don't come out, promise me baby girl." I nodded, but I was confused.
"Under the bed, go on darling. We love you, we love you so much and we are sorry it had to be like this. Here, take these, hide them under your clothes and be quiet." Papa said, pressing a gilded gun and an ornate dagger into my hands.

Weapons like these were banned, why did my parents have them? I retreated under the bed and my parents left the room, pulling the door to and plunging the room into darkness. The carpet was course and scratchy and there was a musty smell. Through the crack in the door, I could see my parents sitting on the cracked, worn leather sofa. Was this a prank? I was about to crawl out from under the bed when the front door was kicked in.

I shied back into the shadows, biting my lip to stop myself calling out. I watched as a forest of black clad legs rushed into our apartment. They began to yell, and I covered my ears. I hated shouting. My parents were forced to the floor, kneeling on the dark, threadbare carpet. Should I go to them? I considered a moment, but halted when my door was kicked in. I stayed perfectly still as they quickly opened my flimsy wardrobe and pulled up the covers on my bed. I could hear them doing the same in my parents room and the bathroom. Nobody looked under the bed. Eventually the group gathered around my parents once more.

"Where is your daughter?" A man with a gravely voice growled.
"She's staying at a friends. She doesn't know about any of this, I swear." My mama answered, her voice sweet and comforting. The man leaned down to her, and I saw a face with a most horrific scar that stretched from his right jawbone to his left temple. His eyes were small and incredibly cruel, his mouth twisted into a viscous, humourless grin. He reached out and dragged one finger down my mama's face.
"The problem is, sweetheart, I just don't believe you." Time seemed to slow as two gunshots rang out, sending my parents slumping to the ground, blood spilling out and pooling on the ground. My face felt moist. I was crying.

"What's the brat called?" The leader snapped.
"Kay, sir."
"Kay. What a nice name. Here Kayyie, Kayyie, Kay. Come out, come out wherever you are." The leader moved slowly towards my room, and started singing my favourite nursery rhyme, London Bridge. But the words were wrong, the tune distorted.
"Blood and gore is dripping down, dropping down, dropping down, blood and gore is dripping down, my scared Kay. You cannot run nor hide, nor hide, nor hide, you can't run or hide, my scared Kay." As the last eerily haunting notes died down, his legs were inches from mine. He didn't know I was here. He didn't know. He didn't know.

Then he bent down, grabbed my wrist and dragged me from beneath my bed, kicking and screaming.
"Put me down! Put me down! Let go!" I screeched at the top of my lungs, kicking blindly. I hit him and he dropped me, cursing me to hell and back. I turned and sprinted away, dodging from my room. One of the men grabbed me and lifted me clear off the ground. I thrashed desperately and he dropped me. I tried to run again, but my foot slipped in something and I fell. Scarlett blood soaked into my pyjamas and covered my face and hands, forming a sticky net over my long auburn hair. Slowly I looked up.

Straight into the lifeless eyes of my dear mama. Someone screamed. It was me. I couldn't stop, I was panicking, this couldn't be happening. I wasn't breathing.
"Someone shut her up!" The leader bellowed. Someone forced a gag between my lips, trying it tightly. I was spiced up and roughly thrown over somebodies shoulder. I was carried from my apartment as I hung limply, still in shock. My neighbours left their apartments to watch me carried out. Some had pity in their eyes, others quiet resignation. The cold air chilled me to the bone in my thin nightclothes as I was carried bodily from the place that was once my home. I let my eyes close as the horrors from before played in my mind's eye, over and over again.

I never quite realised that we were in a vehicle, until the constant rumble stopped. The leader had been sat opposite me; now he stood. Harshly, he grasped my chin and angled my face towards him. He leant down until his mouth was adjacent to my ear.
"I'm going to give you a hint, darling. Don't hide under the beds; everyone does that. Hide under the bath. Not that you'll live long enough to heed my advice." He let me go, kicked open the van doors, and threw me out. I hit a tarmac surface and rolled slightly as the van drove off. The rain was pouring down on me, and it washed off the blood. But they stilled seemed to glow a disgusting scarlet.

I sat there for a moment, simply trying to take in my surroundings. The road was new and dark with rain, surprisingly wide. Skyscrapers towered all around me, looming over me, laughing at me, mocking me. The lights were blinding, intimidating as they scorched my retinas and rendered me dizzy. The night sky was blotted about by the sickly yellow glow cast off by the many streetlights. I didn't like that. At home, I could always see the stars. I liked that. The smell was disgusting. A mix of stale food, vomit, urine, rotting garbage and the acrid stench of car exhaust. Where was I? Why were my parents gone? Why was this happening to me?

There was a blare of an obnoxious horn and the screeching of tires. I twisted to see a vehicle that I had never seen before metres from me, approaching at a deadly speed. I was literally a rabbit in the headlights, frozen before my oncoming death. Then someone scooped me up and threw me out of the way. I landed on the filthy pavement, and a second later, a stranger fell on top of me. I panicked and started to thrash about, and almost instantly they backed off.
"Hey, hey now, steady, be steady. I wasn't trying to hurt ya darlin', honest I wasn't. Just calm down a bit wee lassie." I looked at him. He was crouched nimbly on his toes, looking at me with a kind, caring, concerned expression. His clothes were little more than rags, his hair was long and unkempt, there was a smudge of dirt on his nose, but his smile was sincere.

"What were you doing in the middle of the road, hmmm? Didn't your ma or pa tell you it was dangerous?" His accent was strange to me, oddly lilting, yet comforting and warm.
"My mama and papa... they... they..."
"I see how it is lassie, you don't have to tell me, I know it without your words. The names Jack, what's yours?"
"My name is Kay."
"That's not how it works out here, lassie. Let go of your past. Pick a new name. That's what I did. It'll be better in the long run." I stared at him with big eyes, his words slowly clicking into place.
"Ruby, I like the name Ruby." I said in a whisper. Jack grinned.
"Ruby it is then lass. I have friends is in this city. Please come with me, I'll take you to them. We'll help ya, look after ya. Come on then, with me now lads." He stood and extended his hand to me. I looked at it for a spell.

Then I stood and put my hand in his, offering a smile.
"That's a rare and pretty site, a smile like that. You've made a good choice, lass."

Hope you enjoyed the first part of Running with Wolves!