Writing Prompts

Prompt #8) Running Away

Out of breath. Heart racing. Limbs failing. The sky was hurting, she could feel it. She didn't know how or why, but she knew this sensation. It was cloudy, dark and she could've sworn she felt a rain drop against her cheek. Her thoughts raced around her mind as her bare feet hit the soil with a thump in her step.

Xenia was exhausted, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to get away. They would come looking for her at any second and be right on her tail.

One would most likely be petrified in her position, but, you see, Xenia didn't have time to be afraid. She was too busy thinking about saving her own skin, about the pain in the balms of her feet, about where she could possibly hide if it came to that.

Xenia ducks behind a tree to catch her breath and check her feet. With her chest rising and descending at a rapid pace, she pulls her feet into view only to want to puke upon sight. Covered in popped blisters, loose skin and blood, she began to wonder how she had survived it thus far.

Xenia begins to relax against the  rugged tree, her tattered, once-white-but-now-tan robes draping beside her. She pulls her knees to her chest and tucks her head in her folded arms. Her first instinct is to cry, to finally release all of her feelings that she's had caged up for so long.

With the snap of a twig not too far off, she knew that now wasn't the time.

Running away isn't nearly easy as they say.

"We know you're out there," a man calls out, a Capital Guard in charge of things like this- things like her. "Come peacefully and no harm will come upon you."

They don't even know my name. They don't know me. How could I ever trust them?

"No harm will come to you or your sister."

Xenia gasps at the thought of her sister being tormented. Yes, to a certain extent, everyone in the facility is already being tortured, which is why Xenia is trying to escape to find help, but it'd all be to her expense. The cost of her leaving would be more torture to her sister.

Calliope told her- no, begged her to leave. She found a way for Xenia to escape through the vents in the night- she was the only one who could fit.

"Go. Find Mom and Dad and Kade. They are out there. Somewhere. Looking. Worrying about us."

"What about you?" Xenia held her hand and Calliope used her opposing one to wipe away tears with her thumb.

"Just don't forget about me, okay?" Calliope doesn't cry, although Xenia could sense she wanted to.

She squeezes Xenia's hand three times and with each squeeze, says, "I. Love. You."

Xenia returns the favor. "Love. You. Too."

"Number 31495." Xenia is pulled away from her thoughts. That's her number. "This is your last chance. Surrender or die."

Xenia decides to do the unthinkable. She takes the risk, exposing herself.

She chooses to run.

Darting from tree to tree, Xenia prays in her heart that she will be kept unseen, unnoticed.

"Hear that? It came from over there." Another Capital Guard whispers too loudly.

Xenia curses to herself as she stops at another tree and begins glancing at all of her surroundings. She finds a rock, small enough to fit in her palm, and throws it in another direction towards a bush.

She hopes that the Capitol Guards will follow the noise, crossing her fingers.

Fortunately, nature was on her side as some sort of rodent creature also scurries in that direction, giving the illusion that she went that way.

She can hear the heavy metal suits that the Capitol Guards wear clinking in that direction. Xenia sighs in relief and leans against the tree beside her.

She pulls out the locket, the only thing she had time to grab onto before escaping the facility. Inside is a photo of her parents, back when they first met, faded in black and white. Mom still had curly hair and she was laughing at something. Mom said it was because of something Dad said. Dad, however, recalled that it was because she didn't want her picture taken, and he basically had to force her to smile by tickling her. In the photo, Dad was holding Mom's sides, pulling her close to him so that she sat on his lap. His hair was picked up in the gentle wind, his eyes closed from laughing so hard.

Xenia could only imagine what they would look like today.

Xenia squints toward the horizon, where the sun was high above the snowy mountains. That's where she needs to go. That's where her family is.

Or, at least, that's what she believes.