How To Run

03

My thought were driving me crazy all night, my thoughts of two simple sentence, would it work? Could I do it? As much as I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t, there was always that little voice in the back of my mind that it might work and that I might be able to do it, you’ll never now if you don’t try, right? No, I’d never make it past the gates, would I? No, even if the very unlikely event that I do make it past the gates they’d find me with in a few days, the punishment wouldn’t be worth it, but what could they do that they haven’t done before? What would Mrs Jennifer say, what would she do?

I’m leaving, I’m going and I’m not going to look back. The guards do their rounds every other hour, they take about 30 – 40 minutes to do properly, if I leave in between them, it shouldn’t be as hard. I walk over to my window and see the guards doing their round now which means I have to be quick. Before I could tell myself no again I was up and finding a piece of paper and a pen,

Dear Mum and dad, Mother and Father,

I don’t know how to tell you this if this will be hard for you to understand, I don’t even know if you’ll care, Is that sad? There’s this part of my mind that always tells me you will be happy, that you will be fine, that there will be no change in you. If that is the case, you can stop reading now because you wont care that I’m leaving.

I’m leaving, I have to go, I can’t be here anymore live this life anymore. Please don’t follow me or try to find me. I’m safe, I’m happy. Please don’t stress of this, it’s just something that I have to do.

Maybe one day I’ll come back and see you again, maybe this is the last you’ll ever hear from me. I don’t know what the future holds. I just know that the longer I stay here the worse harder it is.

I’m sorry for any trouble inconvenience I have caused you by staying to long, or leaving, either way I’m sorry.  I hope you stay safe and don’t get into too much trouble.

From Yours sincerely

 Valentina Lattia Marie Verino.

I quickly wrote the note, crossing some things out that didn’t quite sound right and re-writing them, before walking over to my wardrobe and pulling out the biggest back pack I can find, I have to be quick and I can only take things that I can carry. Just a few things.  I threw in some jeans, a few shits, some shorts, a jacket, underwear, and deodorant, make up, tooth brush and tooth paste, some socks, a torch and a hair brush before zipping it up and looking to see the guards finishing their rounds. I’ll wait a few more minutes to make sure their done.

It’s getting dark outside, I will have just enough light to make it far enough away to find somewhere to sleep, and then tomorrow I’ll figure out where to go next. The scattering of light thought the dust and pollution particles in the air caused the clouds to appear pink and orange and purple in the distance. It’s beautiful.

I walk back to my desk where the note is and it some tape on it before walking over to my bedroom door and sticking it to the front. I grab my purse full of money and walk back out onto my balcony. I guess I’m really doing this, I’m really going. I can feel the butterflies in my stomach getting bigger and bigger, my nerves increasing as the seconds tick by. I have to go now if I want to find a place to sleep before it’s to dark to see anything.

I climb over the edge of the balcony railing and start my decent down checking to look for any guards. There aren’t any here, they will come back around again soon though.  I continued to climb down before I realised there’s nothing to step down onto anymore. I have to jump, it’s only a few feet I should be alright, right? Well it’s either that or have the guards come back around and find me, how would I explain that to them? Before I can second guess myself I let go of the railing and fall to the ground, I land with a thud of noise and an ‘oomph’ sound coming out of my mouth. Someone might have heard that. I quickly pick up my bag and make a dash for the fence, its about 100 meters away and there aren’t any guards coming around here yet.

The grass slightly crunched under the pressure of me running across it. I’m almost there, I can see the rose bush, covered in bright pink roses, in the middle of the fence that covers the gate. There are thorns on the rose bush, this may hurt a little. I kept running until I got to the roses and pushed my arms through first pushing the branches apart. Next is my leg, one at a time, pushing through the thorns and branches slowly, yet as fast as I can. I have to be quick before someone sees me. I can feel multiple thorns cutting through my skin some, which were deep enough, drawing blood, I have to keep going.

Once I finally make it through the bush and the little gate, I look left and then right to see if there were any guards, I can’t see any, I’m about to make my way out from the bush when I hear a cracking noise sounding like it’s from a branch or something snapping. There’s someone there, I go to turn around and hide in amongst the roses, leaves, branches and thorns of the rose bush when I turn and see someone standing there, just on the other side of the bush, staying still they’ll think I’m just the tree or something but if I move they’ll see it and they’ll know I’m here. If I don’t move the others will come past and see me.

Shit, I silently cuss, what the hell am I supposed to do? Either way someone will see me, they’ll either shoot me thinking I’m trying to get it, or they’ll recognise me or take me to father. Either way I’m screwed, shit.

I make up my mind, deciding on taking a few suttle, slow steps to they big pine tree, it’s a bout 10 feet away, it’s tall and I might be able to climb it and wait for them to leave. 

Slowly and quietly I lift my left foot off the ground and place it down behind me stoping when I hear the slight rustle of the leaves and dirt behind me.  Slowly I place my foot down and lift my other one, repeating the action until I get to the tree and started trying to find the easiest way to climb up I can hear the footsteps getting louder signalling they were getting closer and I started to pick up my climbing pace. I put one arm up and grabbed a branch before the other then lifting my leg to a different branch and stand on it. I kept climbing until I was almost at the point where the branches get skinny and couldn’t hold my weight.  

Once I positioned myself in a comfy place I sat and listened to the silence for any sound of anyone being around. The silence was only finned with the slight movement of the leaves and branches from the wind and it’s also the only movement.

Once I’ve deemed it safe enough for me to keep moving, I start to quietly make my way down the tree and just pray to god that they don’t for some reason decide to do their rounds early. The moment my feet hit the ground, I turned and started moving away from the direction I came from. Hopefully I still have enough light to find a suitable sleeping place and one that far enough away that it would be hard to find me in the slightly unlikely case that they care. I wonder if they’ve found the note I left yet. If so, do they care?

Within 10 minutes on me quietly sprinting away, I find a fallen tree that had a little hollow bit, covered in soft fluffy moss. ‘That should do. ‘ I thought at I put my bag down and reached in to feel the green, fluffy moss to see that it thankfully, wasn’t wet, I made sure there are no spiders, snakes or any other bugs and animals that could eat me in the fallen tree, also known as my bed for tonight,  before awkwardly sitting in and laying down a little.

Remind me to never sleep in a tree again.

A/N:

Here chapter 3!

I know it took a while but I’ve been super busy with school work stuff trying to get my grades up a bit J

Anyway,

If you like it, please vote and comment J <3