The Guide

Forest

Her hair hung loosely across her face, damp with sweat and fear, but her body remained limp. A sack of vulnerability and submissiveness.
"I'm saving someone else." It was a thought that had driven her to keep going... Until now. It'd become too much. She'd made a decision, a very, very, final decision.

She felt herself being released. A door slammed and footsteps departed. It wasn't long before she could begin to drag her bruised and beaten body toward the sleek desk where she could begin to write about the brick in her stomach... The living, breathing brick.
After scrawling down everything, her every thought and feeling she stood, knees weak. This was it. She held the letter securely in her hand and opened her bedroom window, slipping out and blending with the cold breeze of the night.
In a manner that didn't reveal the churning thoughts of her mind she picked up the hem of her night dress and began to run.
As she approached the now familiar pathways she began to feel an ounce of fear, but with a deep breath she stepped into the dense woods. She felt the like Gretel. A character from a story, where things that shouldn't have happened did.
Finally, she stepped into the clearing, it was eerie and silent. Especially without Jasper there. She smiled back to herself. Thinking of the joy he brought her before the pain of her suffering took back over. Moving quickly, she placed the letter down in the hollowed trunk of a large tree which stood within the clearing. The water in the lake beside her moved and rippled as the breeze kissed its surface. The place was entrancing and empowering.
With a single, swift movement, she pulled herself up into the tree and began to climb up to where a rope wrapped loosely around one of the branches. She began to unwind it in a deliberate manner, allowing herself to take in her surroundings. After all, they were the lasting things she'd see.
She tied the noose and placed it around her neck like a medallion before swinging her legs across to sit in a side saddle position across the branch before squeezing her eyes shut and gently moving off the branch.
That was it. Laura Wishart was dead. Her body limp and lifeless.

*the short story is an adaptation of a section of "Jasper Jones" by Craig Silvey from the perception of Laura Wishart*