Carnage Vin

Chapter Nine--Home, house, the West Woods

Lisa could smell the land, her land, as she got closer to her home. She sped up her pace and a smile came to her lips for the first time in what felt a lifetime. She spotted her house and sprinted to the door, excitement filling her as she opened the door and breathed in the safety of her home. 

She carefully went through every room, opening every door finally beginning to feel at peace and normal again. She showed Candala to a room to stay and went to hers. Falling asleep as soon as she laid in her bed. 

The sound of her alarm woke Lisa, and for once she was happy to hear it. Climbing down the stairs and to the kitchen breathing in the bliss of being there, it all came crashing down when she saw Candala. 

With every step Candala relaxed a bit more, through the woods and to a nice piece of farmland. She hadn't yet thought of Lisa as a person, with a life, a home. Lisa was just a liability, another variable, a breathing example of how she was continuing to fail. 

Lisa was viably ecstatic, she could see it in the way she ran to her door, the moments she took just standing there doing nothing but staring blissfully ahead.  A wave of nostalgia seemed to come over Candala as she watched Lisa.

Her home, her people. The reality hit her hard, she was now an outcast. She would be considered a failure, dishonor to her family even her friends. She was dead to their world. 

Lisa showed her to a room, beige walls, a bed, a closet, a desk. It was a very basic room, but there was minor details that told the viewer it was a loved room. In the way the windows were washed and the walls had pictures, it was minimal, but not bare. 

She laid out her supplies, some food, water, and change of clothes. It was all she had left, her whole life in this one, sad, knapsack. Eventually she fell into a sort of restless sleep.  

It was early the next morning when she pulled together all she had, the knapsack and a few basic things from the room. Mostly just food from the kitchen and a small blanket for cold nights. She saw Lisa come down out of the corner of her eye, the look on her face made Candala ache. 

"We have to go, you can stay but they will come. There's no stopping them from getting us, we can't stop moving now." Her face void of emotion, but she felt nothing but pain inside. 

"But, this is my home! I can't leave, not again." Lisa couldn't breath. 

"It's your choice, but I'll be gone by mid-morning." Candala finished packing, pulling the zippers on her bag closed with a sort of finality, popping the small bubble of bliss they had been living on. Deep down she knew from now on it would only be fake safety. 

Her life as she had once known, was over.

The brisk air was not the refreshing breeze she once knew, it stung her as a slap on the face and chilled her like ice, but she continued on towards the West Woods her knapsack tight on her shoulders and her face determined, yet the sadness stayed with her no matter her demeanor. 

A Midian who stands alone is a Midian who has nothing left to lose.