Runaway (choose your own adventure

chapter nine - leaf it behind

If a slave managed to escape from an owners custody, then the owner would often be seen as irresponsible, which usually would end in if the slave was caught, they would be whipped and even tortured and then sold farther north where escape is practically impossible, and the average price of a slave was around 40,000$ in the south, today however an average price, if they were still being sold, would be about 90$.

I thought about my family and my friends. There was a chance that I could go back and stay with them. Master might have forgotten about the sale and might keep me. If I went willingly I would definitely be treated with a lesser punishment than if I resisted. The more I thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. If I continued there was no way a slave like me could ever make it to the north. Even if I did make it, I could still be caught because of the Fugitive Slave Acts, and then all this "work" I had been doing to get there would have been for nothing, and I would be sent south to be met with the impossible chance of escape, and I had heard that it was much stricter and evil and that the masters whipped slaves just for the fun of it, or even tripping could get you three lashes. It wasn't worth it. I held out my arms, out-stretched like a giant black bird. The two riders came up next to me and said that I was going to be taken back south. I nodded and told them I knew, and said that I was giving myself up. I didn't have the will to go on. I was a lowly slave with who had no purpose to go north, other than to feel freedom just to have it taken away. The rider on the right had brownish, flowing, hair and high cheekbones made him look like a face of royalty, not a slave catcher. The one on the left had blond, and eyes so blue they could be mistaken for the sea, but his actions didn't reflect the same gentleness. He tied me up, the knot made to rub against my skin so that when I moved I could feel the burn of the rope. He grabbed me by the back of my collar and dragged me over to the right catcher's horse. So I used my untied legs to step onto the saddle footholds and the blond pushed me up. I was ready, ready to go back home.

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