Runaway (choose your own adventure

chapter fifteen - hide and seek

Station masters had to be very careful when hiding enslaved people. Because of the fugitive slave acts, if you were caught helping a slave you would be fined and could go to court.  So to compensate for this station masters came up with several creative ways of hiding them. some examples of seceret hiding spots would be, trapdoors, hidden compartments, loose floorboards, hidden stairs under carpets, seceret doors, attic spaces, stretched cabinets, and hidden stairwells. Another way slaves could hide was in plain sight. An enslaved person could just walk down the street acting like they were running an errand for their master, or going to market. There were examples of slaves who hid in haybales, and in one example a group of slaves all got into wagons pretending to go to a funeral.

I would hide. He couldn't have seen me through that window. I'll stay. I moved over to a dark corner, on the same side as the door, just in case. To be completely honest,

I was terrified.

The thought of being caught by a trapper after coming this far was breathtakingly horrifying. To know that the entire reason you may still be healthy, alive, and mentally stable for that part, was all hanging by a string of luck. A small thin string of hope that someone didn't see you. However, if he did happen to see me I could kiss my chance goodbye. Because without a working leg nor a working back-up plan I was trapped. I heard some things behind the wall I was against, the man talked and it sounded like he was pacing his big boots thumping the floor, the wall though muffled it.

I attempted at staying calm. I had to stay calm in order to keep my breath down, I wasn't ready to get heard by means of natural necessities. 

So I did what I always did to stay calm, I prayed.

 I prayed to the Lord, I prayed to God, I prayed for my life. Over and over I asked for safety, for forgiveness. I rocked back and forth, scared out of my mind, rocking in the dark. there as more thumping and some loud voices. It sounded like an argument or some screams of pain. Either way, I didn't like it. Everything about this scared me. If it was an argument, it might be about seeing me, but common sense took over and I soon realized it couldn't be because if it was he would have barged in and killed me on the spot. I had heard enough stories to know that slave hunters and watchmen don't exactly ask to come in.

 So I waited, with hope, holding a lack of knowledge, and in fear.