Blue | E.D

2. Cemented In Dried Blood

Branches smacked and scraped my face, but I couldn't feel any pain, the adrenaline rushing through my veins was enough to distract me. Breathing so hard that my chest blazed, I plunged through a narrow creek, my feet slipping off the slimy rocks.

Run, run, run! my mind screamed. 

Behind me, an engine roared like a furious beast, the resembling the sound of snapping limbs and spinning tires as a huge black car smashed through the trees.

As I willed my legs to carry me faster through the maze of trees, my feet seemed to land on every sharp stone and stick that littered the forest floor. But even when the trees appeared to blur together and the wind whistled in my ears, the car continued.

Before the next minute ended, I was sure that I be dead, crushed to a bloody pulp beneath its enormous wheels. 

The headlights caught me in their beams. Suddenly, I realised how exhausted my body was. Even while my mind still urged me on, my legs were slowing, trembling, and my lungs breathed fire.  

There! 

Just to my right was an opening in the ground. Hope returning, I used the last bit of adrenaline to sprint over there. I escaped from the headlights' beams just long enough to squeeze myself through a hole.

I wriggled the rest of my body through, I let out a surprised yelp as I fell a short distance, my body landing painfully off the damp ground. Groaning in pain, I sat up and tried to look around, but it was too dark. I wasn't sure what I'd crawled into. My best guess was a cave. 

I heard the roar of the car as it drew closer to my hiding spot. My heart was pounding, I anticipated the worst. I expected the car to roll to a stop just outside the opening, but the car never even slowed, rushing past and moving away until, finally, the sound of the engine was just in the distance. 

When I could no longer hear it, I allowed myself to breathe, coughing on the dirt still sprinkling down from above. I blindly groped at the ground with my hands, attempting to get a feel for where I was. My palms came to rest upon a dirt wall, I shifted around so that I could lean against it.

Once I calmed again, I began to sense the burning, itching pain of every little scratch and bruise decorating my body. The muscles in my legs throbbed, and my chest ached with each breath that I drew. Where the cuts had already scabbed over, my skin felt sticky and grainy from the dirt and tiny rocks that had become cemented in the dried blood.  

Sooner than I expected, I drifted into sleep.  

-

I opened my eyes from a restless sleep, the hole above my head had lightened with the sun rise. I was no longer in total darkness as more and more light crept into the cave.  

After being trapped in a bland, sterile lab my entire life, I imagined that I felt something like a kid in a candy museum. But out of my thoughts bloomed the sudden memory of why I was here in this damp, dank-smelling place to begin with—and why I had to get out and away, fast.  

I stood up too quickly, having already forgotten about the wounds covering my body from head to toe. As stiff muscles protested beneath bruised, taut flesh, I was painfully reminded of every single one. My face contorted into a grimace, and a headache pounded in my head.  

Turning to face the wall which I slept against, I grabbed one of the sticking out rocks and ignored the throbbing ache in my body, pulling myself up to the opening. I worked my body back and forth, attempting to wriggle free of the tight space.

I found it much more difficult to get out than to get in—considering I fell in. With a grunt and a final heave, I pulled myself onto solid ground.  

Freedom.

My mind could hardly wrap around the word.

I exhaled heavily with an emotion that was completely foreign to me—relief, or maybe even hope. Was I really free?

For a moment, I allowed myself to revel in the unbelievable truth. This was not a dream, like so many other escapes had been in my mind. But I couldn't allow myself to feel so celebrative.

The man driving the car would come again, and that forced me to continue forward, each step in agony. Pushing the pain to the back of my mind like I'd learned to do long ago, I moved at a steady pace further away from the terrors that lay behind him.

Where was I going? I hadn't the slightest idea.

My knowledge of the outside world  was limited to the few history and science textbooks that had been my only entertainment back in that tiny white-washed cell that I had once called home.  

But I didn't want to think about that place. For now, I just wanted to enjoy being free. 

My eyes stared at a small brown bird that chirped on a branch not ten feet above my head. I'd never seen an animal before, aside from the rats and mice that I'd occasionally glimpsed from the small window in the door of my cell.

I gradually became aware of another noise apart from the bird's happy chirping. It was a relentless sound that was growing steadily louder as the seconds passed—a noise that was, unmistakably, an engine of some sort.  

I scanned the forest behind him to see if any cars were around me, and, failing to see it right away, I gave up and turned to sprint in the opposite direction. No sense in waiting for whatever it was to get closer. 

After a minute or so of agonized running, I glimpsed several dark forms taking shape through the trees ahead of me. Those forms became solid, structured objects—became buildings.  

I couldn't help but doubt my eyes at first. But when the buildings didn't shimmer away like some sort of desert mirage, I changed direction, sprinting towards the structures with that newfound feeling of hope. 

I felt relief wash over me as I ran towards the city. I felt somewhat...safe.

But I will never be safe as long as the doctors live. As long as the scientists are there. As long as the building stands, I could be taken back. As long as the building stands, they can experiment and study on me.

I cannot let that happen.

I must never come back.

I will never come back.