Lost and Found

CHAPTER 1

My feet pound against the ground, and my heart beats loudly. Each footstep takes me further away from my home and my family.

Run!  My brain screams at me. I want to stop running. To turn back. But I can't. I promised my father I wouldn't. I push myself harder than I ever have before. Within seconds, I'm out of the clearing and in the forest.

I hear yelling echo through the field. My feet stop cold. No matter how much I try to move, my body is frozen in place. My toes dig into the hard dirt of the forest. The last words my father spoke to me echoed in my head.

"Run as fast as you can. Promise me that no matter what, you will not look back!"

I was just about to listen and move forward again, when I heard my mother's screams. Blood curdling screams, that would stop anyone dead in their tracks.

I wasn't even thinking as my body moved towards the sound. Regaining slight control of my body, I forced myself to stop before I entered the clearing. Peering around the tree, I felt my heart clench painfully.

About a hundred feet away, my father lay facing away from me on the ground. I couldn't peel my eyes away from him. Even from this distance, I could tell he was dead. The awkward angle of his neck told me whoever our intruder was, had no problem killing anyone in his path.

I tore my eyes away from my father's body, to look up at my mom. A very large man stood behind her, holding her arms behind her back. She tried to look threatening, but failed miserably. The man standing in front of her laughed darkly.

"Now are you going to tell me where the girl is?"

"Over my dead body!" She spat angrily at him.

"Oh naive little human, even if you're dead we will still find her. It only causes a slight setback," the man explained to her while pulling a gun out of his holster.

Without a second thought, he fired a bullet into her stomach. My eyes widened as her face contorted with pain. Bile rose up my throat, but I resisted the urge to puke.

The two men stood above her as she crumpled to the ground. The man that was standing behind her, was covered in her blood. I gagged.

"Now you can join that piece of shit you call a husband," he snarled at her.

Another shot fired, and my mother lay motionless. In a matter of minutes, I went from having loving protective parents, to being an orphan. And I don't even know why.

All I know is that my parents just died protecting me.