How much do you really know?

five

    The wind flew through my hair as I ran at full speed, even though my "full speed" wasn't as fast as I would have liked it to be. The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the complex was the chill in the air. I didn't think much of it at the moment because there were guards chasing me, but then I realized how absolutely stupid I was. This was Alaska. I wouldn't survive a winter out here on my own. I probably wouldn't even last to the winter in the first place. I never did think through my decisions, even when I was young. What can I say? I'm impulsive.
     I hadn't done an actual workout in probably all my life, at least in the last year. In PE, we sometimes ran around the gym a couple times, but I don't think they were planning on teaching us to run long distance, since we lived in that stupid base and couldn't go outside. My cardio was outrageously bad. After about three minutes of running, I felt like I was being stabbed in the chest. I slowed to a stop and spun a full circle, taking in my surroundings, before plopping onto the dirt, out of breath. I was pretty far into the forest that surrounded the base and the trees all looked the same. I never had a good sense of direction, so after one circle, I had already forgotten which way the base was.
    As soon as I stopped running, I felt a coolness seep through my thin long-sleeve shirt. Thank goodness I brought some extra clothes, including a sweatshirt, but my clothes were fit for the temperatures of the base, not of the Alaskan wilderness. I slung my backpack off and dropped it onto my lap. My sweatshirt was on top; I figured it would be the first thing I would need. I am always cold. As I slipped the plain black sweatshirt on, I admired the forest I was in. I was hoping I was sheltered enough from the guards now pouring from the door. However, there were not as many as I would have thought. I wondered if it had anything to do with the boys' base.
    As soon as I had the sweatshirt on, I felt infinitely more comfortable. Now relatively safe from the wind, I felt butterflies return to my stomach. That's when my brain started over reacting, like always. Why did I do this? I would never survive out in Alaska. What did I do?! As my brain went through all the terrible things that could happen out here, the animals, the weather, the terrain, at lightning speed. I doubled over. My stomach had suddenly tightened into a knot and my head was spinning. My hands were tingly and shaky. My head was in my hands and I sucked in breaths. The voice in my head kept talking. You're going to die. You know it. Then, far away voices joined the voice in my head. I could barely make them out, but I knew immediately who they belonged to. A deep voice yelled to another.
"Hey let's split up! Most of us are at the boys base, but we need to find that girl! We absolutely can not let her get away!"
    I jumped up, then immediately regretted it as I saw the world sway around me and felt my stomach jump. I caught a glimpse of the men through the brush. They were in crisp uniforms. GORG guards! As soon as my face lit up with recognition, then fear, one guard turned toward me.
"Hey! Over there! In the woods!"
    I turned around and ran as fast as I could for the second time in the last ten minutes, but this time, it was five times harder than the last time I ran. I had to jump over fallen logs and avoid running head first into towering evergreen trees. I could feel every little thing I was stepping on, a pebble, a twig, because they only gave us cheap sneakers with no support.
    At first, I stumbled many times thanks to my spinning head and shaking legs, but as I continued, I got better at stepping in the right spot. I gulped in crisp air and felt the wind pulling at my long hair, which was always in my way, but I took pride in my hair and I would never cut it. My father would always run his hand through the auburn waves and say "Eliana, my sweet girl, I love you so much." I will always hold onto that memory, and the last time he ever told me he loved me.
I was snapped back to reality by the burning pain in my legs and lungs. I would not be able to run much longer. My brain was pushing me to keep running, convincing me that this pain was better than being captured by the guards, but I feared that I would collapse at any second, and they would find me lying flat, face in the dirt. Maybe I would actually just die of exertion. That would probably be better. My life would be over and I never would have escaped from GORG. I let this fear take over and decided to just hide behind a tree until I was feeling well enough to run again, which was probably one of the dumbest things I could have done at the time.
    I quickly scanned the forest for a wide tree, but the biggest one I could find was barely large enough for my small body to fit behind. I walked over to it anyway, all the while breathing so loud that a deer five miles away could probably hear me.
    As I crouched behind the tree, back against the bark, I listened to the shouts of the guards. Their voices were loud and firm and sounded slightly frustrated, as if they felt they should not have to be chasing a young girl through the woods. I smiled. It felt good to make GORG guards mad.
    They spoke to each other through walkie talkies and I could just make out some of the garbled talking.
    "Any sign of the girl? Over."
     "Just saw a glimpse of her through the trees. Going to check it out now. She's been stuck in that prison so I'm pretty sure she's not as fit as she needs to be to get away from us." How did he know? The guard said this sentence through a grin and I could tell he was full of himself. I could hear this guard carefully walking through the underbrush, gradually getting closer to me.
    He whispered to me in a quiet voice that made me shiver in the shadows of the trees.
    "Eliana, I know you're out there, hiding. I know you're scared of us, but the only thing you need to be scared about right now is the relentless weather you'll be facing out here, the animals that will tear your skin to shreds."
    My hands began to tremble and I started to notice every little sound. The hoot of an owl, the buzz of a fly, the barely audible howl of a wolf in the distance. Goosebumps rose on my arms and my breaths were raspy. He continued to talk and take small steps toward me.
    "I know you know how low your chance of survival is; you're not dumb. Think about it. Would you rather come back to the base and live out the rest of your life or die a slow, painful death by starvation or hypothermia? Or maybe Mother Nature will be merciful and allow you to get eaten by a wolf? That would be faster than starving."
    His whispers floated through the air and into my ears, filling my head with paranoia.
    "You can't hide from us, Eliana." This whisper sounded so close that I thought the guard could have been next to me, but no. Just a couple seconds ago he was yards away.
    As the words "I found you" reached my ears, a strong hand clasped my shoulder and I bolted upright, heart pounding out of my chest. I was face to face with the guard's chest. Man, he was tall.
    My eyes grew wide as I slowly lifted my head up toward the guard's face.
    "Hey there," he said with a smirk. "Looks like we got a win. You're coming back with us."
    My mouth formed the word 'no' over and over again as I clenched my eyes shut. He then lifted his fist and jammed it right into my stomach. Pain sprouted and spread through my body. I groaned and doubled over, feeling as if I was going to throw up all over his feet. Hopefully some would land on his feet as well.
But nothing came out.
    As I was in a daze from the pain, he grabbed his walkie talkie. He lifted it to his face, but before he could speak into it, a crackling sound filled the air.
"Walker, I have a problem over here, over." The voice that was coming through the radio was filled with fear.
    I could feel the hand on my shoulder tense up. He spoke back to the guard.
    "This is Walker. What's the problem?" He said this in a stern voice and I could tell that he was trying to maintain the illusion that he wasn't nervous. I knew otherwise, from experience. I was really good at pretending. I stood there, staring at the ground, the guard looming over me, walkie talkie up to his face.
It took three long seconds for a voice to respond, and when it did, Walker gave a small sigh of relief.
    But the reply wasn't what he had hoped. The voice was that of a young boy. My head jerked up as soon as I heard it. The guards eyes grew so wide I thought they would pop out. His face turned as white as a ghost. It gave me the chills really, to see a guy who made himself appear so fearless go white in the face of danger.
    "Hey Walker. What's up?"