Child of Youth

Chapter 3: Left Behind

*******

Upon reading this letter, her mother, her father, her sisters and the two little ones were silent for about 10 minutes straight. Partly because they wanted to be, and partly because they had no words to say. It was 11:30 a.m. in the morning after the night Liana ran away with her boyfriend. She had been gone for exactly 12 hours now already, and they weren't sure if it was worth it trying to go after her and get her back.

She mentioned in the PS part of her letter that she was going on White Rose, one of Paul's dad's best racehorses, who she knew how to ride well. She could gallop at 50 km/h for two hours straight, and then walk at a pace of 10 km/h for a few more. Liana may be about 200 km away from home by now in any ditection - she and Andy could have taken multiple horses to trade when one got tired, sometimes both riding on one horse for a while while the tired ones walked or rested a  few miles or so behind them.

By now, all the horses must be exhausted - and their riders too, assuming they never even stopped to rest - which meant they must all be sleeping or at the least laying down or sitting somewhere beside the road. That's if they haven't decided way sooner to just make some random deserted house or something like that their home.

They, of course, took a coolbag filled with water bottles and a basket of food and money with them - one of the horses carried it, wrapped fast to his back.

In reality, Liana and Paul had only managed to get 50 km away from home. Each horse managed to gallop 10 km with a rider on their back, but either they weren't as fit as Paul thought they were
or they were tired that late at night. They bought 4 horses - and one was only used to carry their things - which meant they had to walk the last 20 km, leading them. After a few miles of that, though, two of them started refusing to move, and the other slowed down to a speed of 3 km/h.

Neither Liana nor Paul were nearly fit enough to run or jog 20 kilometres, though - (that's 12,427 miles.) In fact, they weren't used to any physical activity other than horseback riding, a little walking and sometimes swimming or dancing. The small chocolate soufflé, Coke and chicken sandwich Liana had had for dinner apparrently didn't help much to energize her either.

Liana managed to walk 12 km at a brisk pace and then ran about 2.5 km at the highest speed she could possibly maintain before she fainted from exhaustion, and Paul 3.5. Paul had to scoop her up in his arms and drag her - he wasn't strong enough to carry her - to the food and water basket so she could refill her despe- rately empty spaces.

It turned out she was moderately dehydrated and also quite low on calories and nutrients, since Liana had a fast metabolism. She was out for about 2 minutes before finally opening her eyes again. She managed to sit up, drink a large bottle of water and have a small piece of cheese and bread with an orange.

She was too dazed from the collapse and too sleep deprived to realize where she was or exactly what she was doing there, although she recognized Paul, of course. Neither of them had ever pulled an all nighter before, though. Well, near all nighter.

Liana and Paul had slept from 9:00-11.30 p.m, then they awoke to their alarms, Liana left the letter to her parents and Paul send them a text - and they set off on the road, knowing their families were asleep. 

She had never rode a horse that far before either. At that speed, yes, many times, but for much shorter distances, like 2-3 km. At the first few hundred metres, she clenched her teeth in anxiety and fright at White Rose's sudden speed, for she was still sleepy, but she soon jumped awake and starting moving in rhythm to the horse instead of laying on her neck and clinging to her mane.

They slept for five hours, before finally forcing themselves to stand up and glue their eyelids open to trudge forth through the last 5.5 km. They didn't know why their goal was 50 km. It just was.