Serendipity

1

PS: The main character's story in this name is quite unique so just a heads up if you're unsure how it's pronounced. It is "Iz- ay- lia"

Run.

That's what they told me.

Run.

I ran.

I can't remember where my feet were taking me. I didn't even know who I was running from. All I know was I had to run.

Just like we practised, make your way to the tree.

The tree. I remember I had to memorise this tree. The one that looked the same as all the others. Why this one? It wasn't special. But that's the tree they told me anyway.

Right Izalea, Right.

I didn't want to run right. Why couldn't I go left? Why right? It was always god damn right. Who even likes the right? It's boring. It's predictable. But no, I had to go right.

Find the hollow and hide there, don't let them see you sweetheart.

I always hated hiding. It's like you're invisible, like you're nothing. At first I wasn't going to. Not until I saw him.

Him.

Him with the greasy black hair. Him with the hideous scar up his left cheek. All of a sudden I hated left. Him, who had held my mother, crying and screaming as my father's body slumped to the ground. I saw my father's eyes and they held mine.

Hide.

I didn't argue with his eyes. My own body brought itself inside the smallest hole I could fit into. I watched the scene unfold in front of me, and my mother was now begging. My father's lifeless body laying down in the mud, his blood staining a tree. Not just any tree.

The tree.

Now I had no trouble remembering what tree he had told me.

The man left with my parents on the ground, his men following after. I couldn't move, I was still staring into the eyes of my dead father's.