Forgotten Skeletons. {Slow updates.}

Part 8

(© Akailia Roper)

Quote for this chapter is:

'A painful memory constantly replayed in the theatre of the mind does not change the scene long past, but steals the joy of the scene now playing. No matter how many times we re-play something in our mind, we can never go back and change what happened. But each moment we hold the power to change our ongoing experience of it.'

-Dean Jackson

8.

The low howl of the frosty wind rushed against my ears as I ran, my body drenched in sweat and blood from the harsh tearing of flesh as branches of trees reached out to me to pull me back. If anyone was to see me now I would look like a mad person who was in the process of escaping a mental institution. I guess they wouldn't be too far off.

On my head my hair was a wild blood matted mess of twigs, mud and leaves. My eyes laid waste from the branches that tore at my face. My cheeks scarlet from the blood pumping just below the surface of flesh. My breath clouded around me like smoke, made visible by the black back drop that was the night, my hands and knees were sore and grazed from the many times I'd been dragged to the earth by the thick roots and the thorny marshes.

The only thing that kept me going was the adrenaline that I felt coursing through my veins and the sheer will to survive; it already felt like I was burning all of that up. Along with the pounding blood in my ears I was surrounded by my loud, desperate gasps for breathes as I try to get oxygen into my lungs, and the strange screeching of animals as they came awake in the night.

I don't know how long I'd been running for or what time it was, but I knew I had to get as far away from that house as possible, it would only be a matter of time before they found my empty room and came looking for me. The sudden screech of a lone crow from the left made me veer right out of fear. I grunt in pain as I land on my knees for the nth time, and hiss as blood seeps through an open gash across my knee, but I don't stop running. I push on through the pain and the fatigue.

I'm probably going around in circles, everything looks the same in the dark. I can't decide if I'd passed that tree already or stumbled through those bushes before. I shake off the burning behind my eyes as tears gathered there. I can't lose focus and crying won't help me none. I pushed myself harder and faster, trying to get as much distance as I possibly could.

The harsh tearing from the thicket of bare trees lash painfully at my skin and what was left of my clothes, I push through the gathering in front of me before the dullest glow of what I desperately hope was a street light glows from above the tress ahead of me.

The light gives me so much hope and with that hope came a burst of energy. I surge through the trees before -what seems like a lifetime- erupting from the dead branches with continuous speed and what energy I had. The hard asphalt contacts my already battered knees and bruised elbows. I get back on my feet and kept running.

I wasn't safe yet.

"Wynter? Wake up." The soft voice of who I thought was Vaughn helped to lure me out of my sleepy haze, he sounded like him, I think.

"I'm not sleeping." I cracked my eyes open to peer into the soft eyes of Xackery- the lighter tones of brown in his eyes being a telling difference between the two- he had stripped out of his suit jacket, showing his broad shoulders and thick arms that were covered by a navy blue button-down that had the sleeves rolled to the elbows. The warm pools of his chocolate brown orbs automatically bringing a smile to my face.