The Girl & The Hound | Winter Soldier

THREE

❝THERE IS NOT, WAS NOT AND NEVER WILL BE SOMEONE JUST LIKE YOU.❞

❝LET'S BE THANKFUL THEN .❞

When Sawyer was a young girl with a thirst for adventure and the brightest light inside her, she dreamed of becoming a soldier. Who would've thought? She was prone to get muddy, destroying her mother's favourite shoes for her and obliterating the pastel dresses her father continuously bought in faint hope she'd eventually stop destroying them. But with a vivid imagination, she'd pretend to be the hero and sprint across the school field with a pretend assault rifle in her arms and save her comrades from the 'bad guys.' So amongst the company of her friends, she believed she would become a soldier and everything would be perfect.

But situations change, and so do people.

Before long, the pressures of being a young girl in the battlefield that was outside her front door only grew. Watching her male friends only grow more confident and carefree with the passing years whilst the rules and restrictions for her safety as a girl only grew, she lost the light inside of her and her once profound bravery was replaced by a profound fear of everyone and everything through the cruelty of the world. She grew to become terrified meeting people, walking out alone at night and venturing through alleyways by herself.

Everything within that affirmed qualities that would forge her into a soldier disappeared and she was abruptly stripped of her independence; the only reminder it was ever there being the quiet reminiscence of what her younger self would think if she had known she'd grow to become as timid and afraid Sawyer was . . .

The rest of the duration of the day dragged on.

Sawyer remained silent about his intentions for the entire day, not wanting to create herself a burden and stir up panic in anyone, instead lying that his unnecessary outburst was due to the stress of being late to work.

But unbeknownst to her, her encounter's intentions seeped deeper than his warning to her. It was the same man of whom parked outside her house and studied her intensively whilst she flinched at every passing person. But even without knowing that, his manipulative demeanour was enough to eliminate her confidence and endorse fear.

She dreaded returning home for at least she was generally safe in the company of customers and Tamila. The passing faces, of new and old, kept her mind off him for a few moments throughout the day but as the shift initially drew to an end and Tamila asked for a lift home, Sawyer knew she'd have to push her petty terror episode aside.

As Tamila locked up the coffee shop, the dark, muggy sky began to grumble and splutter, harbingering rain as Sawyer sighed, fumbling with her keys to unlock her car. As she flicked over each key, a sudden violent clash of lightning and instant downpour of rain startled her already present paranoia, causing her to drop her keys as she jumped at the sound.

After a seconds realisation, she closed her eyes in relief that it was just lightning and dropped to her knees to pick up her keys, mentally grumbling at how pathetic she currently was. Retrieving the drenched collection of keys in her hand, she suddenly paused at the sound of a dog whimpering from under her car. She furrowed her eyebrows, what on Earth?

Lowering herself on to her chest, she looked to her right under her car to examine as her clothes began to soak in the wet ground. Her perplexed expression only grew at the sight of no dog, causing her to slowly pull herself back on her feet. Flipping her set of keys in her hand, she forced her lips into a firm line and walked around her car to its other side.