Because The Sky Is Falling

A PLOT PAINTED PINK (4)

Shinn's two, small, but loud and barking dogs ran at me and leaped up taking bites at my arms a few times, leaving not too much pain. I shut the gate so they couldn't get out, and then—with no time to calm the dogs down—ran to the back door, unlocked it with ease, ran through the house and up the stairs, all the while with the two dogs chasing me. I reached Shinn's room and slammed the door shut, locking the dogs out. However, their barks did not stop.

Ignoring the threats the dogs were shouting at me with their barks, I turned to see Shinn's body in her bed, her eyes closed, making it appear as if she was only asleep—not soulless. But there was definitely something missing from her. If you didn't know she was just a body, you wouldn't be able to put your finger on what is was that's different. But me, I knew her. I knew the situation. I knew that the light that was usually in her was not currently present. The sight was quite chilling—frightening even.

Just then, the dogs' barks had come back to my attention as well as Shinn's mom's car pulling into the driveway. Muttering a curse word under my breath, I tried to lift Shinn's body into my arms, but that was going to be much harder than originally predicted. Somehow the fact that Shinn was taller and heavier than me and that I have noodle arms had slipped my mind until in that moment. I heard the creaking door from downstairs being thrown open and someone was now stomping up the stairs.

What am I gonna do? I asked myself, but had not nearly enough time to answer. The door to Shinn's room flew open and an angry mother stood in the doorway. "You!" She screamed at me in the most disgusted and angriest voice I had ever heard or seen her in all of the nine years I had known her. I could only imagine the pain and anger she was feeling. First, her daughter is found unconscious on the neighbors' bedroom floor. Now, the same boy whom she had known for years and trusted had snuck into her home and attempted to kidnap her daughter. If only she had known—if only she could know that this was best.

I was torn away from my thoughts—quite literally, in fact—when Mrs. Coleman had charged at me and tried to rip me away from Shinn's limp body. "Wait!" I screamed. With her mother's hands on my shoulders, I somehow lifted Shinn off of the bed and—body still in arms—I jumped out of the second story window. It was really the only choice I had. Jumping from high places and landing on my feet had somehow always been my one—and only—specialty. Just not this time.

Falling. Falling down and hard into the dirt—Shinn landing not with me, but after me—I scraped my knees and they began to bleed. The body of my best friend slipped from my grasp half-way down, but thankfully, I cushioned her fall with my noodle arms, and that is why my upper body suffered the most. However, I couldn't stop; I refused to stop. I lifted Shinn's arm up around my shoulder and I tried running, but couldn't go far. I needed to think of something and I need to do it quick, as the Colemans had begun to follow me. I can't imagine why.

Coming to the conclusion that I needed to get them off my tail, I turned sharply left into the small opening between two houses and ran down the sidewalk bordering the main road. I knew where I was going for once in my life, and that place was the trail. There was a thick canopy of trees separating two neighborhoods that—get this—were neighboring each other, and a sidewalk on one side of the line of trees of which Shinn and I would go on walks all the time in the Summer, but we only started doing so two years ago when it was finally built. With an aching body and an entire person weighing me down, I managed to make it to the cemented path, but didn't stay for long, as we could easily be found there. I slid down the hill, scratching both mine and Shinn's legs on sticks and twigs on the way down.

I hid the two of us in the miniature forest, set Shinn's body down on the ground next to me, and took a moment to realize how much pain I was in. A few few tears fell. However, this was not done in physical pain. Rather, done out of frustration, anger, hate, and overall—hopelessness. Especially when realizing I had no way to teleport back to the only people left I could trust.