The Story of Midnight

Chapter 3

"You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on."

― Tupac Shakur

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I stared at the flowers that were on top of her grave as the memory came to an end. Her death didn't change me as much as I thought it would. I was changed enough, one death barely affected me. I was already empty inside anyway.

I knelt down and bowed my head as the rain soaked my clothes. Sometimes I wished I could dream. So I can see her running towards me, her laughter echoing. But, I would also see her last moments. They would continue to plague my mind; the good and bad. So I only had my memories to rely on.

After we paid our respects, we started to walk home. Neither of us ever say anything when we go to her grave or when we head back to the hollowed tree.

We're always silent, too lost in our thoughts of her.

Both Dawn and I stopped as we heard feet running towards us. We exchanged looks, realizing that we shouldn't be hearing something like that ever again. The seismic waves formed the outline of a boy about the same age as me. Dawn continued to look at me; confusion and sadness flowed from her.

"Are you Silver?" he asked, a little out of breath as he came closer.

Why's he asking who I am? I thought everyone knew me.

My brows furrowed, but I gave him a quick nod, anyway.

"Start running, and follow me. I'll explain on the way," he panted.

I started to run after him; Dawn had already jumped on my shoulder, all thoughts of going home forgotten.

The seismic waves in the ground told me that he was no danger to me, but I still kept my guard up.

"What's going on?" I asked, puzzled.

"The Army is looking for you, they want to..." His voice trailed off.

I knew what he meant, it would have happened again sooner or later.

In the span of three months, the villagers relentlessly hunted me down; barely gave themselves, or me, time to grieve. I wonder what kind of story the pack told them when they came home with those injuries that I can't remember how I inflicted upon them.

We kept on running through the raincoated forest. I knew my way around the maze better than him, but I just decided to follow him instead curious as to where we would end up.

Water droplets continued to pelt our faces as we dashed through the wilderness.

We finally stopped near a big tree that seemed to be the heart of the woods, and took this opportunity to catch our breaths.

The running only increased the speed of how quickly water could stick to our clothes.

"They were heading your way," he said in between gasps.

Why was this stranger worried about me? Shouldn't he be trying to kill me right now? Shouldn't I be leading him to his death?

"I already knew that, it's the reason why I'm out here," I said nonchalantly.

"What? I thought you didn't know."

I would've noticed the Army was coming for me even before this stranger told me.

The waves gave me that sort of advantage.

"I've been running away from them for as long as I can remember. They always try to capture me, the reason why, I don't know."