Who’s there?” Startled I got up from my sleeping position. Maybe the bee keeper had returned. Maybe he wasn’t a part of my imagination at all.
“Keep searching!” I think someone is nearby. I dashed out of the ground and hid behind one of the trees.
“No, wait!” I saw Stephen dash in front of the guards. He had his hands outstretched.
“You! You’re one of them! Where is your partner?”
“She died. The conditions were too much for her.” A part of me was shocked by his words, but when he lay down his pack, I saw what he was doing. “This is all I have left. There was no food. Nothing. I thought I might as well turn myself in since I didn’t have much of a chance.
“Fine,” the officer said as he was taken away. I was too shocked with what I had just seen before my eyes. All this time he must have been following me from behind. I clung onto the tree trunk, afraid that maybe the police would try to look around here.
I remained where I was for at least two hours. Dead silence followed what had just happened.
I guess…you no longer felt like life was really worth living, I thought. But I guess it was the least you could do for me.
I didn’t run, afraid of the fact that the police were going to catch me. I sank to my knees. I couldn’t lie out here. I just couldn’t live out here. I turned around to see that a house was behind me. I placed my hands on top of the wall, longing to go in.
“Forget the crap,” I said as I sprinted into the rest of the woods. If I knocked on their door, would they let me in? Would I be welcomed inside of their dwelling? I didn’t even know what I was doing out here.
I could just die out here, I thought. Maybe I could even make it back to the psychology hospital if it wasn’t for stupid Stephen.
No, I needed to take a look inside. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I ran up to the door and started rapping on it.
“Hello? Hello?!” I called. “Please someone, open up. I’m tired of living out here all alone.” The door crept open.
“Who are you?” a woman asked. I looked into the door, completely relieved by the fact that somebody had opened the door. “Do you need shelter for the night—or, I don’t understand.”
“Please, I just need someone who is willing to house me,” I said. “I’ve run away…Please whatever you do, don’t reject me. Please don’t reject me.”
“O-ok,” she said. The ragged hair drooping down my shoulders. The sore feet bleeding from the oppression of nature. “Ok, I am willing to house you.”
***
I hadn’t remembered the last time that I had been able to sleep on a pillow. Feeling the water parse through my skin as I took a bath made me feel more alive than ever. All the dreariness of sitting inside of the confines of the natural world disappeared. Nobody was trying to kill me. As far as I was concerned, I was safe.
Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe there was still somebody out there that was trying to kill me. Maybe the police had figured that Stephen had lied and had decided to keep searching for me.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
