Shattered

Keep going, just don’t stop. Nothing is holding you back.

The rain felt warm against my face. Adrenaline kicked out afterthoughts of pain and only kept me going. The trucks following me increased the drive of hormones. They thought they could out run me and catch me yet again. I had a few tricks up my sleeve that might work.

Alan’s grey truck was starting to catch up. Tino and Phil were in the bed of the vehicle. Austin sat in the passenger’s seat. Aaron and Ronnie sat in the small Acura that edged behind the ginger’s car. Both were thirty feet behind me but gaining speed.

I dove off the side of the road, running up the hills. My breath was quickly depleting. The incline was steep, but not impossible. As soon as I reached the peak of the small hill, I kept on flying through the grass. The storm above rumbled anxiously.

Was it a stupid move to run away right now? Incredibly so! But I wasn’t willing to be sold off again. I wanted to make my way home. I had people waiting for me back there.

“Kynder!” Austin leaned out of the window and screamed my name. The truck he sat in was trying to find a way up the hill. The only access to my point was to go around it and follow a small slope up. The tiny other car was forced to stay on the road.

I collapsed on the hill, falling to my knees and nearly puking up the food I didn’t have. My sprinting left me incredibly weak and tired, but I must move on. I was already this far.

Austin had pushed me to this point. I wasn’t about to let my old master see that I was weak and unable to keep up. Besides, I didn’t want to find out what punishment he had in store for my extreme disobedience.

Stumbling up to my feet, I started to job off the side of the hill. If there was a slope that had a steep incline, I climbed it. The tall heights would only slow down the truck. There wasn’t enough mud for the car to get stuck or slowed down.

For another fifteen minutes, we played this game of dangerous chase. I must’ve run about two miles down the road and in circles. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t lose them.

By the third time I fell down on my hands and knees in incredible pain, I looked up to the see the vehicle in the distance. The four boys had gotten out and watched from afar. My spine hurt like crazy, a few lash wounds had been reopened, and my stomach was on fire. It seemed like I had puked up a third lung. My eyes would barely stay open.

“Kynder! Please come back!” Alan called forlornly to me. Why would I return to the bad memories and pain? Why did I want to return to this black market I was forced in to? Why did he want me back?

For the first time ever, I disobeyed an order.

As I staggered to my wobbly legs that shook like the thunder that threw me to the ground, I turned around and stumbled down the slope and out of sight.

I kept going at a quick pace, throwing my hoodie over my head. The night was starting to settle upon the landscape. It was already dark enough where I would barely be seen as a shadow moving amongst the void.

They never saw me, and I never viewed them trying to search for me. Their frantic calls occasionally rose over any silence from the distance, but I kept on walking. My first priority was shelter.

For the next hour, I backtracked a bit, going towards the house. They wouldn’t expect me to go towards the house but more away from the prison like area. There were a few things I still needed to get from the house-if I could get in.

My actions had left me with no food or pain pills. The relief would wear off by the next morning. If could, I would have to sneak in Monday morning to scout out and take what I needed, if it was possible. There was only a slim chance I wouldn’t get caught, but I had to try.

On Tuesday, I would go early in the morning to catch the train. It would rumble across the tracks about five miles away from the house at nine in the morning. I had no clue where it was headed, but I knew it was away from here. From wherever it would go, I would follow it. The train tracks led to the east, so I assumed that it would head towards Colorado. Hitchhiking might be needed at points.

After I was done thinking out my plan, I came to a hill with a ditch on the side. The road was only about a hundred meters off or so. Although it was only a half mile from the house and dangerously close to the road, it would make do at eight at night.

The rain beat down on my shoulders as I crawled into the grassy ditch. As I crawled down there, I noticed an overhang housed a blocked drain pipe. As I peered inside, it looked as if something had collapsed and rendered the metal pipe useless. It would serve as a humble abode for the next couple of nights.

Crawling up into the dry shelter, I curled my head against the hood of my jacket. The pipe wasn’t too dirty and surprised me with how dry it was. The rain pounded on the outside world as the cold numbed all pains and I fell into an uneasy sleep.

That night, I dreamed of dying on the side of the road because I was too injured to keep going on my journey home. Waking up Monday morning made me feel hollow and empty inside.

Was this nightmare a vision of the future, or a warning of what may happen?

Notes