Run

It was the only thing I remembered from that night three nights ago. I could still see the fear that illuminated my father's defiant face. I could still feel his arms that wrapped themselves around me for the last time.

His arms- they had always been a refuge from an enormous world which I thought of as nothing but a prison or should I say a place of horror, pain, fear and suffering.

Instinctively I shrank back into the shadows like I was a part of them, like they claimed me.

My family was naïve and easy .......................until my mother got sick. A sickness that had never been heard of had suddenly knocked on our door and made itself as comfortable as possible in our lives.

My father was not as torn apart as I was as my mother grew weaker. Her face was no longer that cherry apple red; it became as white as chalk, ragged and cold. She was unable to move and the worst part she was unable to talk. I longed for the day she would return to me, when she would be able to talk to me, comfort me, and sing to me. I refused to acknowledge that my mother was going to die. As her breathing grew ragged and shallow I became defiant. I thought it all was an illusion, that she would get better and we would be fine again. She never did.

My father a physician and an apothecary worked day and night. During my mother's year and a half of sickness he spent almost all his time in his private lab mixing and matching ingredients trying in vain to make an antidote for his beloved wife. I had to compel him out of his tiny crammed lab to eat and even with this he only got about three hours sleep each day. I was afraid that I would lose both my parents to this terrible sickness. My father soon began to spend even more time in his lab. Dark circles formed drastically around his blue grey eyes. The eyes I had inherited.

My mother always said I was more like my father than her.

He tried again and again to help her, to make her better, to retrieve her and bring her back to us but each time he tried and failed he quickly hurried back to his lab to start over again. He tried to hide the tears that silently slid down his face as he realized he had failed her again! I hated seeing him cry. He looked so broken, scared.......fragile. I could only stand there as he returned silently to his lab with more pain and hurting one person should bare alone. He became isolate and afraid he would never return.

Every night I cried myself to sleep as I thought of how broken our family had gotten. My life, our life was gone. Our goals, our hopes, our dreams all flew out the window.

Then he found it! The antidote we had all been waiting and searching for. My father had given my mother another vial of a sapphire blue to drink. It seemed as pure as the sea and it seemed to hold the answer to many things. As he lifted the vial to her her mouth and poured it down her throat I watched her intently to see her reaction.

It was a slight movement but I knew what I had seen.

"Dad, DAD! She moved" I practically screamed

" I saw it too," he whispered quietly.

Then the most amazing thing happened! She sat right up and got off the bed and even started to walk around. Our mouths were hanging wide open

" Oh stop staring! I feel like I am brand new!" my mother told us a bit shakily. I started crying as I heard her sweet dainty voice for the first time in a long time. She smiled and continued walking around.

Unfortunately we didn't notice that a man was spying on us through the window. The huge man smiled to himself.

'I'll be rich if I tell the king about this!' he thought to himself.

Just as the man left our window my mother fell down.

I stared in horror as my father carried her back to the bed.

We had made major progress. My mother and I, we had our first dialogue for the first time since she got sick.

As my father put her on the bed he addressed me!

"I hadn't given her the full dose so it was expected that she would fall, but we did it. She can be with us again."

With the little strength my mother had she spoke to us.

"No! I don't want it!"

My father looked at me pain in his eyes. He knew that her judgment was impartial and it hurt him that he still wasn't able to save her. He had no choice but to fortify what she was saying and it pained me to know that we weren't able to save her. The impact of her death more than bearable and I was unable to help.

I could only reminisce that my mother was very beautiful, kind and comforting before the sickness took her.