Escape {COMPLETE}

~Chapter One~

Run. Though my muscles screech in protest and my entire body aches with each movement, the only thing I can think to do is run. I trip over a rock. Falling hard on the ground, I scream out in frustration. Come on! I think to myself. You have to keep moving! Clawing my way over the dirt, inching closer and closer towards it, I catch a glimpse of the silvery glint of the knife. Tears still falling, streaming down like a silent endless waterfall, seep into the cut on my cheek. It burns. I can feel the blood still leaking out of it, and hear it plop off my chin onto the grass.

Drip.

Come ON! I scream inwardly.

Drip.

It's so close...so close.....

Drip.

I feel its cold carress against the tip of my finger, but I accidentally send it spinning farther away. It comes to a stop inches away.

Drip.

I drag my numb body towards it, completely ignoring the searing agony pulsing through me.

Drip.

His footsteps grow louder, closer, his arrival portraying certain death.

Drip.

His roar is erupting from behind, echoing through the lonely woods, the big black trees looming above, their branches thin and bare.

Drip.

A single shot rings out, bird wings flutter away from the startling noise.

I'm frozen.

Two Days Earlier.....

"Hey there, welcome to the Cafe! What can I get you today?" The bubbly smile of the blond waitress, Diana, according to the name tag, asked cheerily, pad and pen at the ready. I was looking out the window, as usual, in deep thought. Songs stuck in my head danced through my brain.

"I'll take a coke and a burger, ma'am." Patrick nudged me in the ribcage. "Ow, what is-oh. Um, coke and fries, please!" I smiled weakly. Patrick tilted his head back and laughed at my embarrassed look, as did Nick and Erin across from me. The two across from us eventually calmed down enough to order and Diana scribbled on the paper. The click of her heels echoed through the walkway as she walked across the tile floor to the kitchen.

The Cafe was our favorite place to hang out. "Our" being me, Patrick, Erin, Nick, Rachel and Dakota. Tonight it was just me, Patrick, Nick, and Erin, for Rachel was sick. Dakota moved two years ago, in seventh grade.

All of us have a little history together. Erin and I had been BFFs since preschool, and we met Nick and Patrick in middle school. We've all sort of been like the four musketeers, for lack of a better metaphor. In seventh grade, we all went to Chicago, Illinois as a field trip. Everyone really connected there, friendship- and relationship-wise. Erin had been dating Zach, but there they broke up. She was pretty torn up about it, he never really cared for her. She thought he'd fight for her but he let her go.

Patrick and I, on the other hand, got very close, as well as Nick and Dakota. Although, Dakota broke up with him during summer break that year. She left him for another guy, and he was completely heartbroken about it. Patrick's parents thought it too mature for him to date so young, so they wouldn't allow us to be together. I've waited for him, though, and I think the wait was worth it.

Now, we're all in our freshman year of highschool at Lafayette. I glanced back out the window, drifting into daydreams, as the cars whizzed by on the stretch of road across the parking lot. The black ribbon of cement stretched on seemingly endless, disappearing under the blackness of the night sky. The stars looked feeble and dim, the lights of the eatery making them hard to see.