The Escape

Chapter One pt one

Chapter 1: The Run

Lacey’s POV:

    I look all around me trying to decipher where I'm at. I dig through my mind searching for some clue or resemblance to my surroundings but come up blank. What I do know: my whole body utterly aches, it feels like I got plowed over by a freight train, my head's throbbing and my eyes burn as if a handful of salt was thrown in them. I try to control the gut wrenching heaving of my sides as I try to suck in enough air to keep going.

    Exhausted, I continue to run, hardly able to see where I'm going through the tears streaming down my makeup streaked face. I just want to give up, surrender, claim defeat; to stop where I'm at dead in my tracks and lay here. If he finds me, he finds me. There's nothing more to it; just give up without a fight. But I can't.

    If there was one word to describe me, it would have been stubborn. I listened to me, myself, and I. If I wanted something bad enough, I would have got it leaving nothing in my way to stop me. Giving up just wasn't my nature. That was until a year or two ago. Everything's changed now.

    Finally though, I escaped and tonight that part of me is back. Struggling at first, I feel scared and can hear my heart pounding in my chest. Slowly, I persist working my way until I can break free. At last, breaking free of his hold, I run feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins, gaining back that piece of me temporarily lost.

    Despite the lost and lonely feeling, I'm glad to be free. Wanting this long lost freedom to last, despite the all over ache in my body, I keep running.I still cant figure out where I'm at. It all looks the same: just a blurr of greens and browns against the drakness of night. For all I know, I could be running in the wrong direction or running in circles, not really getting anywhere.

    Urging myself to keep going, I come out across a clearing. Here, I throw myself on the ground and start sobbing letting all my grief and frustration, over the past two years, out. I must have cried myself to sleep because next I know, I'm opening my eyes to the blinding, white light of the sun.

    Crawling my way back to the cover of the trees so as not to be seen, I sit against a tree. Trying to remember the past night, I still can't seem to draw any conclusions as to where I'm at. So I listen for a while to make sure he's not near.

    Scared he might catch up and find me, I reluctantly get up and begin walking on. Seeing as I was still in the middle of some unfamiliar forest, my destination was not yet determined. Really thirsty, I begin my search for water, pausing every once in a while to see if I can hear any water nearby.

    On the verge of breaking down out of frustration, I have to remind myself to stay strong and keep going. Being tired, hungry, and all alone, my fear begins to overcome me.  I begin to feel a bit paranoid, like everything in the woods is out to get me. The red squirrels obnoxiously barking and birds wildly chirping point to anyone within the area in my direction. In any second, I fear that the tree branches are going to reach out, pull me in, and swallow me, keeping me in this dismal place forever.

    Afraid from my vivid, overactive imagination, I again begin to run. Running with all I have left in me, without really seeing, I trip, fall and stumble numerous times over the roots of the trees, only to scramble back up and keep going. Night was starting to fall, when out of exhaustion, I stumble over the last tree root, sinking to my knees, and passing out into a deep slumber.