The Toils (Book Two)

XIV. Wanderers

Of the people who run from their problems, two types exist. 
On one side, you have the person who runs from their problems because they are ill-equipped to deal with them. 
Perhaps they are emotionally unready, perhaps they just do not want to. 
Some find it commendable that they leave the more experienced to handle the problem, others find it irresponsible not to learn.
That's the first type of person.
The second type runs from their problems because it just might kill them if they stay.
So when faced with someone running from their problems, you're faced with an intrinsic dilemma. 
Do you help them, returning them to where the problem arose?
Or, alternatively, do you assist them in running?
This is not an easy choice, because, it is my own personal belief that you are either setting them up to fail now or setting them up to fail in the future. 
Sometimes, when someone runs from their problems, the best course of action is to simply wait to see if they develop the skills necessary to deal with those problems. 
If you run from your problems, and they never catch up to you, did running away work?

"Mummy?", Rhi squeaked from the hallway, looking into the living room where her parents lay obscured by shadows.
"Oh for fuck sake", the Prince rolled his eyes.
"Come on dear, back to bed", the old woman's voice wobbled as she walked across the living room, and walked Rhi back up the hall.
She took the old woman by the hand as the pair entered the bedroom.
Slowly, the old woman lifted Rhi into a small bed with a hay mattress.
Rhi pulled her blankets atop her shoulders and the old lady tucked them into place.
"Is mummy okay?", Rhi asked smally.
"She's fine, darling, hush now", the old woman stroked Rhi's hair.
Rhi nodded, closing her eyes, sleep washing over her tired body.

The next time they opened, it was morning time, rays of sunshine shone through the glassless window to her left.
Not a sound stirred. Sitting up, Rhi listened intently, nothing.
Eyes wide, Rhi swung her legs over the edge of the bed and slid herself onto the wooded floor.
Tentatively, Rhi crept from the bedroom. Peering out from behind her door frame, Rhi scanned the hallway.
Empty. 
Ascertaining that the coast was clear, Rhi snuck into the hallway, slowly walking towards the living room.
She saw it almost immediately; the bodies of her parents laying in the living room.
"Mummy...?", Rhi asked aloud, in a voice barely more than a whisper.
She crept closer, and closer.
"Mummy?", she asked, slightly louder.
At the body, she crouched, her mother lying in a pool of blood on the floor.
Slowly, she reached out and touched her mothers' cold corpse.
Turning to her left, she took stock of her father's body, blood pooled around his head.
"Dad...?", she moved across the floor, standing over her father's body.
Like a whip, Rhi shot out the back door, and out onto the road.
A few people ambled up the street, talking with each other.
Ignoring them, Rhi sprinted past them, making her way down the street (towards the eponymous mount) though she turned right down an alleyway a few hundred feet down.
Down the alleyway and out onto a small street, she sprinted across the cracked road and entered into a small, overgrown yard.
"NANNY!", Rhi shouted, pounding on a rotted wooden door, "NANNY OPEN UP!".
Standing upon the porch, Rhi was quickly greeted by an elderly woman in a pink gown.
"Rhi? What's wrong?", Rhi's grandmother asked in a worried voice from beyond the threshold.
"It's mummy and dad, they're not waking up!", Rhi spoke breathlessly.

Back at Rhi's house, both Rhi and the grandmother surveyed the scene.
"Did you hear anything, darling?", Nana asked.
"There was an old lady, she came into my bedroom", Rhi stood next to her grandmother, eyes locked on her mother as she spoke.
"Anyone else?", Nana asked.
Rhi thought hard, trying to place the people she'd seen the night before.
"I saw two other people", Rhi acknowledged.
"Who, darling?", Nana turned and crouched, looking Rhi right in her tiny face.
"I... I think I know them", Rhi chewed on her words for a moment, trying to place the faces she'd seen, "I think... The Prince and his wife".
Nana rubbed her eyes with a wrinkled hand, thinking about what she was being told. 
Pulling her eyes away from her face, she plonked a hand on Rhi's shoulder and spoke softly. 
"The Prince? Do you mean Ritty and Antonia?", Nana asked with a voice tinged in skepticism. 
"I don't know, I just remember seeing them".
"All right", Nana nodded and stood.