Disclaimer: Characters, Events or places are all works of fiction. I do not own any characters under OUAT; some characters are my original creation though.

Run Away, Girl

Run away, run fast and don't look back. Just keep running.

Never mind the hollow ache in your chest. The stiffness of your body, or even the tears your eyes bear.

Just run away. The pain will stop, it will numb. The stiffness of your body can be solve by Mr. Jack.

Your tears, your tears will eventually dry. Until you can cry no more. Until that lump in your throat is no longer there, if you don't run away, everything will get worse.

Everything you hold dear will leave you. The person who said they love you will leave you. But if you run away now. Run away now and you control everything you feel. You control the damage it will do to you. You control what you can and cannot feel. Because if you run away. They never leave you. You left them.

The things She tries to forget;

She was seven, or eight or something. She can`t recall. But the marks left her young heart marred, dipped in hatred she was too young to understand.

She felt the damped stiff night air on her skin. She hadn`t bathe yet, no mother to tell her to bathe. Not that her mother tells her to, she does not concern herself with things like being responsible for the kid. She was just an insurance that her father would stay in her life. She never mattered. That was her first front seat at how stupid and selfish love can be.

She checked her red flashlight, turning it off and on, the batteries are almost gone, but it`ll still lit up. It was dark that time of the year, she remember it was summer, because in a few weeks it`ll be her birthday and Dad promise she can have a sword on her birthday, she had asked him how many days more she has to wait, he answered but she still doesn`t understand numbers so she shrugged her shoulders. It`s near, she`s positive. But Dad has to go to his friend in a far town, he said he needed to work so he can buy her what she wants for her birthday, and that was how she got her sword.

Dad had been gone for too long, she still couldn`t count so she didn`t mind the number of days he was gone, her mother grew weary, and snappy. She`d wake up and ask for breakfast even if it`s already past noon time, later that day, the table is still empty, and she looked longingly when their neighbor gave her pet dog left overs. Good, she doesn`t have to worry how to feed Wendy. She`d probably find something in the backyard, some tomatoes or fruit that`s edible enough to fill her now aching stomach.

She`s not too far when she found a chicken coop, it smells so awful she dashed to leave, but then something clicked in her. She was really starving, and she promised herself she is paying it back by watering the chickens. So she took an egg from the coop, and before she left she remembered, mother might be hungry too, so she took two.

She found her getting dressed up. It was almost dark when she reached home. It wasn`t Sunday so she tilted her head in confusion, where is going?

Without looking at her directly, mother began packing an overnight bag while telling her how to look up the house and never let anyone, whether she knows them or not, to enter. Geez, it`s almost she cared. But she nods her head anyway. Not that she`s going to be home the whole time, mother did not mention about staying out…so.

She forgot to mention about the eggs, but mother left already, she`s really very hungry. At least she knew how to boil the eggs, frying would risk it being burnt.

That`s it, two eggs and the morning after, she realized mother did not say when she`s coming back, or where she is going, but she`s positive she will comeback before her birthday, she was her mother, fruit of her womb, she won`t forget the day she brought her to this world. After twenty five years, she wondered, once in a year if she really have forgotten, or if she really cared she does not remember.

She took a bath first, and she`s going to play the whole day! She`s brimming with happiness at the prospect of having a whole day to play and climb trees and run in the fields and do whatever! She`s a kid and every kid wants to play right? But when she got to the park, with Wendy on a leash, there are very few kids playing. She found Raffy, he smiled his sweet boyish toothless smile and beckoned for her, beside him, Ruby is sitting on the ground. She waved at them.

They run and run in the grass field with Wendy chasing them, until they noticed some of the kids are going, adults are calling them, whatever for?

A few blocks away they saw Raffy and Ruby`s granny, she has come to pick them up. Granny said it was Sunday, and that they are attending the mass before lunch, oh the thought made her stomach grumble loudly, she made sure two eggs did the trick last night but she was wrong. She didn`t understand why granny was looking at her in a funny way, she was sadly frowning as she crouch down and caressed her cheek, granny asked her where was mother, um she did not remember asking where she is going. So where was Dad, granny asked again, he`s gonna buy me a sword, she answered, and Raffy and Ruby laugh, and she laugh, and Granny have this soft look in her eye, I think, granny knew it before I even realized I was different.

Granny took all three of them home, she asked Raffy to get cleaned up because he is older than the two girls and he can dress up on her own. That is actually a bad idea, because she does not want to wear Ruby`s pretty dresses, she does not like the feel of the scratchy lace or the stupid ribbon on her hair. She stared at herself in the mirror, she looked different, and she was gawping at the reflection, who is this girl? Why is her reflection someone she doesn`t know?

The chapel is still under construction, the bricks are still visible and there was not paint on the walls. She kept still, she does not want to disappoint Granny, she promised ice cream after the mass and all three of them can`t risk the mischief ruining it for them. So she sat still, even if her tummy is grumbling really very loudly now. Granny pulled out a biscuit on her pouch and divided it to them three. It settled the young dragon in her stomach, for a little while.

Chocolate, strawberry and mango, she can`t even pronounce them all correctly, but when the ice cream arrived, she felt like it`s already her birthday. Even if it`s the first time she ever had ice cream, her childish grin was hurting her face but nothing can make her not grin. She felt really happy and she hugged Granny very very tightly when she dropped her home, she asked again what time would mother be home, but she couldn`t answer, she didn`t know what time meant. So she said later.

She forgot to return Ruby`s dress, did Granny mention it can be hers now? She can`t remember, but it was once of those nice clothes she had, so she folded it neatly, and wrapped in another cloth, she hid it at the very bottom of her drawer. She did not remove the ribbon, even if she now looked funny because clearly the ribbon in her hair does not match her ratty clothes.

She felt dizzy and so full, she will nap for a while and maybe mother will come home soon. So she locked the door, closed all the windows and made sure the stove is off like what Dad always remind her. She pulled the covers on herself and let sleep lull her away.

Wendy needs to pee, she`s banging the door, and it`s almost dark, she slept for too long. She reach out her hand trying to locate the flash light she carry with her when she sleeps, because who knows what`s in the dark, and it`s so so dark when she closed her eyes, even in broad daylight, so Ruby said she won`t be too frightened and monster can`t reach her if she have a flash light. From then on she sleeps with the red flash light by her side, even if she years later, darkness turned out to be her ally.

What can she do with all the time she has now? She`s still kind of full, and the kids at the park are probably gone home to watch tv. The TV! She recently just learned to turn it on, mother and Dad does not know. She just watched them plug it`s end to the wall, wait, where is it? There, at the back, okay, she reach to that wall and it fits, it fits! Okay, she`s now trying to remember which knob to turn, okay the big one first, turn it very very carefully, there! The TV is on! Then next she turned the little knobs and searched for the cartoons or anything remotely interesting for a child to watch.

Three hours into it and she found it to be less than interesting, she rather stay out and play, but it`s already dark to climb the tree house she used to go to when she wants to be alone.

She dressed up on what she call her super suit, her cousin`s denim jeans, still too big to fit her nearly bony limbs. Matched with her black hooded long sleeved shirt her father`s sister bought her, basically her favorite shirt, since it`s the only thing she had that`s not a hand me down. She also have a rubber shoes, but it hurts her feet because it`s now too small for her. But no matter, she going out to tonight and she will be a super hero, even if wonder woman does not wear rag like this, years from then on, she will eventually afford to but herself a decent leather jacket, red, like the flash light, like the blur when wonder woman moves too fast, even if she have to squint her eyes to see the imagine properly in the small black box.

There is a shed near the road where she can see the cars pass by, occasionally she will lit up her red flash light when a bus stops, she will direct it to the passengers, scan the bus with her alert child eyes, she believed she has Diana`s power to see through and be able to locate mother from among the passengers. After a few unsuccessful hours, she panic attacked her, maybe mother fell asleep and missed her stop. It`s growing late and late and there is only a few cars passing by, buses seemed to stop fewer and fewer. So she went home, it wasn`t very far, she started walking and occasionally looking at her back. Hope against hope that mother is walking just behind her, and if the next time she looks back she`s found her. But she reached home, but mother never did. And a few more days she can`t remember anymore, she felt alone, but she didn't cry. She starved but she just stared at Wendy and content herself thinking that at least one of them is being fed.

Dad will come home on of these days, he`ll get me my sword and many many more! But of course she can`t remember now when Dad actually returned or where her sword came from, all she remembered was the rage and tantrum she threw, when one day she found out her sword had been broken, that was all she asked for! All she wished for that became hers and hers alone!

She never asked for anything, not even for an explanation why they left a child, who didn't even know how to count, much less care for herself. The child who never minded being alone in a corner, because really, nobody notices her. She never even remember her birthday, but what was there to recall, really?

That child never asked for any gift, never asked who Santa Claus was, she never knew. She never ask, she never ask, she never learned how to love, she didn't know what was there to love, because from the very start, the first two people who left her, proved that hate is better than love.

There are things she tried to forget, but there are things worth remembering, as a child who saw how cruel this big hateful world.