Tears mixed with rain as they streamed down my cheeks as I ran passing every tree with uncounted sobs of pain. They were gaining on me. I knew it. I stopped to catch my breath when I saw the fiery hue approaching me with shouting threats and oaths. I dragged my feet on, my legs pushed to the limit with every step. I couldn't go much further. I tripped on a large rock and fell to the hard forest floor letting out a small gasp of pain, gripping my leg as the blood gushed out of the gaping wound. I writhed in pain, but I continued with my struggle, using my arms and my other leg, I crawled over to the base of a nearby tree, where a small hollow lay in the undergrowth. I could hear then getting closer, their ominous shouts became clearer and louder with each step. I waited. I could hear them stopping. Surely they couldn't have found me here?
I held my sobs and waited with baited breaths as the red flames grew closer to me and a blackish face appeared above me, slightly obscured by the foliage. This was it. The moment I had never hoped would happen, but I knew I could face. I had been found and now I would be killed. Sent to hell where I belonged…
"The witch isn't here, she's escaped. She's as good as dead in this forest." a deep voice shouted among the crowd.
I could hear the shuffling of feet and them returning to their village. I gave a long sigh of relief and hugged my legs with my arms. I would continue my journey in the morning, but stay here for now. It was going to be a long night, filled with fear and bad memories.
I had never belonged anywhere, physically, mentally, in any way. I was deathly white, with long, black straight hair reaching my waist with a long fringe just touching my eyelids. It would have been easier if my eyes weren't crimson-red, large with flecks of black and purple, my sockets outlined with blackish-blue circles. I had always been quite thin and slender, but never cared much about my figure. I laughed at the women who stood there in the morning prodding every bit of their bodies and eating nothing but cabbage to attain that 'perfect figure'.
My earliest memory was when I was three, living in the Hoxford town orphanage...
'You are not a creature of this world, but unholy world of the next. Your parents didn't want you, but neither do we. We have taken much pity on you. You shall stay here until the age of thirteen, and work as a slave for us. You should be grateful for this. Other people in this village would have you executed with one look.' These were the first words I heard by any human being, words spoken by Cathy, my temporary 'carer' for ten years for my life. For ten years I dreamed. For ten years I hoped. I hoped I could one day be part of the small town I would look down on in my small bed. I wanted to be the woman who sold the bread, the man who split his coffee every day. The pregnant teenager with no prospects. I would give anything to be one of them. I tried. Bad memories and words filled my mind and I squinted my eyes and shook my head and clamped my hands over my ears as if to remove all the sadness out of me.
'Witch!'
'Demon'!
'Die'!
'Go to hell and never come back!'
That night I cried myself to sleep.