I sat on the side of the road with my best friend chyanne watching car after car drive by not caring that we were there, not even a second thought as they drive by. I'm 16 years old, and my name is Aria. Chyanne and i are runaways, hitchhiking from town to town, city to city looking for a place to play at, hopefully make good tips, maybe even a place to stay. My parents never liked my music, let alone me. Chyanne didn't have the best home life either. Her parents constantly telling her she wasn't good enough or that she wasn't the daughter they wanted. One day after school in 8th grade we planned out running away, it was a daily topic for us, but this time we meant it. we met in the back ally in our small neighborhood in Memphis. I knew that we talked about this moment all the time and about how much better our lives would be, but at the moment of actually leaving and getting on the bus to God knows where; it was slightly scary but also exciting. Chyanne's parents were drug addicts, so they kept a stack of money set aside in a small hole in the wall of their run down trailer. She grabbed as much as she could before she came to meet me in the ally.
It's been two years since that day and we're still running. I can't quite figure out why, it's probably the money, but our parents have actually been looking for us, not that we care, it's just a slight setback when we get picked up by an old woman or stranger wanting to do the 'right thing' who has seen our 'wanted for robbery' posters and try to call the police. As we were sitting there watching car after car go by on the long stretch of road, I played my guitar as Chyanne sang to a song we had been working on. The road was a long straight road with trees on either side. It was always dark because the tall trees blocked most of the sunlight that would otherwise be pouring itself onto the road. At night it was creepy but I liked that sorta thing, all dark and mysterious. Occasionally I would drag Chyanne into the woods or she would to me and walk around telling scary stories but we never expected one to actually come true. It was a Friday night, around 3A.M. very few cars where rolling by as we walked down the long stretch of road. I figure we walked about a mile before coming across a narrow path covered by overgrown thorn bushes and grass. Being the curious type, we pushed the branches away as they reached out to grab at our clothes. No more than 50 feet into the unforgiving forest when we came across a lonely campfire. It was still smoking, recently abandoned by a camper, not long before we arrived. I noticed a small piece of half burnt paper in the fire pit. I reached down and grabbed it. I read through it quickly, my mouth dropped in fear. I handed the paper to Chyanne. it read: "If you're reading this you're in grave danger. Run back to safety don't leave any trace of you behind. He will find you, and you will be killed." In mid reading, we both ran back to the road as we heard footsteps coming closer not far off in the distance. We reached the entrance that we came through only moments before. We pushed back the bushes; not realizing my shirt got caught at the hem line and tore a piece off, leaving it to the greedy thorns. No car would stop for us as we wielded our arms and screamed for help. In the midst of panic and not knowing what else we could do, I jumped out in front of a small black 1993 Chevy pickup truck. The truck swerved and stopped, as the driver was getting out of the car, I noticed he was young, no older than 20 but no younger than 17. He was attractive in a strange sort of way. He had dark brown short hair with a spiked up middle that formed a very slight ridge. He had a small lip ring that circled over the left corner of his lower lip. Once he got closer i noticed his deep brown eyes that shined in the moonlight as he moved.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he barked at me. Panic stricken i didn't know how to answer that question. "You have to help us!" I said quickly. "There's a man after us, I don't..." he didn't let me finish, instead he interrupted me." You girls look really familiar, have we met?" "That doesn't matter right now!" I shouted. "You have to get us out of here!" We sat in the bed of his truck while Chyanne and I illustrated what we saw and read. "Show me." was the only thing he said. We got up and walked towards the trail where we saw the note not long before then. Once we reached the narrow clearing that held the smoking campfire, I heard a long blood curling screech of in the distance. Before i even knew what i was doing, I found myself running towards the scream. What would I do if I saw someone? What would I do if Chyanne couldn't follow me? How do I know I'm even going the right way? I was running for only a few minutes when I decided I should stop and wait for chyanne and well, I never did get the guy's name. I stood alone in the middle of a unfamiliar forest not knowing how close or how far away I was from this alluring danger. I heard chyanne yell for me. She sounded close but also scared. I started to make my way back to the campground where I left chyanne standing alone with a stranger. When i got back there was no sign of either one of them. I stood there for only a second before sprinting back to the open road. The truck was still there, sitting quietly across the street. I walked carefully over to it to find chyanne alone in the back. Her hands and feet were bound and her mouth was covered by an old cloth. I quickly untied her hands and feet, and removed the cloth from around her head. "We need to get out of here now!' she said in a frantic whisper. We jumped down from the bed of the truck to run into the unfamiliar woods. Only about 200 feet in, I heard yelling for us. We didn't dare stop.
We had been running for quite a while, or at least it seemed like it, when we came across a dark and narrow road. We started down the road in a panic, not long after, a bus started by. Chyanne and I got on as soon as it pulled up by us. Once we got on, we took our seats in the back of the deserted bus. I wasn't quite sure, but being on the bus didn't make me feel safe, actually, it made me feel more in danger than i was before. "Excuse me sir, but where does this bus stop?" "It doesn't." the man said in a very calm and confident voice. What does he mean it doesn't stop? The driver turned around to face us, but his face was covered by a black cloth mask. He gave us the creepiest smile i have ever seen in my life. He turned back around and went back to driving. Without wasting anytime, Chyanne and I quickly but quietly opened the emergency window that was only a few inches away from the driver.