I was running as hard as I could, trying to get away from my father. He was beating my mother, yet again. I didn't want to see his fist and her bruises. I didn't want to hear her screams. I didn't want to smell blood, or taste it in the air.

So I ran.

I slipped under the hole in the gate, the hole that I had seen a boy and a girl carrying arrows go under the other day. I didn't stop to listen for the humming of the electric fence, I dove under. Nothing happened.

I got up and ran, my feet pounding the ground under me. I was strong when I ran… I wasn't fast, but I could run for a very, very long time.

When I reached the edge of the woods, I slowed down just enough to twist and turn through the bushes and trees. At one point my foot fell into a hole, a booby trap for animals. There was a rabbit down there, skewered on spikes. I held down my breakfast and continued to run. I ran for a half hour, maybe longer. There was a clearing in the woods ahead, and I slowed down, my anger and fear having disappeared by now.

That's when I saw it.

It was a little building, no bigger than the bakery on the end of the block. The walls were brick and crumbling, windows long gone. I walked over to it, and stared at the empty space where the door should have been. I could barely make out the words:

Mary's Library
1999

I knew what a library was… I had seen them in our history books. But I had never been to one. I stood there for a little bit before wandering inside; walking so I didn't step on any broken glass, trying not to disturb the ash. It was everywhere.

The shelves were only waist high and cindered, and the desk near the front was black as a night without a moon. There was the skeleton of an old computer on top of the desk, but that's all that remained.

I walked in a bit further, the sunlight shone through the windows. A light cloud hung in the air, because, try as I might, I wasn't graceful enough to avoid all the ash. I coughed, the sudden noise making me realize how quiet it was.

I made my way over to a half burned shelf, and ran my hand over the rough wood. Ripping it away to suck on the splinter I received, the shelf fell over. The ash muffled the sound of it hitting the floor, but I wasn't paying attention to that.

There, lying in the dust, was a book.

Its cover was ripped, and I picked it up and flipped through it. There were marked pages, and it looked as though a mouse had gotten to it. I squinted at the cover, and could just make out the fancy-lettered title.

'Sarah'

I sat down. In the middle of the ashes, I sat down. And opened the book.

…

I tore myself away from the story. Hours had passed.

"Wow," I breathed. It was an amazing book… the story of a girl who had lived for seven years with her abusive kidnapper. And she escaped.

I stood up, book tucked under my arm.

And I ran out of the library, into the growing night.

I was never coming back.