I'm updating this now cause I'm going away and won't be able to update for a little while.
The next few chapters will be flashbacks so again, I'm sorry if people don't like them but they're relevent to the story line. Be too hard to explain in the present.
Anyway, I'll say when the flashbacks end so that they'll be no confusion going on.
I wish you all a happy easter (or whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year) and have a good holidays~!
Chapter 11 –
7 years ago…
The frantic panting echoes in the misty air as two figures run wildly into the night. The boy, near the age of thirty, pulls the young girl behind him, a girl who was in the prime of her teen years. He grips her arm tighter, dragging her further and further into the dense woods as the fog creeps upon them. Shouting could be heard behind him along with the sound of running feet pounding into the earth.
He was frightened, terrified perhaps.
She was less than safe.
"Aaron!" She pants, her arm straining as he drags her forward. "Aaron, I can't run anymore." She breathes between pants.
"We can't stop now." He says. "If we stop, they'll catch you and take you away again."
"By my arms hurting; and my legs… I can't run anymore." She whines.
"We can't stop running!" He yells back at her, not bothering to turn around and face the young teen following him.
She glares at his back, her chest hurting even more as the weight on her back presses down on her, gravity weighing her down and pushing her to the ground. Her hand slips out of his as she falls to the floor of the woods. He turns around, standing a fair distance away from her, as he stares at her.
"Get up." He pants, catching his breath at this small break.
She looks up at him with pleading eyes. She was tired, and sore. She couldn't run anymore.
He takes a small step forward.
"Get up." He says more fiercely.
"I… I can't go any further." She whines. "My legs feel like they're on fire, and my lungs are burning. I'm tired, Aaron."
Walking forward, he turns around and kneels down. She stares at him, dumbfounded, as she understands straight away and hops on his back. Again, they start running.
"We have to get as far away as we can." He pants. "We need to find some place where they can't find us."
"I remember mum telling us about a circus for weary travellers. Do you think we can find it on our own?" She asks, whispering into his ear.
He frowns. "I heard the circus doesn't exist anymore. No one's heard or seen it since the accident all those years ago."
"But isn't it a structure built into the woods themselves?" She asks. "It can't be moved, and even if no one is there, it would be best to find shelter than sleeping out in the cold air."
He bites his lower lip before looking over his shoulder with a smirk on his face. "How come you always come up with the good ideas?"
She grins down at him. "It must be luck of the draw, I suppose." She replies.
They ran for quiet a while in silence, all the while hearing the cries and shouts of the other people chasing them fill the void. It was the same people shouting over and over again:
'Marita! Marita! It's your mother, where are you my dear?'
'Marita, darling, you're fathers here to protect you now. Tell me where you are?'
'Aaron, how dare you take your sister away! She's a sick girl and needs all the help she can get! We just want to help her, not hurt her.'
'Young Aaron, if you come now no charges will be held against you; and you can continue your studies at the university if you choose. You have a bright future ahead of you; don't throw it away for some silly resolve for you sister.'
It was getting on his nerves, the false sincerity in they're voices: how they kept on calling his sister sick when she wasn't. How they kept on saying he was a fool. How they kept on trying to buy his favour with the promise of higher education.
He had gotten all he wanted from the universities. There was nothing new that they could teach him. He wanted to make sure that all his years away, all the years that he had been studying and learning would not be in vain.
He looks over his shoulder as his sister stares back at him. "I won't let them take you again." He says.
She smiles at him as she burries her head in the back of his neck. "I know you won't." She replies. "I won't let them take you too."
He smiles at the comment before noticing a light in the distance. His heart skips a beat momentarily.
They couldn't have caught up to them already, could they?
Marita looks up as the light catches her eyes as well as a brightly coloured tent comes into view.
"Is that a…?" Marita asks.
Aaron nods his head. "Yeah, it is."
It was a circus tent.
Dropping her to the ground, the pair looks at the sight with ghost smiles on the lips.
They may have just found they're sanctuary.
A man, short in stature with a large top hat upon his head, walks past them, backtracks, and stares at the pair before him.
"My, my, my…" He says. "What have we here?" He examines the pair again and takes a mental picture of the two.
The boy was more a man than a child, looking to be in his late 20's with the stubble of a beard growing. He wasn't exactly a tall man, a few inches taller than the girl herself, with hair that was in a dishevelled mess.
The girl, on the other hand, looked far younger than the man beside her, looking to be in her late teens, give or take a year or two. She would look quiet beautiful if she didn't appear to be so malnutritioned, yet she seemed to still have immense physical strength, considering the condition she was in.
The small man smiles at the pair before taking a deep bow before them. "Good evening," he says. "My name is Mr. Peak," Marita stifles a laugh as Aaron nudges her in the ribs. "And I am the ringmaster here at the Dark Woods Circus."
"So we found it?" Marita asks. "We found the circus in the woods?"
Mr. Peak smiles. "It would appear so. Come along, we have spare tents where you may lodge. Feel free to stay as long as you wish. There is no hurry."