Terror. Absolute terror flooded through my veins, disguising itself as adrenaline. Any relatively intelligent thought I had in my body quickly fled the scene when the violence started. My fight or flight instinct kicked in nearly immediately, and as much as I hate to admit it, so did my selfishness. Was Jacky okay? Who knows – I was only concerned about my own skin. Arrows whizzed past my ears, very nearly impaling me in the head. I swerved to the left, weaving in and out of trees as swiftly as I could. It's harder to hit a moving target, right? One could only hope – and maybe pray a little bit.
It was probably a fruitless effort to get away in time – I wasn't exactly a sprinter, nor did I run cross country. The odds were stacked against me – definitely. If I had the guts – and the stupidity – to look behind me right now, I'd probably find some ruthless, rebellious little boy running just inches behind me. To my own advantage, though, I could hear the footsteps – I had put a decent amount of distance between us. The only problem with that is that I wasn't particularly fond of hearing my impending doom.
It was the only thing I could focus on; the crunching of leaves as I sprinted through the woods, the constant mantra of 'run, run, run, breathe, live, escape' in my head, and the inferno that was burning up my muscles from the inside. How long had I been running, exactly? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? Had I been running this whole day? Time was relative here – I imagine it was a hard thing to keep track of in the first place.
Sparing a glance to my left, I was – nearly – grateful to see that Jacky was keeping up. She looked well-winded, possibly more so than I assumed I looked. We were going to die here, weren't we? The two of us were bound to kick the bucket within the next month, anyways. Why not just get it over with? That's an appealing idea. I suppose death via lost boy wasn't exactly the most painless way to go, but it probably wouldn't last too long. Children were, most likely, not too creative in their murdering.
In all this running, I'd somehow managed to forget that the people chasing us probably looked no older than 13-16 years old. I wasn't any older than they were, really. It didn't matter that I was a supposed 'legal' adult. In retrospect – I wasn't prepared to make life choices, I wasn't prepared to live on my own, and I sure as hell wasn't prepared to save lives. Neither of us were, Jacky and myself. Why had we even dared set foot in this land?
I seemed to be doing 100% more deep-thinking than I should be doing in a situation like this. The only objective was to get out alive, not figure out the source of human foolishness. Of course, it was just my luck that as soon as I tried to communicate to Jacky a worthwhile plan, an arrow embedded itself into her shoulder, very nearly pinning her to a tree. I came extremely close to throwing up at the sight, but my legs didn't stop moving for a second. Her panicked eyes stayed glued into my mind as my heavy, sluggish legs carried me through the forest.
I was horrible. I was awful. I was the most despicable, indescribably vile human being alive. A serial killer would look like a saint compared to me. How could I leave her behind? How could I just sentence somebody to death like that? What was wrong with me? What wasn't wrong with me? Why couldn't I stop running?
My lungs were burning, my eyes were burning. I was probably and undoubtedly crying at this point. Was I really? Could I even feel tears? For all I know, this whole situation wasn't even real. There were only a few ways to find out, and stopping to have a quick chat with some lost boys wasn't on my list. Pinching myself wouldn't help if I already had convinced myself that my legs were practically on fire, so what could I do? Then it hit me – literally. A heavy weight dragged me down, pinning my shoulders to the ground. My face was smothered in the dirt for the second time in 24 hours.
Rough, calloused hands turned me over, and I squeezed my eyes shut, as if afraid of seeing who would probably be my executioner in a couple of moments. Eventually, through great force, I peeled my eyes open, finding a crossbow just inches from my nose. The face of the boy who'd caught up to me was irrelevant if I was just going to be killed anyways.
With my limbs feeling like they were completely disconnected from my nerves, I didn't even make an attempt to struggle. Dying didn't sound too terrible right about now, actually. Maybe God could forgive me for ditching poor Jacky like that. He probably wouldn't, though. I know I didn't forgive myself.
My would-be murderer lowered his bow slightly, cocking his head at me. A slight grin graced the most-likely 16-year-old's lips, his scarred, dirty face diminishing any warmth it might have held before he was brought to this isolated circle of hell. "It's time to wake up," He chided, re-aligning his aim. I didn't even have the chance to act confused, for he'd already released an arrow into my face.
"Do you see yourself in a crowded room? Do your fingers itch? Are you pistol-whipped? Will you step in line, or release the glitch. Do you think she'll sleep with a panic switch?" – Silversun Pickups: Panic Switch
AN: Does this count as a cliffhanger? It shouldn't. I'd say it's pretty obvious what's happening here. Don't you worry, son. You'll know tomorrow, anyways (today, really.) Hey, it's like, 12:23 AM here. I'm only 23 minutes late with this chapter, honest! One more day, though, and I get to see more Peter Pan. Yooooooo- Anyways, thanks to Lady Cocoa, Msaballetdiva, and arosequartz for reviewing. To Msballetdiva, thank you for the input! It actually helps a lot! Haha, I'm not to good at dialogue – not my forte. I'll work on it, though! Thanks again! Oof. Author's note too long. Bonne soiree, mes amis!