Chapter Text
My feet pounded into the green earth. I ran through the forest, seeing nothing but leafy blurs, silent tears still running down my face. I heard nothing but the thudding of my feet on the mossy grass, the pants of my laboured breathing and a sound that deafened all others.
The screaming in my head.
Overhead branches obscured most of the light, but even then it was dark. I could barely see the trees I was running through now, but could hear the gurgling of the river to my left. I stopped in my tracks and looked heavenward. The sun was out of view and the sky was getting darker by the minute.
I stooped by the water and cupped my hands to drink from the cold water, splashing it over my head afterwards.
I knew I should make a fire because Papa said…Oh Gods, fire, Papa, and the constant screaming inside my head. Fresh tears fell down my cheeks, racking sobs contorting my body, escaping through my mouth unbidden. They welled up like sickness, until I was choking on my grief.
“Mama!” I screamed into the night,”Papa!”
I crumpled to the floor, and curled up into a ball, like a hedgehog would. After a while of sitting like this I had no more tears left to cry and my uncontrollable sobs had quietened for now. I looked up to the starlight sky and noticed I had lain under a willow tree, my back against its trunk. I remembered the lullaby Mama used to sing to me, the last thing she sang to me. I heard it in my head;
“Under the willow,
A soft Green pillow,
Lie down your sleepy head,
For here you have nothing to dread,
Here in this place of safety,
You can be truly free,
Of the waking moment,
The terrible torments,
Under the willow,
A soft Green pillow,
Lay down your sleepy head,
Down on the meadow bed.”
Mama and Papa were now free from the terrible torments. They would always be truly free, forever sleeping. Truly free, just like they wanted, but not like this. Not like this.
I felt exhausted now, I had been running all evening. To get away from that place, my home, and t he things that happened there. Things that were my fault.
With a bitter laugh I realised I’d been running all my life. Always. I’d just never noticed before, running from those who’d try to take Mama, Papa, and me away, only yesterday they caught up with me.
Slowly I drifted off to sleep, the full moon at its apex watching over me. I floated into a world which I couldn’t control, in which I couldn’t hide anything. Couldn’t bury the pain.
I knew they would come, the nightmares and they always will. I’ll never be able to get away from that last image. That last look at Mama and Papa out of my head. Of them shouting for me to run.
That’s why me demons will torment me always, I’ll. never be able to sleep.
Because I left them.