Cursed Daughter

Chapter 4

    Running that's all I was doing. I ran and ran and ran until my lungs felt like they would burst from my chest. The gown I was wearing was heavy and impeded my progress. The corset was making breathing even more difficult and stars danced across my vision. But I couldn't stop or they would catch me. I would never let them catch me. I could almost see the village lights when I crashed to the ground.

    My foot caught a rock causing my leg to bleed. I was in to much pain to get up  and I heard them getting closer. I curled in on myself in an attempt to hide in the tall grass. My heart raced as the hounds and voices got closer until they were almost upon me. It seemed like an eternity passed and I thought myself safe when a hand grabbed me.

    I screamed as I woke up. My heart was racing and sweat was pouring off me.

    "Lucy what's wrong?" Kyle asked.

    I turned my head and saw Kyle and Sandra looking at me with weapons in their hands. Sandra scanned our surroundings to try and find the threat that made me scream. Kyle already had himself untied from his tree limb ready to pounce onto the ground.

    "Nothing sorry just a nightmare." I told them, still trying to calm myself.

    I looked down at my arm still feeling that hand gripping me. The dream was so real it was almost as if I could feel the roughness of their palms and their nails digging into my skin. Of course there were no marks on me just my old faded scars. I felt like I was starting to lose my mind because the longer I looked at my arm the more I felt like the scratch like scars matched the hand from my dream. I shook my head there was no possible way, I had no memories of my life, so it was just a dream.

    "Guys how far are we from the border wall?" I asked.

    Kyle thought for a moment. "Possibly five miles? It's hard to keep track very well with the woods being this dense."

    I looked up at them "I think my nightmare was a memory."

    Sandra looked at me with disbelief, her face turning pale. "I-I think my dream was a memory too."

    It was nighttime and we had to keep walking. Sandra refused to say what her dream was but stayed pale for the rest of the night. Kyle wasn't very talkative as he seemed lost in deep thought. I was leading tonight so I tried to keep my focus on the mission and the path we had to follow. The moon wasn't to high when we finally reached ground zero so I assumed we only walked for two hours. I paused suddenly causing my friends to crash into me. 

    "Why did we stop?" Sandra asked. 

    Kyle peered out from behind both of us. "I think we reached ground zero."

    There was a pile of branches that looked like they had been used to make a campfire. There were scatterings of left over food and a jacket but nothing else was left. For whatever reason this girl had left in a hurry. I looked over the surrounding area while Sandra picked through the meager belongings and Kyle kept an eye out for dangers. With it being the middle of summer no leaves had fallen to the ground yet making finding tracks a bit harder. The woods being really dense made it easier to get a clue on where she went.

    I looked around and noticed that nearly straight ahead of us the underbrush had been moved as if someone crawled away. I walked closer to inspect it and saw there was the barest hint of a path had been cut out.

    "She went this way. I think she was trying to escape we're only a mile from the border."

    We all shared a glance and knew it meant the same thing. We were close. No more than twenty minutes and we would be free. We were all afraid, of being hunted, of finally being free, of the unknown. But we had to, wanted to, longed to. Silently agreeing we took one last look at the direction we just came from and headed towards the border.