Where you belong

Lily’s life was the epitome of ordinary. A normal family, a normal home, a normal school, and a normal job. No part of Lily's life would stand out as unusual, and yet Lily never felt comfortable with ‘normal’. There was always something that never quite felt right. First at school and then at work, it was like she was an outsider no matter what. Lily could never have guessed how much one fated day could change everything. “Just five more minutes” Lily muttered to herself as her phone alarm goes off, she hits the snooze button and drifts back off to sleep. After several more times hitting snooze, Lily begrudgingly opens her eyes to look at the time. “s**t, I’m going to be late!!” she groans and jumps out of bed. With a mad dash she charges around the house getting ready. As she yanks on her uniform, she shoves cereal in her mouth, before making a mad dash out the front door to her car. After a rather speedy drive into work, and then running through the building to reach her office. Lily rushes in, only to find everybody is in a meeting. As she draws closer her boss stops speaking and scowls at her, causing everybody else to turn around and stare. “Nice of you to join us” her boss spits out, causing others to snicker around the room. A blush creeps up her cheeks, and she promptly sits down and tries to make herself as small as possible. The meeting draws to a close and everybody returns to their desks. Lily sits down and buries her head in her hands. ‘Another day in paradise’ she mutters. All around the office everybody is gossiping and laughing between themselves, whilst Lily sits alone, scowling, and trying to work. It’s not that she wants to be alone or doesn’t want friends. But she always finds that things never quite seem right, and she never quite feels like she fits in. Things have always been this way, ever since she can remember with school, friends, boyfriends and even her family. Lily has always felt like she was an outsider, looking in. Work has been no different. She has tried to join in and make friends but just felt awkward and uncomfortable and so gave up, deciding it was probably best to keep to herself. The day dragged on until the clock eventually reached 17:00. After the awful day she had, had Lily decided the best therapy would be to get up to the stables and go for a ride on her horse. Once out on the road on her beloved horse Monty she finally starts to relax. Enjoying the evening sun overhead and the comforting noise as Montys hooves hit the floor. They gradually made their way to a nearby woods where Lily followed the well trodden trail that followed the outer edge of the forest. So wrapped up in her own thoughts Lily failed to hear the twigs snapping from behind, Monty however did not. Lily was snapped out of her thoughts, when Monty tensed up and started to speed up. “Woah boy, easy. Just walk” she cooed to him in as soothing voice as she could muster. Lily felt a shiver down her spine, as she could sense they were being watched. All of a sudden there was a flurry of noise and something seemed to charge out of the trees at them. Monty spooked and threw himself off of the path heading deeper into the woods to try to escape whatever it was. Lily had to duck down on his back to avoid the low branches hanging down, and clung on. Her heart was racing so hard, and Monty was making so much noise as he charged deeper and deeper into the forest that she couldnt work out if they were being chased still or not. Scared she decided to just cling on, until she knew for sure. Gradually Monty started to slow, as the surrounding trees grew denser forcing him to slow down. Lily looked around and realised they must have gone far off the track and deep into the forest. The light was low, due to the closeness of the trees and as Lily looked around, she realised they were lost. Not knowing what to do, and with the knowledge that the forest went on for miles she decided to let Monty try to find a way out. As the hours gradually passed by and evening turned into night Lily fought to stay awake. But the overwhelming need to sleep overcame her and the gentle thuds of Monty’s footsteps on the soft forest floor lulled her into a deep sleep. As Lily slept on, slumped over on Montys back he kept moving ever deeper into the forest, not wanting to turn back for fear of what scared him. Eventually Monty stepped out of the dense trees onto a track, sensing a way out he started to speed up down this track. When a noise approaching from behind suddenly spooked him, fearing it was whatever scared him before he jumped forgetting completely about Lily on his back. As he throws himself forwards Lily is thrown from his back. This is the final straw for Monty as he runs off heading down the track seeking safety and home. Lily wakes up with a start as she starts to fall, unfortunately as she lands her head hits a rock and Lily’s world starts to spin dragging her into darkness. The last thing she sees before everything goes black is a car pulling up, and a feeling of warmth and happiness fills her her body.