Dad Said Run

She ran, her heart pounding loud in the chest, dry leaves and branches cracking under her shoes at each step. She ran until her lungs felt like they would burst, and her legs cramped and begged for her to stop.

Then Anna forced herself to listen. "Are they still following me?" It didn't sound like it, but she stayed still for another minute, breathing as quietly as possible, slowing her heartbeat. Silence.

Looking around, she saw a sky-scraping tree a couple of meters away. The first few lower branches were annoyingly high, but the higher ones looked just like a ladder. She breathed out and kept listening. The silence remained, broken every few seconds by some small animal moving in between the dried leaves in the ground. Quickly Anna got a rope loop from her backpack; it was big enough to go around the whole tree with a slight slack, which she used to put her right foot on. From there, her arms could reach the first branch. In a clumsy pull-up, she got herself up, embraced the tree with one arm, and then reached down and undid the rope knot.

She listened to the silence again and started climbing up. It was easy and quick and not nearly high enough to see back to her house.

When her body cooled down, and the adrenaline was gone, Anna looked through the trees around, hopeless, clueless on what to do next. Finally, she safely tied herself to the tree, sat as close to the trunk as possible, and, when she started feeling cold, got her cloak out of the bag and rolled it around her body as tight as possible. Her thoughts were chaotic, to say the least, but constantly got back to her dad, wondering and fearing what would those men do to him.

-

Somehow Anna slept and woke up the following day with the sounds of voices. Surprisingly she was still in the same position and hadn't fallen from the tree. But two men were down there looking for her, so she couldn't move now, even though her muscles were cramped from sleeping in such a weird position. Luckily they weren't looking up there but rather searching for her in what could be an improvised shelter between some trees further ahead.

"They are not here. I bet they ran back to the city as soon as we entered the forest behind them." said one of them, the extremely white one. He had white skin and white hair and made Anna think of old vampire stories she'd read as a kid.

The other man looked around and spat down in the dried leaves. "I'm also fucking tired of chasing some kids around the forest the whole night, but the chief saw the girl going in, so we better come back with her and the boy, or we're done."

"He also sent other men to the village, so maybe they already found them, and we are just wasting our time here. C'mon, man, I'm hungry as shit." The white man sounded a bit too much like an annoying kid for Annas' taste, but, at that moment, she couldn't feel more grateful. Especially when the dark-haired seemed to give up and said, "Ok, but we take the longest way from the forest back to the village and shut the fuck up; we don't want to warn them that we're here."

-

Soon they were both gone, and she could finally breathe again. Slowly, Anna moved each limb, letting her muscles wake up before she tried to climb down. "They," the word kept repeating inside her head. "Them." But she needed to pee and would rather not do it from the top of a tree. So she climbed down quickly but safely and squatted down right there and let it go, relieving herself.

"They." "So they think Caleb and I are together." Her mind started racing. Her brother had left the house three days before to go back to a village that was a one-day trip from their home. Caleb loved wood crafts and had arranged that the neighboring villages' craftsman would take him as an apprentice for a while. He started a few months before and came home every few weeks to check on her and their dad.

"I need to meet him before someone in our village tells those men where he is."

-

Before she started moving, Anna kneed on the floor to look for food inside her backpack. For a few seconds, she just stared at it. All the food that she was supposed to share with her dad.

An unknown man had come to their house the day before, and her father hadn't allowed her to listen to whatever they discussed, but since then, there had been a hurried, scared tone in his voice that she couldn't forget. Soon after the man left, her father opened the door of her room and told her to pack a backpack. "A backpack? With what?"

"A backpack like we're gonna go to the forest" he took a deep breath and ran his finger through his silver hair. Anna noticed how tired he looked; it was almost like he aged a few years during the few minutes that stranger was in their house. "Take your new cloak, a knife, a few of the light rope loops, and food."

Once out of her room, he said loudly, "Don't forget water, darling." Afraid of asking and of knowing, she simply packed. Dried fruits and meat, nuts, and a big piece of bread came last. "Should I also pack food for you?" Anna asked quietly. He was in his room, apparently looking for something, and turned towards her with a confused expression. She repeated the question. "Ah, there's no need, darling, I'll pack mine." A few minutes later, though, he seemed to have changed his mind, so she stuffed the last of their dried food inside.

Now in the forest, despite the hunger, her stomach also felt like it was wrapped in itself, in an anxiety that she couldn't simply shut off. So Anna took a small piece of bread, grabbed the backpack, and started walking.

-

The walk to the neighboring village lasted, in general, a whole day. Through the forest, though, she tended to walk slower. In the morning, Anna tried as hard as possible to keep a good pace, fighting the fear with all her strengths.

After a few hours, the movement had calmed her down, at least enough so she could feel hungry. Anna placed her backpack in a fallen tree trunk and sat beside it. She started snacking a piece of dried meat with bread, and after the first few bites, she noticed how hungry she actually was.

A few minutes more, and the bread and meat were both gone, no traces left behind. She drank half of her bottle of water and let herself rest for another moment. Then, lying in the tree trunk, Anna looked at the sky and wondered how the day could be so beautiful when everything seemed to be falling apart.

-

The afternoon walk started at a high pace, but as the sun went down, Anna had trouble keeping it. Every couple of hours, she climbed a tree and tried to go high enough to see the unpaved road that led to the village. But, too afraid to take it and being spotted by one of the men, she always kept a safe distance.

At sunset, she was still a couple of hours away from the city, but starving and exhausted from the walk and the previous night, she found a tree to spend the night. Again, she attached herself to the branches and ate quietly while staring at the stars. Despite winter being officially over a few weeks before, it was a chilly night. Wrapped under her cloak, Anna rested her chin on her knees. She looked up at the dark blue sky, fighting the fear.

When she was a child, her mother taught her how to pray to Hatsa, but she hadn't done that in a while. The Goddess was the only woman the locals believed in; they called her Hatsa, the Compassionate.

Anna embraced herself and whispered to Hatsa. She repeatedly asked if the Goddess could keep her brother safe because she couldn't handle losing any more people. She prayed with tears running down her cheeks until, at some point, she slept.

-

The sky was getting brighter when she woke up sweating from a nightmare. On an adrenaline rush, she climbed down the tree as fast as possible and started walking. Only fifteen minutes later had Anna calmed down enough to listen to her awakening body. Peeing and eating were still done in a hurry, though, and she kept praying that no one would've found Caleb while she was asleep.

At a speedy pace, she reached the village's border in a bit more than two hours. The sun was already rising, but people were mainly still at home. She walked around almost deserted streets, looking for the wood workshop. It was central and easy to find, and when she reached it, a man was opening the windows for the morning sun.

A few dozens of meters away, Anna forced herself to take some deep breaths and smile. Raising attention was the last thing she wanted.

When it was clear she was heading towards him, the man in the workshop starred and waited for her to get closer. "Mornin. How can I help, young lady?" he asked politely. She cleaned her throat before announcing she was there to see Caleb.

"Sure thing, just a sec." Anna watched as he entered the building and in the back called her brother's name. In a minute, Caleb was in front of her.

"Banana, what are you doing here?" He asked in a smile while holding her tight. She held tears away and asked quietly, "can we please talk somewhere?"

He looked around, starting to worry. "Did dad bring you? Where is he?" The tears were now burning in her eyes, and her voice broke when she repeated the request.

-

Now in the tiny room where he slept, Caleb repeated his questions in a more urgent tone. When she didn't answer immediately, he took her by the shoulders and forced eye contact.

"Anna, where is our father?" She swallowed the tears and answered. "They took him."

Telling him everything didn't take more than a few minutes, which surprised the most analytical side of her. How interesting it was that someone could tell such a horrifying set of events in a handful of minutes.

"We need to leave," she urged him. "And go where?" He replied, partially absent, still absorbing everything she had told him. "I thought about it while I walked here. I think the best place to go would be home. Home, you know, our old home. We can hide there, and then we can start looking for him." He looked at her like she'd just lost her mind.

"And how are we supposed to find him if we're hundreds of kilometers away?" She sat down next to him and told him about the strange man that had come at night. "He was brown, just like us. I think he comes from the Shore. We need to find him, Caleb, and I don't know where to start looking. And we can't stay here either, so can we please start packing and go?" She was getting more anxious by the minute. The thought that someone in their village might have talked was haunting her.

It took a bit more convincing, but in half an hour, Caleb was already packing a second backpack with food, water, and a small emergency kit. He talked to his boss and said their father was sick and needed help at home. The man was understanding and set them off after a full breakfast in his house.

-

Walking to the Shore could take weeks, so they both agreed to get out of the Hills through the forest and then ask for a ride on the road in the valley. When they entered the protection of the trees again, Annas body felt warm with relief. She and Caleb were safe.

-

That night, they climbed separate trees and rested facing one another in the heights. Annas' chest would still crumble every second she thought of her father, but she looked to her older brother and felt safe. Then, staring at the stars, she thought of Hatsa and quietly whispered to the wind, "Thank you, Goddess. Thanks an awful lot."