Knowing She Would Never Be Caught

After yet another fight with her parents, Amelia had stormed out of her house and to her car. Only taking with her, her notebook and a pencil. She didn't know where she was going to go or what she was going to do but she needed to relax. She pulled out of the driveway and flew down the street she lived on. She turned the radio on and turned it up all the way. She just needed to relax and think. And where else would be better for her to relax and think but her favorite spot in the woods. 

She drove to the park nearest her house. She grabbed the notebook and pencil and started the short hike. After a few short minutes she got to the first secret path. She turned off the main path and followed her old footprints, proof that no one had been there but her. She ducked behind the rock after the biggest tree then made a sharp left. She kept walking, breathing in deep, smelling the fresh flowers and wet grass after a big rain. Then finally she made it, her spot. The spot only she knew about, where she could just sit and relax and let all her worries wash away, knowing she would never be caught.

She laid on the ground and looked up. She watched as the clouds slowly made their way across the sky. She listened to the birds chirping and the leaves being rustled by the wind. It was quiet and loud all at once. It was peaceful. 

She grabbed her notebook and started drawing. Lines went up and around on her paper. Every drawing started the same: random lines and shapes until something appeared. Then she would draw, and keep drawing until it was done. Until there was no more left to draw. Until she was calm and she knew what to do about everything in her life. And so that's what she did; she drew. And she didn't stop until it was finished. 

“There,” Amelia whispered to herself, “It’s done. And I do say myself, it's the best I've done so far.”

And she was right, it was beautiful. All the lines connected seamlessly, and everything was right. She knew what to say to her parents to make everything else right. Now all she had to do was get home.

She looked up at the sky from her spot, “The moon?” She whispered just a little louder, her nerves growing, “Why is the moon out? What time is it?” Panic grew in her voice as she realized what she had done, “Oh God, I have to get home.”

She quickly scampered to her feet and started her walk back to the car. She held her notebook close to her chest as she walked. Her hair falling from her bun and into her face every so often.

“It's ok. Everything’s ok. Just get back to the car and everything will be ok.”

She turned left then right and left again. But she was just back to her spot. She had never been there at night. And she had never noticed how creepy the trees were at night. She didn't know how to get back to her car. So she just kept walking. She kept turning, hoping to get back to the main path, but she never did. She just ended up back where she had started. She was starting the panic, she didn't know how to get out and it was getting colder by the second. 

She searched her pockets for her phone, but it wasn't there. She didn't know what to do. She could keep walking but risk getting more lost, or she could stay where she was until morning and make her way out then but risk freezing in the night. 

What else could she do but walk? And so she walked. She walked and walked and walked but to no avail. She didn't know where she was and soon she didn't even recognize which way she had come from.

Tears were growing in her eyes every step she took. She wanted to go home, to hug her parents, to tell them she was sorry. But she couldn't and soon the tears started falling. They flooded from her eyes and washed down her face. Her steps became shorter and shorter and soon she stopped. She stood there, lost in the woods, clutching her notebook, crying, wishing she could go home but knowing she couldn't. 

And that was when she heard it, her mother's voice, yelling in the distance, “Amelia! Amelia! Where are you!”

“Mom?” She whispered to herself, wondering if she was hallucinating but realizing she wasn’t and starting to scream, “Mom! Mom! I'm over here!”

“Amelia? Is that you? Where are you, sweetie?”

“I don't know.”

“OK sweetie, just keep yelling, I'll find you.”

And so she did. She yelled and yelled over and over. Until she saw her, her mom, appearing from the trees.

“Amelia! Oh thank God you're ok.” Her mom ran over, enveloping her in a hug. Wave after wave of relief washed over her, her tears turned to ones of happiness, and she hugged her mother back. And like some cruel twist of fate, the sun started to rise from behind the trees.

“Let's go home sweetie.” Her mother said, starting to guide her through the trees to the main path. And maybe it was the relief or the cold but Amelia didn't notice when her mother stopped walking. And she didn't realize what her mother was doing until it all happened in a flash. 

Her mother swung Amelia around, slamming a rock into the front of Amelia’s head, and she fell. Falling to the ground, her world slowly turned black as she hit the ground, turned over by her mother, she felt the same rock hitting her harder and harder until there was nothing. No pain, no hurt, no feelings at all. There was nothing left.

And there Amelia’s mother stood over her daughter's corpse. She pushed the rock into the ground then turned her daughter’s body over onto it, placing the rock in the place she had hit, over and over until her daughter fell limp. 

She pulled out her phone and dialed 9-1-1. 

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“M-m-my daughter. S-s-she ran away yesterday. A-a-and when she didn't come home last night, I went looking for her. I-I looked everywhere and I just found her. And I think she's dead. Oh God she's dead.” She said, throwing in a few sobs here and there just to sell it.

“Alright ma’am, I'm sending officers and an ambulance to your location. They should be there shortly. Stay where you are.” The operator's voice sounding worried and scared just a little.

“OK.” She said as she hung up. 

And there she stood, over her dead daughter’s body, waiting for an ambulance to come, for her daughter to be pronounced dead on site, and to cry fake tears as they take her body away. 

There she waited with a grin on her face, looking down at her dead daughter’s body, knowing she would never be caught.