Run

The lights flashed around me and I felt like my soul was being crushed with an invisible force surrounding me. I could feel the terror filling up my lungs as I ran around wildly yelling for my mom. Tears streamed down my face as I reviewed the past thirty minutes in my head looking and trying to remember when I had left her a short while ago.

My mother and I had left our house at 5:45 pm, the sun was still high in the sky even though it was getting late. The old beaten down car was rumbling loudly down the road but I didn't care. The carnival was in town and it was a tradition that my mom and I would always go to it together. I had been invited by countless friends to go, but I was dead set on sticking with my mother. We were chatting about the differences between Jaws and The Meg. I of course was trying to argue that Jaws was better, I mean what can beat that music? Nothing, nothing at all can. My mother on the other hand was trying to argue that they were both good movies and you couldn't say one was better than the other because they were both "Works of masterpiece", yes that was what she had said. I had rolled my eyes at her words, It was obvious the better one. My mother never decided on anything I think that was one of the reasons that my dad left. But in no way do I blame my mom for that, I blame my deadbeat dad who left us. He could have worked it out, but no he left, that was his choice.

As we had pulled up to the carnival boys wolf-whistled as I stepped out of the car. My mom laughed and I rolled my eyes. A man came up to me as my mom and I worked our way up to the line. 

“Come here sweetheart, I know a better ride for you to go on.” He said winking, that was the thing about this town, men could say stuff like that to practically anyone and nobody does anything. But when an inch of skin is showing the girl gets sent home from school and her parents get a call. I scoffed and flipped him off. He growled at me then walked away, still glaring at me from over his shoulder. My mom had a look of I'm so done with this right now on her face, I am almost positive that she and I were thinking the same thing; why can we not afford to move? We both ached to get out of this town and there were some really good reasons why. The ticket seller snapped me out of my thoughts with her voice saying,

“Two tickets? That will be 10$ please.” My mother nodded, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, gave it to her, grabbed the tickets and we went in. The smell of freshly popped popcorn and sugary fried dough wafted through the air and the number of people was astonishing. Everyone was there, even the janitor, Mr. Brown,  who never spoke to anyone was there smiling at a young boy. As Mr. Brown caught my eye, his smile died and he gave a quick nod, I knew he still felt guilty for last year. Flashbacks hit my eyes and all I could remember was the pain and then the feeling of his hot breath on my tear-soaked cheeks. That's when I saw him, the man of my nightmares, the devil, Jonas. He gave a wicked smile and whispered something to his friends. They all burst out laughing while staring at me. I felt my cheeks pale and my mother grabbed my arm saying,

“Look, Mia! This is our favorite ride,” I followed her gaze as she pulled me through the massive crowds of people over to the funhouse, “Well it's not really a ride but you know what I mean.” That got a smile on my face and we raced to the funhouse. As soon as we got there the person who was working the funhouse pulled me into a hug. Ariadna was the daughter of the show owner and she loved coming here, I like to say it's because of me but I know it's really because her mother lives here. 

“Oh my god! I am so excited you two are here, I was wondering when y’all would show. I know y’all love this place. Well, I think you do because every year you come here.” I laughed cutting her off and slung an arm around her strong shoulder. She knew what I was doing, turned to my mom, and waited for the picture to be taken. We had been doing this every year since we had met. 

“Perfect, you two are so cute. Alright, we are holding up the line.” My mom was right, the people behind us were getting restless. Ari pulled me into another hug and then let me. She told me the instructions even though I already knew them. My mom and I went in and split up. I was determined to beat her out. As I made my way through the first floor of mirrors I only bumped into two of them. I made my way to the top and took a video of me sliding down the slide to the bottom. I sent it to my mom and she responded almost immediately with, “WHAT, I'M STILL IN THE MIRRORS.” Honestly, I really love having my mom be my friend. As much as I complain to my friends about having her only be 24 it really is amazing. She was one of the only ones who believed me last year. I lost half of my friends and she was there for me, when Riasha was going through tough times, my mother had taken her in, no questions asked. Then only a month later when Riasha moved out my mom had told her that she was always welcome. 

Just as I was getting ready to respond I heard a voice that chilled my blood and sent my heart racing call out to me. “Well if it isn’t Miss Mia Robinson. What are you going to do now, try and tell people I killed someone. Maybe if you stopped letting your imagination get ahead of yourself then you would have friends. Freak,” I was breathing heavy and I tried to force my legs to work. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk, I could barely even breathe. His slithering voice spoke again, “What, cat got your tongue. Maybe we should teach you a lesson for lying.”  Jonas’s friends started to circle me and I ran, I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. My legs carried me and I couldn’t stop them. 

And now here I was again caught up with the present time. I looked behind my shoulder to see… nobody, well none of the boys who had made my life hell. I plopped onto the ground, and started sobbing, people were staring at me but I didn't care. Suddenly I saw a familiar face in the crowd that was surrounding me. Mr. Brown, my savior, He had the same worried look on his face as he did that day that he found me lying naked on the ground curled up in a ball. I threw myself at him and he welcomed me with a comforting embrace, at that moment my mother burst through the ring of people around me. She had tears in her eyes and she ran over to me. For the second time ever she acted like a mom,

“Are you ok? Oh my god, what happened? Did they hurt you again? I swear to god if they did I'm going to kill them.” I cut her off my talking shakily,

“No mom, I just got scared.” She ran over and entered our embrace. This was where I belonged, safe, surrounded by the two people I trusted most. Home.