I’m alone in a forest. The trees are bare, and the snow crunches beneath my feet. The bitter wind slaps my face numb, as the temperature drops to a negative number. The air is crisp; it clears my pounding head. So many thoughts, so little time. How did I get here? Why am I here? I don’t remember much, just the pain and the shouting. Old memories cloud my eyes and make the fading scars sting. I look down at the dried blood on my sleeve and I cough up some more. My mind is cluttered and it’s getting harder and harder to breath. My heart rate is slowing down and my temperature is dropping dramatically. I have to stop to rest because I have been walking for, what seemed like, days. I sit on a log and try to catch my breath. I relax and try to think things though; trying to separate imagination from the past.




I think it started when my mom remarried, but that’s just a guess. He was nice, he was tall and skinny. He had long lanky dark brown hair and deep black eyes. I never really liked him, but he treated my mom nice, and his job pays well. He had a temper though, and a bad one at that. He would get angry at the littlest things, and I was always to blame, and one day he flipped. We were moving in to our new house and it was all ice outside. I was carrying a heavy basket and was moving cautiously and very slow. He couldn’t stand it and he yelled at me to move my a**. I slipped and fell; spraining my wrist. I couldn’t lift anything else, the doctor said. So they were going to have to do it by themselves. He was so angry and pissed that he lifted his tiny muscled arm and stuck my head. I fell backwards onto my wrist and yelped in pain. I was so in shock I didn’t even realize what had happened, but when I did, I jumped up and ran. I ran from the house and from him. I ran and I ran, faster and faster, my head thumping and my wrist hurt. I found myself at the park so I went to the bathroom and looked at my head. Right above my left eye was a huge lump that was already starting the bruise. A deep purple and yellow misshaped egg on my forehead. I walking out the bathroom and saw my mom’s car pull up the curb beside me and he jumped out. He pulled me by my hair and screamed into my face. I couldn’t break his hold on my pony tail and I cried as he threw me into the car, still screaming.

After that he becomes angry easier, and I get a collection of cuts and bruises. So many of my friends ask why I’m so hurt all the time, but I blame it on my clumsiness, not daring to defy him. I missed a lot of school because of concussions, and because I started coughing up blood, so they were getting suspicious. But my mom always went down there to clear the air, and she returned gleaming. I always wondered why she never stopped him, but then I realized it’s because it’s better if it’s not her. Humans are such pitiful and selfish monsters. They would rather see there “loved” ones get hurt and suffer, rather then them. And I would cry as she petted my blood matted hair, but I knew that she didn’t care. She never did.

It was checkup day at school. The doctors were already there and calling students from the bleachers into the little white tents. My heart was pounding and I held my breath until they called my name. Maybe this is for the better. They will find out about me and I won’t suffer from cuts, or bruises, or sore limbs from trying to fight back. I was actually smiling to myself about the plan that was slowly unrolling inside my head, I was so excited. My doctor beckoned me into his office. He was a young doctor maybe twenty two. He was handsome and had bright blue eyes. He had choppy brown hair that fell in his face and I think my heart skipped a beat when he said my name. He told me to change into my gym cloths-a tee shirt, and shorts. I slowly walked to the bathroom trying to think of an excuse for me not to change. But none came to mind as I sat on the bathroom floor on the verge of tears. I held my self and rocked back and forth sobbing. i knew that my plan would fail now, I just couldn’t bare the thought of leaving my mother to that monster. Then, suddenly, came a sharp pain in my throat and I started coughing up blood. There was so much and I just couldn’t stop. I coughed until my throat was raw, and then I coughed some more. Blood covering most of the tiled floor. He must have heard me and he knocked on the door. “Hey are you okay in there.” He asked. “I’m fi-“ but I was cut off by more coughing and more blood. And before I knew it I blacked out.

He gave me his number and told me that I could call him if I ever needed anyone to talk to. And for once in my life, I believed in someone. His eyes were truthful and honest, and they made me feel welcomed. His hugs were warm and sincere. He comforted me in my darkest time. I think I love him.

I called him everyday, and we would talk for hours. He acted as not only my “therapist” but also my best friend. We would meet whenever I could sneek out or whenever he had a day off, anything to get out of that house. We would go see a movie, go out to eat, or he would just hold me. And tell me that I was special and that he would never love someone as much as he loves me. But…I am only seventeen, so we can’t be together till another month. Then when I’m eighteen, he said that we would run away together, start a small doctor’s businese, and eventually get married. I loved him more than life. And I wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms, forever.

But one day, I returned home from school to find him and my rents talking at our kitchen table. I glared at them wide eyed and shocked. I asked what was going on and my mother just replied, “Oh your doctor was just telling us about your stories.” My mouth dropped and I yelled at him, “I thought you said you wouldn’t tell anyone.” He looks down and says, “This is for your own good.” Then he rose from his chair and walked right past me and left. Leaving me with the lions.

My mother rises and slowly walks in front of me. Then with her slender hand she slaps me across the face. “What did you do?! You had no right to go and tell some doctor made up stories. You have damaged this family’s reputation!” she spats at me then she knocks me to the ground. I could smell the whisky on her breath and it burned the back of my throat. She then pulls me up by my hair and hold me up to her face. “What do you think he could ‘save’ you? Hmm? Do you think he would just make all your pain go away?” she slurred. “Well he can’t.” Then she drops me and kicks my side. I shot of pain goes up my spine and I can’t move. She kicks me again and then continues, “You are one selfish kid. We give you everything you need and this is how you repay us?! What did you want him to chase after you? Well guess what?! That’s not happening.” She walks away and grabs her keys then announces that they are going to a bar and disappears. I try to stand, only to fall over. I try again and succeed. I hobble up into my room and then I quietly close the door. I lean against it and slide down to the ground. I start to cry loudly and I think of him. I thought I could trust him. I cross my arms around my chest and cough some more crimson fluid. I thought he would help me. I lay on the ground crying, wishing he would have chased me.
I wake up and crawl over to my vanity. I turn the lights on and check the damage. My face is bright red and swollen. I can’t feel my cheeks. I lift my shirt to look at my side and I only see a big purple and black bruise right on my rib cage. I stand and I grab my coat in my closet. I slip my arms though the sleeves and I go on my way. No one’s home yet. I go out the back door; just in case. I then break out into a run. First up the street then I cut though peoples yards. I’m not sure where I’m going, but it’s not here. I pick up speed at a passing car and I jump into a mound of snow. I try to breath but I have to cover my mouth with my sleeve to cough. It felt moist and I look at it to see more blood. But I just keep on running and dodging until I see the sun rising.
So that’s how I got here. I’m now sitting in the snow huddled into a ball coughing again. More warm blood melting the snow. I finally catch my breath and I lie, on my back, in the snow and look up at the grey sky. More snow is falling and I have no more energy to move. I know I am going to die, my vision is blurry, and I can feel my lungs rapidly filling. And so…I try to carve on last message to my parents in the wood log that lies by. I’m almost done when I break out into another coughing attack. I can no longer hold onto any energy and I slowly close my eyes, the snow already starting to cover up my death…






I’m in my car on my way to the new crime scene. A new body has been found in the deep forest and they want me down there pronto. I park on the edge of the highway with the other police cars and then I start my walk into the woods. I make it there in twenty minutes and they already have the police tape up. I bend my leg over the tape and cross over to the scene. A perfectly preserved corpse lays uncovered in the snow. It’s a girl with long light brown hair. She has bruises on her face and scars all over her body. Seems like a murder. She has one hand on her chest and another on an old tree log. Blood covers everything that surrounds her, her coat, her hair and hands, the snow, and even the trees. I walk over the corpse and pick up the log. It seems to have writing on it. I can only make out a few words but they ones I do read, “I forgive you mom.” I stare at these words when a police man comes and starts to read the blood covered note. “Wow.” I say. “Yea,” he replies, “She must have really loved her mom.”