And she ran. She ran hard. She ran until she could no longer think. It was all she could do to keep herself running, upright, feet hitting the pavement. Breathe. Breathe. BREATHE. She opened her eyes and kept running, don’t look back. Finally the sounds of the city and the footsteps behind her started to fade. She ran. She ran. Suddenly everything started to blur. All she could do was keep running. She reached up and touched her face. The sweat and tears mixed as they ran down her face. This was all wrong. Everything that she’d done to stop this, everything she’d kept herself from, and this was still happening.
It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t keep herself from it. It wasn’t her fault their drugs never worked. But the dreams. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t her fault their perfect little system didn’t work on her. It wasn’t her fault she dreamt. She had no control, it happened when she was asleep after all. She’d tried to follow all their stupid rules. She’d taken all the precautions. But the dreams. They were vivid, they were crazy, they were scary and yet, she knew she would never give them up. How could they make dreaming illegal, if it was never something they could control? Control. That was what this was all about. They could never control her. They’d tried. First the exams, then the torture, and finally this. They’d given her one chance to conform. The last chance. She finally knew she never would.
She was running, she hit a clearing and slowed. She didn’t remember entering the forest, but here she was. Safe from them but into an all new danger. This was calming somehow. She knew nothing about the forest, other than the lies they told. “We keep you safe. Out there everything has adapted. Adapted to kill. To kill you. We keep you safe. There is no water. No vitamins. No food. You would die. We keep you safe.” Ha. They keep you quiet and controlled. Little slaves. No longer, she would die free. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Suddenly her mind was clear, focused.
She walked. Then she heard it. Exactly 7.2 miles directly north-west. She heard it. Her savior. She would not die here. She’d heard the stories. If she ran it would take her one hour and sixteen seconds to get there. Some got tired of the system and followed the river. Most were caught. Many were lost to death. Few made it. If she walked it would take her three hours. The few. She would join the few. She needed time. More time than she would ever have. She walked.
Her life would never be the same. It would be different. Forever. She could not go back. All was lost. Like J. Lost. They had caught J. She had always been faster than him. She’d had more time. She’d been thirteen then. She’d been thirteen when they caught him. That was only a year after they’d started. The dreams had been terrifying then. J had been like her. He’d helped her. Now he was gone. Lost. Her face was wet again. This had to stop. She needed a plan and she had exactly thirty-seven minutes and nineteen seconds. Her time was precious now. Each second was valuable.
She walked in silence her mind forming three plans all at once. Someone had told her the brain was like a cabinet you could never open all the way. Some things could never be retrieved. She knew that wasn’t true. Her brain was more like a current, always running, but everything ended up in the same place. You could find anything if you tried hard enough. The silence was comforting, her feet kept her on the right path, never making a sound. Her plans were incomplete, fragmented. Join the few, befriend them. Join them. Start an uprising. Hide. Join the few. Learn to survive. Leave the few. Find the truth.
A twig snapped. She caught her breath, whipped around. The sound was too close. She wouldn’t escape by running this time. Her eyes were lying. Nothing. No one. The twig had snapped behind her. Someone was there. Nothing. She stood. Watching. Listening. Feeling. Seventy-eight seconds ticked by. She looked down. A twig was beneath her own feet, they’d made a mistake, broken the silence. She forced herself to calm down. She was wasting precious time. Only thirteen minutes and forty seven seconds left.
She walked. At last she decided she had to find the truth. It was out there, all she had to do was find it. They’d equipped her with an armory full of lies. That was all she had now: lies. They said they had taught us to survive, to thrive even, but all they’d done was ensure that we were dependent on them. Two minutes and forty three seconds.
It was loud now. Roaring. Between the wind whistling through the trees and the river, she was having a hard time focusing on her own thoughts, and sorting them into complete ideas. Her mind was going ninety miles an hour and she couldn’t keep up with it. It was like the river and she was holding onto a rock, watching the thoughts float by until suddenly they rushed by too quickly for her to reach out and catch them. Abruptly, she was still.
She wasn’t moving. Her feet had stopped. She forced her eyes into focus. She was there. The river. Everything was about to change.