I can hear them. They can’t be far behind me. My dress keeps getting caught on roots and low branches. I look back, a big mistake. I trip on a rock and land awkwardly on my hands and arms. My right arm is skinned from my wrist all the way up to my elbow and my left forearm isn’t in much better condition. The world starts to spin. I never could handle the sight of blood, which is ironic. I married the only doctor in a ten-mile radius. My stomach clenches. I cannot think about John right now. I gather my skirts and see that they are covered in mud and blood. My dress has a large gash on it and little ones from all the branches that keep raking over my legs. Mother would have been furious. Just like she always was when I ruined a dress. This dress had been painstakingly made over the span of five months resulting in it being very expensive. But then again, mother wasn’t around any more to scold me for ruining my dress. I told mother I didn’t need a dress this fancy but she insisted that my wedding dress be perfect. It had been beautiful once but that time seemed like a million miles from here. I keep running and try not to puke. I haven’t even been married 24 hours. I don’t know why they invaded the church. I don’t know why they killed most everyone on sight. What I do know is that they made me a widow the same day I became a wife. I know that they came for me. When they burst through the doors of the church they started firing, they didn’t care who they were murdering. There was so much screaming, so much blood. Through the chaos I saw that they were starting to set the church on fire. My father, soon after my mother and husband lay dead on the ground, came rushing up to me. He told me to run. To run and to not look back. That under no circumstances was I to be captured. My father was shot then, and not knowing what else to do, I started running. The soldiers are yelling. They’re trying to find me. I’m literally running for my life, something I’d never thought in my wildest dreams I’d have the pleasure of participating in. I have to keep running. If I stop even for even a second they could catch me and if they catch me they will kill me. Or worse. I shudder at the thought of what could be worse than death. I come out of my thoughts and realize I’ve almost run myself off a cliff. I come to a skidding stop. I’m at the top of a cliff with a drop twenty feet down into a rushing river. Could be worse right? Wrong. I can’t turn back but there’s no way I’m going to jump off this cliff. I hear the crinkling sound of bushes behind me. I turn around and am horrified to see the pale face of a soldier coming out of the bushes I myself had just emerged from. Thinking of only my fathers’ words I throw myself over the cliff thinking of no worse fate than being captured by this soldier.