Writing Prompt: She ran.

Morning all. I hope you are having a fantastic week. Mine is actually chugging along. Some bumps, but nothing derailing yet. Fingers crossed as I could really use a calm and quiet week. I am doing final edits and would really like to have them done. But for now, timers set and off we go.

Huh. I like the set up. No idea where it is going, but I like the set up.

Wednesday, August 20^th: She ran.

She ran.  It was the only thing she could do. Or at least the only instinct that surfaced.  She saw the blood, heard the footsteps moving around upstairs and heavy furniture being tossed about as though it was feather light. The back door had been open but the latch had been broken for weeks, and any strong gust pushed it open if nothing was used to block it so she felt nothing strange about the door.

She opened it wider and started to go in.  One foot was inside the door, the other still on the concrete step outside.  Perhaps if she had been fully in the house things would have been different.  But she was still half outside when she spotted the dead.

She simply let her hand fall away turned and ran.  The door remained open behind her as she knew trying to close it would make too much noise.  Silent and run were the only two commands her brain was willing to send.  She obeyed both.  She disappeared into the woods and took some of the lesser-known paths.  Without thought she angled to the north instead of to the south where the nearby village of Hoskta was located.  She knew instinctively there would be no hope in town. 

There were too many rumors, too many greedy eyes turned the way of the house.  Too much suspicion.  Somehow her mind and body reached this conclusion without telling her and when she finally stopped for breath, she was closer to the Garona than she was the village. 

The Garona only gurgled slightly in the dark.  She was downstream of the rapids and the river would be placid and easy to navigate from here.  She knew there were small canoes stored by the edge, could see the edge of the boat house kept for travelers.  She moved to it, without more thought than the river running faster than her feet. 

She splashed little as she slipped the canoe into the water.  She grabbed a paddle and kicked offshore.  Her feet got a little wet and the hems of her trousers wicked water up her legs, so she was soon sodden from the knees down, but she swung her legs into the canoe and was soon in the central current.  It was steady but strong and soon she was whisked further downstream. 

It was only when she passed the marker by the bend in the river that the tightness in her chest began to loosen and the commands to run slowed long enough for other thoughts to filter in.  The marker was a gleaming stone pillar carved roughly from white limestone.  Once past it she knew she was past the area the village claimed as their own.  It marked the last of the fields and from here she would be in empty country until she reached the marker for the next village. 

If nothing else, she was safe for the moment.  She was beyond one set of dangers and not yet needing to contemplate others. She could breathe.  The others were dead.  No one would have been left alive if they were still searching that noisily.  She knew what they were looking for and knew they wouldn’t find it.  What they were searching for was a myth.