EngA07 – What’s Your Story – Creative Writing
Alexander Kenderdine Davies
22 October 2012
Ms. Arguelles
The Hunted
There was a gush of air that rushed through the window throwing the window open and splashing on our faces as the sun beam in. The rays’ warmth settles in the dorm. Emily was still sleepy on a hard rock of a mattress on the top bunk of the bed. Her face was ever so soft to the touch. I climbed up the ladder and shook her awake. Emily didn’t seem to like it much; she sat up looking like a lump of messiness. The dorm inspector came roaring in clanking a bell as loud as church bells yelling for us to get up and do our morning services. It was a small area, more like a tiny town in the middle of a lot of farmland; there weren’t many people that wanted to do cleaning for their living so the only way was to do chores ourselves. We were still ever so young, Emily always being the young age she is must relegate the work to me. I was older. Old enough to take responsibilities over myself and Emily, I thought about this carefully.
The only thing that kept me positive and determined to find a new place to live was my little sister’s hope and belief in me. I thought about this and roughly attempted to stand up. I scrambled onto one foot with a little support from Emily and limped to test out how bad the wound was on my walking. “Mathew!” screeched Emily pointed towards two figures in the distance. Everything was still. The quiet was broken by a shout from the men coming towards us. They were close. We started picking up distance as we speed walked bent over in the wheat so that we wouldn’t peak our head up.
We dragged ourselves along the fields until it began into the gloomy trees leading into the woods. When I walked out of the transition from farm fields to forest I was flooded with relief when I hear a familiar sound of water. I quickly announce it to Emily and we rushed onwards following the noise. It was a stream of rushing fresh water. Almost instantly I dumped my leg into the water letting the blood flow away as the water rushes and clean the wound. I scrunched up my face because of the current against the cut. Emily sat next to me splashing her feet in the stream happily singing a song that she had remembered from our childhood. Mom, dad. The painful words slapped into my mind as I remembered them and just store into the distance in a gaze. No ever knew about what happened to his parents, and he rather not know. He stood up still focused in the distance but not because he was still in a deep gaze but because he had spotted smoke. “Emily we’ll have to cross this small stream.” I whispered in her ear softly. She was confused but did what she was told. I picked her up and sort of threw her across as a boost and landed with no trouble at all. I hopped with one foot backwards to build up some speed and ran with a limp and leaped over the stream barely making it.
I was curious and started building into a small job almost completely forgetting Emily behind. Sense smacked into me again and I slowed down for her to catch up. Once we got close enough we saw it was a small house. A wooden cottage near a little swamp it seemed. Emily asked me if anyone was in it. I didn’t answer. I was too focused on the inhabitants of the cottage. I crept closer still keeping a reasonable distance and flicked my hand towards me indicating to Emily so that she would follow me. She skittered on the rattling leaves straight to the house. I was nearly screaming in horror telling her to come back. But it was too late, we heard the door open and I didn’t know who was there, I only glimpse a white figure as a dashed to Emily and hid under the small stilted cottage house. The voice spoke up to ask who was there. I noticed it was a rather soft voice, so I told Emily to stay while I look to see who it was. I crept slowly from under the house towards the staircase up to the front door. I turned the corner to see an elderly women staring at me in astonishment. She nearly shrieked as she was also frightened at my presence. She had asked me who I was and what I wanted so I explain that I needed a home and food to feed the two of us. She flinched when she heard “the two of us” while as was explaining. I then summoned Emily to come up and the softness in her eyes indicated that she was feeling quite sorry. She quickly brought us in and sat as by the fire.
We introduced ourselves and it turns out her name was Claire. Claire Porter. She was in her 50s I had figured from the things she had owned and the looks she had. I didn’t want to ask because it would sound a bit rude. The warmth of the fired dried my flesh and it started to hurt again, I tried not to show any indication of pain but it was just too bad to hide. I clutched my fist so hard that I cracked one of my fingers. Mrs. Claire turned around and saw the cut bruised and swelling and gasped. Mrs. Claire rushed to aid the injured asking all sorts of questions on it. It was rather a big fuss but I was grateful that she cared. She brought a bag and searched for something in it, once she got it the rattling stopped and she looked amused. She pulled it out and it was a roll of bandage. I embraced myself as she stretched the long bandage and wrapped it around my leg. It stung, a lot. As if bees were burrowing on my right limb. She reinsured me and my sister that it would heal soon.
When Mrs. Claire offered some water from the kitchen and I went to get I noticed something once I passed the window. It was them. My pupils grew bigger once my eyes sent the message to my brain. The two men. I ducked and slid into the living room. Mrs. Claire looked confused. I raised my voice to call Emily to go upstairs. I quickly said that we were being hunted and left it as that. She was still a bit stunned about what was happening, when she notice the men approaching her little home. She rushed upstairs and showed me to the loft and told me and Emily to hide in the chest. She ran downstairs to the sound of slams on the door. She opened the door trying her best to act innocent and ask what the men wanted. I was still trying to slither to the attic. Emily being clumsier than I am made a big thump when she climbed up; she had dropped her shoe. The men had noticed and pushed Claire aside and started searching. One checked the basement when the other came upstairs. He had seen the small slipper that belonged to Emily. The man looked up to the small folding ladder that was not completely closed. He called the other one up to inspect. My heart was thumping so loud that they could probably hear it. One of the men pointed to the slit I was secretly looking out of and pulled down the ladder. I scattered back and rushed into the chest in the corner and jumped in hoping that Emily would stay silent. I heard the footsteps of the men on the old wood. They spoke to each other and one of them swore. There was a long sigh then silence. I covered Emily’s mouth when she was just about to burst. This made all the difference between survival and imprisoning. Then the footsteps continued and they were gone. I had felt that the chest was filled with relief and sweat. The door had shut and there was a period of nothingness. Complete stillness roamed around the house.
I slowly opened the chest and then the complaints came out. They were shooting at me like guns. Emily was not very satisfied about what happened but I explained to her what would have happened if they had caught us, she stayed silent after the small reality check. I came very quietly down the stairs to check if the coast was clear. Mrs. Claire was sitting on her chair with a very disappointed look. She started asking all sorts of questions and I couldn’t stay in this house with that kind of danger lurking around. I explain to her everything and the pity on her face with emotional to me.
The sun has slowly retired as the moon had settled down into its normal position in the sky. Like semicircle it shined down its grey beams on the house. Emily and I had planned to keep on moving to seek a safer place to live the following morning. We were given a small mattress to camp on for the night besides Mrs. Claire’s bed. I whispered a song into Emily’s ear as she falls into a deep sleep. It was a sleepless night for me though, always thinking about where to go next, what to do and the close encounter. These things rung in his head like an old routine.
I’ve woken up slowly to the noise of clatter downstairs from Mrs. Claire and chirping birds. Emily was sitting on the dining table once a stumbled down the stair with my eye sacks weighing me down with lack of sleep. After we were served what it had seemed like a little feast for breakfast, we thanked Mrs. Claire for all her hospitality as we were leaving and she had wished us the best of luck. Surprisingly I found this small farewell a bit hard emotionally. But I continued in letting only 1 tear hit the ground. The siblings then continued downstream towards the see which Mrs. Claire had told them of. She was unsure but she was the only one to trust. The walk was silent and dull. Not much talking as we used to have joyfully. Just silence. Occasionally there were chirps from birds and I would turn around to check if Emily was still there.
Walking for a few hours and now it was a bit less relaxed. Emily would complain many times about how tired she is. Even I was quite out of breath but I heard seagulls, it meant that we were close. Now even more determined to get to safety we started to speed walk. The sound of seagulls and a distance slap of the waves grew louder and louder the more we walked on. Mathew broke out into a desperate run towards the sea. He had found it. But his eyes deceive him and play tricks on his thirsty mind. As the light got darker, it got more dangerous for the two. With no shelter for the night they would have to camp out in the luminous dark. I had pulled out the match box that Mrs. Claire had given to me as a little survival tool just in case anything happened. The case was that they had no shelter for the night. I found the biggest tree root of a grand looking tree and called Emily over to lie against it while I lay around her protected her from harm’s way.
There was a groan to the north. I woke up to see Emily sitting squished against the tree trunk starring at something. I asked her what was up and she quickly pointed behind me. It was them, the two men. Running full speed towards us, every second the figure got bigger and bigger. I jumped up and left behind my pocket knife. I ran for it. I ran for my life, running zigzags around the trees rushing as fast as I can. But I had forgotten about Emily. She wasn’t as fast as me and the men were practically behind her. I had looked closer and one of them was way back, it looked like the chief, the older slower one. The one that was gaining speed was a younger man in his late 20s. Emily had caught up and I told her to run on ahead and keep following the stream down to see. I turned around as the man jumped to grab Emily’s ankle. He had caught it but I had reached to him and kicked him on the rib bone while he still held her leg. He let go and grunted in pain crutching his hands over his chest. The older man had sped up and instead of charging for me as I was fully prepared, he went for Emily, the vulnerable one. He had caught her into his hands and called for the other man. He held her in an arrest position but I came rushing at full speed to knee his thigh that he had not time to react. He had still been hopping and threw a shard of glass in a desperate attempt to stop us. The shard slashed through the air directly towards Emily. I leaped before her and the shard and it stabbed me on the shoulder.
It was a slight jolt of numb when it stuck into my body. I pulled it out while running. It was a deep cut but we continued to run. We sped through the trees to notice the stream was turning wider and wider. There were shouts from behind as we cleared away from the stream hearing the reinsuring sound of waves. Emily was still far back. I had run to her and saw that her ankle has been scraped by the man’s ring as he clutched onto her foot. It seemed to tear into the raw layer of skin. It was nothing so we continued. I had
We hadn’t reached sand yet but still made our way along the coastline. Then saw people. I came closer it looked like them, the men. But as I came closer hiding and going to tree to tree, it was a whole lot of people. It must be the small village that Mrs. Claire had directed us to. We made our way down the shoreline and saw a small series of huts and houses. It reminded me of the old town the orphanage was based in but it was a lot more busy and inhabited.
Crowds of people stampede us down pushing us as we try to make our way through. There was a small ally way and I had blocked off nudging the people away as Emily makes an effort to force through. The ally way was full of trash and urine. By now, my stomach had been climbing out of my body so desperately finding food. It was as if we were thrown in the dungeon for years with no food or water. We started to scurry and search in the trash for anything of use and all we found was a loaf of burnt bread and an unfinished juice carton. This was our so called lunch of the day.Emily had not eaten a single bite still resting her head on her my shoulder looking at her scratch and touching it occasionally to see if it still hurts. I looked at her sad hopeful face and reassured her that everything was going to be alright.
Approaching us was a short looking white suited man that was throwing his trash away, Emily hid behind the container and I did too. I peeked out and eyeballed him as he noticed me. Once we made eye contact I ducked my head back down. The man said in a very soothing voice and asked who we were. I slowly immerged from my hiding position and shyly spoke. I had told my sister to come by and she sneaked over to me and hugged me without making eye contact. “My name is Edmund” announced the man. He had asked me what kids were doing her and I had told him that we had no place to stay. He looked pitied and saw Emily sulking. He asked what the matter was and I quickly pointed at her swollen ankle. The man inspected this closely and rushed her in with me into his house.
He didn’t look very happy to see Emily’s scratch and told me it was infected badly. Emily was laid on a bed with a pillow under her hurt ankle. She looked tired and sleepy and so she rested. While Edmund was putting medicine by the bed for Emily he had asked about what happened. His voice was nice and trustworthy. So I explained to what had happened. He seemed very surprised at me after I had finished talking and not because of the story because of the diagnosis for Emily’s foot. He said that it was a rare infection that only so many people have. It was life threatening. I stood up and walked around back and forth her bed with both my hands over my mouth. I was worried. I was worried dead, the suspense slowly drained the energy and hope from me as the time drags on by.
Edmund had spent some time with me talking about Emily when she was asleep at night. He was a very kind and loving man. That cared for everyone’s safety. He had told me about his own child that died in a car crash and he was the only one that survived. He stopped and gazed for a moment of silence. Edmund stood up and showed Mathew his scar, sat back down and let go. Tears dropped down his face and I pretend not to notice. The wind has hissed through the shut windows. The rain had poured in as I rushed to close it. Thunder would strike every now and again striking fear into my heart with such a surprise. Edmund sat on the bed besides Emily and stroked her hair. I stood there puzzled. Still unwary of what pains must be fought ahead. The day was killed and was slowly reviving into its later form. The night sky swallowed the bright sun and all there was left was darkness. Edmund flicked on a light and still sat beside Emily. I was told to sleep on the sofa outside to let him do his work.