Young Writers Society

Chapter 2:

I’m still at the small house. I bend down and walk away from the window. I try to make as little noise as possible so that the owner doesn’t see me nor hear me. Never mess with a psychopath.

I don’t know what to do. I want to help the poor little girl, but I don’t want to be in the same situation as her. I need a plan that can get me in and out of the house without being caught. I can also just get the girl and run away as fast as we can but what if the person had something to keep us from going away like a gun?

After a few minutes of debating with myself, I decide to go with speed rather than discreet. I’m going to throw a large rock at the window, grab the lass and then we would run away far away from the house, even if that means going deeper into the woods.

I grab the largest rock that I could find (that I could manage to carry) and go to the window to check if the young lady was still there. She was, still looking as sad and frail as ever. I motion with my hand to let the girl know that she should move away from the window. She gets the message and moves slightly away. I throw the rock at the window, shattering the glass. I quickly take the little girl, trying not to hurt her with the glass fragments. I can see the captive of the girl walking towards the window. She doesn’t looking very happy, but that didn’t stop me. Seeing that horrible person encouraged me to keep going.

“Thank you,” the little girl says when she gets out of the window.

“Don’t mention it,” I say, wrapping the blanket that she had in her hands around her shoulders. “Now, let’s run for our lives.” The girl nods and we begin to hear run at top speed. For a little girl, she runs pretty quickly and I even needed to catch up with her sometimes. Maybe she was just eager the get away from that house.

After a while, we stop to catch our breath. I sit down on the snow, making my pants soak and wet. The little girl sat on my lap.

“Can you tell me a little bit about that happened to you in that house?” I ask. Her eyes grew wide, filled with the pain that she’d been through. The girl’s body is shivering thence I put my arms around her. The young lady shakes her head in guise of an answer.

“Can you at least tell me your name?” I ask, smiling.

“G-Gemma,” she stutters.

“That is a beautiful name, Gemma.” I smile more, hoping to cheer her up since smiles are contagious but she still looks like a scared little girl.

“Let’s keep walking again. When we find a place to sleep, you can tell me what happened.” I lift her up from my lap and she stood up then, I got up myself. I put my hand in front of Gemma so that she can take my hand. Gemma hesitates, but eventually she holds it. Her hand is very cold. I need to find a place indoors for her to stay, or else she might get really cold.

As we walk, my eyes dart everywhere. The weather keeps getting worse therefore we need to find shelter fast. Hopefully, the next place I find isn’t going to be owned by a criminal.

“Look at that!” Gemma says, pointing at something ahead of us. I squint since I can’t see clearly. The snow’s making it nearly impossible to see anything further than three feet ahead. I’m surprised that Gemma can.

“What is it?” I say.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should check it out though,” Gemma replies.

“Okay.” I didn’t think that it was the best idea to check out the object but what else can we do? The thing that Gemma saw is our only lead.

As we approach the object, I get more and more anxious. What if it’s a trap? What if it’s nothing and we waste our time trying to get to it? I shake those thoughts out of my head. I need to stay positive if I want to protect Gemma and myself.

A long walk later, Gemma and I are in front of the object. It’s a cave. The cave is small and sinister, but it’s better than sleeping outside in the snow storm.

“I guess that this is where we’re going to sleep tonight,” I say, pointing the cave. Gemma nods.

I walk to the very end of the cave and Gemma follows me. I let out a sigh of relief as I sit down. My feet hurt from all the running and it doesn’t help that they’re freezing.

I begin to stare at Gemma. Her long brown hair is poorly maintained and her body’s full with scars. She looks like a mess. What kind of monster could do that to a little girl? A girl her age should be playing with her friends and going to school. Instead, she was trapped inside a house with a psychopath and is running for her life.

“Why are you crying?” Gemma asks.

I touch my wet eyes. I didn’t notice that I was crying until Gemma mentioned it.

“I just feel sorry for you,” I say.

“But why are you crying about that?” Gemma asks, perplexed. “It’s not like you felt my pain.”

I put my hand on Gemma’s shoulder. “In some way, I did. It’s called compassion.” Gemma stares at me blankly.

“You’ve never heard of it or even felt it?” I’m quite surprised.

Gemma turns away from me. “When I was little, I didn’t have any friends. And ever since I was four, Miranda was the only one to keep me company. So I haven’t experienced a lot of feelings.” That’s the name of the person who kept Gemma, Miranda. I was expecting a name a little less bubbly and girly. Maybe that’s not even her real name. She could have told Gemma a fake name to protect her identity.

I give Gemma a big hug. Spending about six years with Miranda must have been so horrifying. I put Gemma’s hair behind her ear and whispered into it.

“I’m so sorry Gemma. You didn’t have an ideal or even a normal life before, but that’s over now.” I hug her tighter. “You have me now and I want you to understand that you can talk to me about anything.” Gemma remains silent. I have to find a way to make her open up to me. With more information about Miranda, it will be a step closer to putting that witch behind bars. Plus, I’m a bit curious about what happened inside that house. I feel bad for being entertained by Gemma’s problems, but I’ve been living in a small town my whole life. Nothing interesting ever happens. Last week, I would have never thought that I would break a window to save a little girl.

“Gemma, if I tell you a bit about my life, will you tell me a bit about your life with Miranda?” She nods.

“Great, well I have no idea where to start,” I say. I start stroking my chin. What should I tell her about? Should I talk to her about my relationships or my hobbies? Then, I realize that I haven’t even told her my name yet. “I’m Shyla Collins and I’m fourteen years old,” I begin. “I like reading science fiction novels and listening to inspirational music. I have a little brother named Stephen and two moms: Clarence and Josephine. Now, tell me about your life with Miranda.” Usually when I introduce myself to someone, I don’t mention my parents, but somehow I don’t think that she’ll find anything wrong with that. After all, she only had a normal life for four years.

“Okay,” she says. Her voice is low, almost a whisper. “As I said before, Miranda took me when I was four. Being with Miranda was horrible. I was basically a child servant.” I put my hand to my mouth. Being with that witch must have been like a living nightmare. It’s so sad that all of that happened when she was so little. During my childhood, I can only remember one tragic thing that happened to me.

***

It was in third grade at my elementary school. We had just moved since mom got a new job. I was immensely nervous on my first day so my parents drove me to school.

When we arrived at school, I didn’t want to leave the car. I had all these “what if” questions swirling in my head. What if no one likes me? What if I embarrass myself in front of everybody and make a bad first impression?

“Go on,” my mom, Josephine said. “Your new school is waiting for you.” I shook my head with a pouty expression on my face.

“Why don’t you want to go to school?” Clarence asked. I told them about my worries. When I was done, my parents looked at me with smiles on their faces. They were always smiling no matter what the situation was. Being around them all the time must be the reason why I smile a lot too.

“Hun, everyone makes mistakes. That’s what makes us all human,” Clarence started.

“Besides, you haven’t even thought about the good “what if” situations. Like, what if you an amazing first impression or what if all your classmates want to hang out with you,” Josephine finished.

“You guys are right!” I said. I had so much motivation to go to school after that pep talk. I got out of my parent’s Toyota and skipped joyfully to the playground. Josephine and Clarence also got out of the car and were waving at me.

When I arrived at the playground, I sat under a big tree. It was extremely hot that day, thus the shade was refreshing. During most of the short recess, I was just observing my new schoolmates. I didn’t see any fights between students so I guessed that most of them were friendly. Little did I know… A girl about my age walked towards me. She had red locks that bounced as she walked and piercing green eyes.

“Hi, I’m Shyla!” I said cheerfully when she was standing right in front of me.

“I’m Chelsea,” she said. Her facial expression wasn’t really welcoming. Since Chelsea didn’t really sound interested in being my friend, I wondered why she walked up to me.

“So what do you want to talk about?” I said uncomfortably.

“Who were those two ladies who dropped you off?” Chelsea asked. I was surprised that Chelsea inquired about that. Why did she care about my parents?

“They’re my parents. Why?” I said. Chelsea looked at me as if I said the most disgusting thing ever.

“Gross! Lesbians are not normal!” She yelled. I didn’t know what to say. I was always taught that nothing was wrong with two people of the same gender liking each other. Although my parents warned me about kids making fun of me because of it, no one ever did.

Suddenly, a bunch of kids were around us. Along with Chelsea, they all laughed at me.

“Where did these guys come from?” I asked, puzzled.

“We were standing around you guys, pretending to talk to each other so you wouldn’t notice that we were actually listening to you and Chelsea,” one of the boys said.

“I can’t believe that you have two moms! That’s so disgusting!” a girl added between giggles. I was so unhappy that my eyes bled with pain. My tears made them laugh even more.

Ever since that day, those kids kept laughing at me in the halls and calling me names. As a result, I started hating my parents, which I regret doing now. Eventually, I changed schools since those kids bullying me affected my mood and my school work. My parents even stopped coming to my school together. When my schoolmates asked about my dad, I made up a story about him dying when I was younger. It was so sad that I had to keep a secret being so little.

It was from my days of being a bullying victim that I realized that the world wasn’t such a great place.

***

I lie down on the cold ground. I didn’t realize before that I am exhausted. I’m barely able to keep my eyelids up.

“I think that I’m going to go to sleep. You should get your rest too,” I say, stroking Gemma’s hair. She nods. I put my arms around her and fall asleep listening to the sound of her soft breaths.