My breathing quickens as the frigid air fills my lungs. I know I have to run, but once I start running, I’ll never be able to go back. I don’t know if I’m ready to leave everything behind without a formal goodbye. But, if I don’t start running now, they’ll find me. I can’t let that happen.

I start with a jog. Hearing the shouts of terror behind me makes me shudder, as I know I’ve caused all of them. Sticks crunch and snap under my clumsy feet and dirt flies up behind me in careless clouds. I come upon a clearing in the middle of a field, making me feel vulnerable and exposed to the monstrosities that want to capture me. So I keep running with all my might.

My fingernails dig into my palms and I bite my tongue in attempt to distract myself from the burning sensation in my chest. I slow down enough to glance over my shoulders, and what I see makes me stop dead in my tracks.

“No,” I whisper to myself. “It can’t be. They couldn't have,” I stand in awe as a crackling fire rages through the village that I used to call home. I can now clearly hear shrieks and cries for help, making me drop to my knees. I caused all of this. I caused all of this. The temptation to flee back to my home overtakes me, but the memory of what took place there infuriates me. I can’t go back to that place. Never will I return to the place I once called home.

So I start running again, this time with much more purpose. I run, giving it all I can, until I can’t breathe anymore. I collapse, gasping for precious air, struggling like a fish out of the water. Then the darkness surrounds me. It engulfs my vision and hearing, leaving my mind feeling fuzzy and confused. The last thing I remember is trying to pull myself up and start running away from the darkness that beckons me into its chaotic presence.

The terrorizing dreams come next. In the realm of my imagination, I stand in the middle of my village, turmoil playing out around me. The violent fires surge around me, immersing everything that crosses its path into a burning mass of nothingness. Parents grab their children and try to escape from their deaths, only to be stopped my masked men who scoop them up and carry them away. These masked men are known as Withholders. Supposedly, they withhold the violence and criminal happenings that are bound to take place in this day and time. I know why they’re in my village; they’re trying to find me. Kill me. Make me suffer in any way possible. They expect me to pay for what I have done.



I awake and suddenly think about all that I have done wrong. All of my mistakes that can never be repaired, all the people I’ve hurt during this long journey that we call life. Things can’t be restored, at least not the way I’ve broken them. No one will ever be the same because of me, the person who broke it all.

As a young child, I never thought I would be this way. I always had high expectations and dreams, as every child did. I never fathomed what evil I was capable of; no one did. I was a sweet, fun loving child whom everyone loved. No one could even imagine the disastrous potential that boiled through me.

As I grew older, I can’t say that I’m surprised that I turned out this way. I’m not surprised that I slowly became an outcast, crying out for someone…anyone, to love me. In the day and time that I live in, no one is capable of loving…except me. I learned that I was different before I knew how to read. I developed strange attachments to most things and people, when everyone else couldn’t care less. I tried to reach out and solve the mystery that I am, but, just like in everything else, the people around me couldn’t care less. And because those ignorant, arrogant people wouldn’t pay any attention to me, everyone will spit on my grave and scoff the ground I walked on; if they’re any people left after I die. I have torn down the metaphorical walls of the society so quickly and brutally, no one will know how to survive…except the monstrosity that is known as me.