Cut

Written by Brooke-Lauren Montgomery

 

 

              Twilight. The moon, the only source of light through the masses of tangled twigs, lit the path of desperation's trail. With seconds to spare, she could become the next victim of the menacing evil that walked on two legs. She heard a relentless pounding of drums, but soon realized it was the sound of her own beating heart that she feared would take her into tachycardia. 

               High pitched screams cut through the air like a pizza cutter slicing through a freshly baked pie. It ricocheted off the trees, then finally sprung into the ears of a shaken girl. Her hair, matted with dirt and blood, fell in stringy strands about her face as she breathed rapidly, terror unwilling to leave her. The dirt that smeared on her cheeks and forehead, mixed with blood, gave her face more color. Her eyes, a radiant blue, dilated from the fear that she may just lose her life.

               More desperate screams filled the woods as she kept running with all her might. She was too frightened, to panicked to cry. Everything around her seemed so...shallow, unwilling to help. The branches and twigs were like cold, scratchy fingers that taunted her, trying to prevent her from getting away from the arms that wanted to kill her.

               Hopeless. Hopelessness filled every inch of her sunken heart. Something drove her to keep going, that there was a way out of this living hell she was surreally apart of. Those screams did not have to come from her as long as she fought to keep the strong will to live. Her best friend since kindergarten school had met her fate, unable to do a thing about it.

               Hating the bastard that had taken away her best friend, she wanted to face the giant, to take away his life just as he had taken away her friend's, but she was too afraid. Now, she ran scared, like an antelope from a lion.

               This nightmare she was living was like a dream, though she was not asleep. She was not dead. She was alive, very alive. She was, indeed, in this place that she feared most, a place that she thought only existed in horror movies.

               Her legs were begging for mercy, screaming at her to let them rest, but she pushed forward. Her legs got their wish when her foot caught on a tree root. Down she went, face planting into the dirt and leaves. She felt no pain, only sheer adrenaline as she sprang up onto her feet again. Leaves clung to her hair as she wiped her mouth with the back of her dirt stained hand.

               The screams of of her friend came no more, but was replaced with another looming and doomful sound. A cackling penetrated the wood's evil thickened air. It rang through the trees like an air raid siren announcing the end of the planet's very existence. Her fate drew nearer and nearer, but she continued to push her exhausted being through the woods, in frantic search for the highway. She turned to look behind her and, to her horror, saw the one that killed her best friend, the one that was now coming for her. So relentless, so disgustingly corrupt.

               A whimper escaped her lips as she saw the bloodstained clothes of the one that so desperately wanted to kill her. She kept going, going, going. At last! There is was! The highway, so beautiful, so near!

               This was her chance! Her chance to make it out alive and to get help! Her chance to get this maniac off her back and killed, where she would be taken into loving and helpful arms, where she would be doctored and cared for.  

               She burst out onto the open road. "STOP!" she screamed, wildly waving her arms.

               The next thing she heard was, "And cut! That's a wrap!"