Ahh, it's a post again! Run!

[unamaga]

I found this little bit in my old files and fixed up the ending a bit, so I thought I'd share it. It's a little strange, and I'm not quite sure what made me write it, but it is somewhat interesting and surprisingly eloquent. *shrugs* Who knew?

She isn't sure what she is doing here; the road isn't familiar and her feet have long ago gone numb with pain and cold. Her head aches with a dull, throbbing sort of sting.

 

She turns to look around and maybe get her bearings, but nothing looks like it should. The tall trees are bare, looming over her with black branches that sway in a heavy breeze; there are no animals or birds, not even an owl to hoot into the silence and add to the suspicious atmosphere.

 

The sky is foreboding, not even the moon showing through the grey of scattered wind and cloud. She can't help but think that there is something very wrong.

 

She continues along the path that sprawls out in front of her, unsure of what, or who, it leads to, but sure she does not want to stand still. It is with a surreal lack of fear that she walks, not jumping at the small sounds that occasionally penetrate the overbearing silence though her heart skips a beat each time.

 

Finally, she comes to a bend in the endlessly straight road and sees a small cottage. There are candles lit in two of the distorted windows and the sight of small, flickering flames raises her spirits. Though it is possible that whoever has lit those candles is not friendly, she can't bring herself to care.

 

She knocks on the rickety door, noticing with a chill the smell of dried blood coming from just slightly further along the cottage's side.

 

A haggard man, beard tangled and matted with sweet, food, and things she'd rather not think of, opens the door a crack. After a short look at her, he pushes the door fully open and gestures her in. Surprised by the unexpected hospitality, it takes her a moment before she can step over the threshold and into the house.

 

The hunched figure of the old man has moved into another room where there is a large fireplace that exudes warmth and comfort. She unconsciously moves towards it, holding her hands out to capture its heat.

 

There are no words spoken between the two for the rest of the night, but he leads her to a small cot of animal furs in the next room over and leaves her to sleep.

 

In the morning, she cleans herself with a pot of water left by the bed and cautiously pads out to the rest of the cottage. The old man appears in front her as if summoned, looking even more grisly and ghastly than the night before, and waves her into the kitchen.

 

She enters what appears to be the kitchen: a coarse chopping block and fireplace stove sitting proudly in the middle of a small, grimy room. They spend breakfast in silence, the only sound in the quiet kitchen their chewing.

 

The days pass quickly, silent but filled with activity and food. She begins to forget that life was not always this way, and that she was not always under the man’s careful mentorship.

 

She learns to chop wood behind the cottage; she learns to hunt in the forest and kills her first hare for the pride in the man's eyes as he watches. They don’t speak, but she does not begrudge him his silence, becoming accustomed to listening to his breath instead of waiting for words.

 

She comes to love the marked face of the man who opened the door to her so long ago, treasuring their companionship above all else. So it comes as some surprise to her when one night, years after she had first come to the cottage, her door creaks open and the man steps through. The man had never done this before, but she thinks nothing of shifting up on the bed so that he may sit at the foot, close as the two of them are.

 

He looks at her solemnly for a moment, his familiar face creased into a foreign expression of gravity. A nameless fear clenches in her stomach and she suddenly knows why he is here. She has come to know his face, as easily readable as one of the many books strewn throughout the fire room.

 

She shakes her head in denial, but he does not move from his place on the edge of the makeshift mattress. She cries that night, back bowing with the force of her anguish, the only source of comfort the old man's scratchy woolen jumper against her cheek.

 

The next morning she wakes, stiff and alone; the strange clothes she arrived in years before lie next to her in the bed, a strange mockery. She changes into them, feeling strange and ungainly in the foreign material.

 

She leaves the man that afternoon with a satchel of food and a torch should she need to light her way, heart heavy with grief and loneliness. The man watches as she makes her way down the path in front of the small cottage, heading towards the main road, but never raises and hand or his voice to stop her.

 

Irrationally, she has a moment of sheer panic, knowing that once she turns the corner just ahead, she may never see the haggard old man again, but one look back at his stolid face gives her courage, and she quickly steps around the corner into a new world—a world which is suddenly very familiar.

 

She continues on with her life: finding a place in the community, finding love and a family. Through it all, the vision of the old, nameless man and his smiling eyes stays with her, and she is comforted.