Today is the day Sean finally allows me to walk home from work. I work in the ghetto, but he has left me his pistol. I have my backpack, with my fully charged cell phone, the gun, a flashlight, and my wallet. I shouldn't need anything else. I am walking with a teacher, and his student who seem to know the short cuts around here and are helping me to the main roads. Only, they lead me to a park bench, claiming it's only a mile from my home. I believe them, considering how far we had already walked, it added up. They head home in their own separate way.


It's dark, but the park I am walking through is lit up by the flashlight I carry in my left hand. I feel somewhat secure, with the pistol tight in my right hand. I see a man, he's headed directly towards me, and closing in fast. He's injured, I lower my gun and raise my flashlight. He must need help, I shouldn't frighten him by waving a gun in his face. He grabs me instead, another man jumps out of the bushes and grabs my legs. Damnit that was a rookie move I just made, how dumb am I? 


They fling me into the back seat of an old cadillac. It smells of blood, urine and sweat. I try reasoning with them, while hiding my gun. I don't want them to spot it and take it away from me. We head further and further away from home. I should be home by now, and I know Sean is going to be worried. 


What is that saying they teach you about? Oh, DON'T EVER GO TO A SECOND LOCATION WITH A STRANGER. I cannot make it to the second location. Must get away, must get out now. 


I climb to the front seat and pretend that I want to sit on the passengers lap, in a very sexual way hoping this will be his downfall that will lead to his death. As soon as the driver slows down below forty-five miles per hour, I shoot him in the head. I shoot the passenger in the head and open the car door, jumping into grass and bushes on the side of the road. I tumble and for a moment it feels like I have broken all my bones. 


I lift my head, trying to stand up and run. I'm further into the ghetto, there are people crowding the street. I grab my cell phone, and send Sean my coordinates. I know he will know that I am in danger and come for me. I send the same coordinates to my mother, in case Dad is around. Of course, he is asleep so she calls me, confused on my decrypt message. 


"Mom, I need you to come get me, open your GPS so I can tell you where I am. It's urgent mom!!" 
I explain. 
"I'm too far away to walk and I need to leave NOW. "


She doesn't understand the urgency. She's been drinking. "Well I just put dinner on the stove, and it's already seven thirty! By the way you haven't texted me back all day" She continues to blabber on about useless information


"Mom, I need you to focus and just come pick me up, save the lecture and small chat for the ride home. I'll explain more then too, just hurry!"


"Alright, I'll leave after my show is over" she explains as if she's frustrated with me. 


"Yeah ok Mom" I say. If I get too angry with her she won't come at all. I've been through this conversation too many times before. 


I hang up with her and head for the nearest open public store, it's a flower store. Of course, we're in the ghetto so this is flower store/whore house. I am mistaken for a whore. A man grabs me. 


"You do not belong here, your punishment is to give this man what he wants" he yells at me leaving the stench of alcohol lingering in my nose. His fingers press hard, bruising my delicate skin. 


Clearly, the man he is talking about is a customer, not for flowers but for sex. He grabs me violently and flings me into the back of another old car, this one much cleaner than the first. I don't even bother screaming and wasting my energy fighting, I know that everyone around me, will not help, will not do anything. I am just a whore to them. and something else inside me tells me that I am all alone regardless. 


I am wearing shorts, and he slices up the insides of my thighs with his tongue that seems to be covered in sharp razors. What is he? How does he have such a sharp tongue? He licks me from knee to belly button and everything in between. I feel the skin slice open and the warm blood dripping quickly down my legs. I cannot squirm or give him any satisfaction that he is hurting me. I will not give him that. I will fight. I will win. 


As he continues, I am slowly trying to get the pistol out from the front pocket of my backpack while controlling my screams and wimpers. I feel the cold metal meet my warm fingertips. I flick the safety off, raise it above my head, and blow his head into a million pieces. Scrabbling out of the car, I run towards a major intersection. As I expected not a single person cared that I was covered in blood running with a pistol in my hand. Everyone is in a daze, a violent daze that scares the shit out of me. 


I spot my mother ahead, walking the streets, looking for me. I grab her.


"Mom, we have to get out of here, where is the car? Let's go!" I frantically say without being too loud for others to hear. 


"Oh my Goodness! What has happened to you? I would have come sooner..." she says with panic in her voice seeing me covered in blood. "You need to go to a hospital" 


Her loud voice is drawing a crowd around us. 
"There is a hospital just behind that flower shop right there" someone in the crowd says. 


 We head that way, even though I insist that I can go to a hospital that is closer to our own home, a hospital that is safer. My concerns are not heard and we enter a hospital that looks more like a dog pound and smells like one too. Doctors drag me back and look at my injuries as they line me against a wall with other sick and injured people, mother included. Deep inside I know this isn't a hospital, this is not a place to seek help, this is a place to die. Why doesn't anyone else see this? Especially Mom, it's as if she has been drugged. She is usually so observant, most good mothers are. 


"Oh honey, I know your scared but these people are here to help you" she says with a far off look in her eyes. 


We are taken outside and lined up against the wall, in preperation to all be shot. I know the doctors are lined up in front of us each loading one bullet and aiming at their patient in front of them. I don't think, I run. No one follows me, which concerns me. There must be no way out in the direction I am headed and they know I'll be trapped. 


Somehow, Mom has come to her senses and is following behind me. She still seems pretty out of it. We climb a steep grassy hill, with bugs the size of my shoe. I dodge them as I drag myself and my mother up the hill. 


We reach a side patio to someone's home but when we open the gate, I expect the occupants back yard to be there except the ground has disappeared and there is nothing but darkness below. A valley of some sort. I can see other houses and backyards on the other side of the revine. My only option is to knock loudly on the door to the house with the giant revine for a back yard. No answer. We lay quietly in the grass as we wait for someone to come find us, or for someone to answer the door and save us.


A man raises up as if on a fork lift from the bottom of the revine. Peering down at us he spots my mother as she lays as still as possible but her breathing is so rapid that her body is shaking. The man pokes her with a stick just as the door to the house opens. I shoot the man poking my mother, and run inside the house, dragging Mother behind me. 


I slam the door behind me and examine the room I am now in. It's disgusting. Food and bugs litter the floor everywhere. There are two men in the room, and they don't even question why we are there, clearly too high from whatever drug they are on to care. 


"Would you two ladies care to watch some television with two lonely old men" he asks us. 


I do not respond, I am too busy looking for weapons, ammo and an exit out of this place. My mother, who seems to be still drugged herself, graciously agrees and sits down beside the two. 
"What is this place?" I ask the men. 


"It's an apartment, what else would it be?" he says with food hanging out of his mouth. 


"What's going on outside?" I question the two. My only response is a confused look that clearly shows they think I am a lunatic. 


Why am I the only one that finds everything to be not right. There should be others fighting not just taking abuse. I take this moment to send Sean my coordinates again, I do not know how far away I have travelled from the coordinates I first sent, and we need to be found quickly. 


I lift open a window that leads to a small patio that connects to all the other windows in the building. 


"Mom, let's go. Let's get out of here" I beg my mother. 


"Oh, I guess I should get home, and put dinner on the table. I'm sure your father is worried about me, since I've been gone so long" she says as she hops out the window and the two men start to grab the window in a zombie like daze. I point, aim and shoot. 


"You shouldn't have done that honey, they were nice enough to let us into their home" mom yells at me. She says in such a calm and casual way, I just ignore her, knowing arguing with her will only slow her down. We follow the balcony around and around until I spot my mom's car down below, parked on the street. 
"Ok, let's go" my mom says as she puts one foot on the railing as if to propel herself over in a giant leap. 
"Are you bat shit crazy? You'll break something, we are at least 4 floors up." 


Mom hops down before me without as much as a tumble and speeds off. Her motion is that of a squirrel, as they jump off one branch and land on another their legs are so fast it looks like one beautiful fluid motion from landing to running. She should have landed with limbs contorted and bent instad she's leaving me behind. 


I feel I have no option, I leap over. I land on the top of a car parked on the street. My knees immediately buckle with pain, my ankles feel like they are on fire. As I fall to the ground, I feel the pain radiating up my legs from the fall, but also I now realize, from the gashes the tongue man left. I am now realizing they are deep as a stab wound. I am so tired and in pain, I could just lay here and not get up. I won't give up, I won't stop moving. 


I still have a good grasp on the pistol and I stand up and lean my body against a building to hide as much as I could in the shadows of the building. Moments later, I see my mother fly down the street making eye contact with me, but not stopping as she screeches around a corner and zooms off to prepare dinner. 


I hear another car in the distance, until now I hadn't noticed how silent it was around me. 
A red bronco is headed towards me with Sean in the passenger seat, gun out the window ready to kill. I move slowly into his path, I don't want to startle him and get shot myself. 


"There you are, we have to get out of here, I'll explain later. First, we need to find our friend, he went missing around here too." he yells out the window over the sound of the engine. 


I want to argue and beg him to get me out of here but I don't want to be selfish. I would help if I was able to. We are Driving really slow, and searching the streets for anything that needs saving, while killing anything that looks unfriendly. 


Rivers are now running through buildings and mountains have appeared at street corners, scattering buildings into pieces. Where were we? What happened here? It was as if war had gone off while I was at work and had not known about it. Suddenly I notice how we have somehow been transformed into military, complete with equipment and tactics. Speaking of military, where were they? If this was war shouldn't we have someone else besides us to be fighting? 


We hop out of the car and search a building like a tactical unit ready to clear some rooms. The building is completely empty, so we sit and drink some water that was left behind. I am sitting for enough moments that my emotions catch up to me. The adrenaline wears off a little and I realize I am in a lot of pain. Fortunately, my Sean is there beside me the second I sit. Tears flow down my cheeks and he kisses them away as he holds me close. There is this feeling inside me, I recognize it and immediately know what is about to happen. I've felt it before. My fingers clasp onto Seans hands and my eyes lock on his eyes, and the feeling ends, and I die.