Day 26 - Alone

Hey guys! Grace Nask here with Day 26 of the April Challenge. Today we have Alone, a short story for all ages. It's about a girl named Erika escaping, though from what, she won't say. So let's get to it!

Alone

Running. Erika ran and ran until she couldn’t run any longer. The house behind her pleaded with her to come back--but it was not her house, not anymore. How could she have come back? Instead, she ran.

She ran the mile from the house to the town. The trees, old playthings of his and hers, were painted in black and white from the dying sun along the trail to it. Erika had spent hours with him there, laughing and talking. But not today. “Hey Erika, where’s your friend?” the trees seemed to ask, their weathered faces waiting. She couldn’t answer them.

Tears clawed at her face, seeking to strangle her. Her breath rattled in the back of her throat, cold and fragile. It didn’t sound real, not to her. None of this seemed real.

Erika turned a corner, out of the back paths and into the town. Here a stony path ate the earth, complete with carts and a sidewalk. Merchants swarmed on all sides, selling their wares both in and out of the buildings set on either side. Being one of the locals, each knew her by name.

“Erika, we got a fresh shipment of fruit for you to sample!”

“Where’s the fire, Erika?”

“Erika? What’s going on? Where’s Ryan? Are you alright? Hey; wait! Erika!”

On a regular day, she would’ve called out to them and stopped and chatted. Today Erika raced past them all, pushing and shoving wherever needed. Panting hard enough to develop her own personal tornado, she glanced over her shoulder. He should have caught up by now! she thought, her heart fluttering like a butterfly laying eggs before it went off to die. Where is he? Where did he go?

The merchants fell away as Erika reached the outskirts of the main road. She turned another corner, and a new sound filled her ears like the buzz of bees: the church bell. Sparse grass replaced the stone path, marking the entrance to the graveyard. She glanced over her shoulder once more even as the absence of light obscured her vision. Was he not going to come? Would he leave her like this?

The bell rang again as she stumbled through the graveyard. Each tombstone, eerie in the half-darkness, tripped her. The clawing, spectral hands of the dead curled upward, each reaching out to Erika. Pleading, not threatening. They should have been menacing. But they weren’t.

“I tried! I didn’t know what to do!” Erika shrieked at them, hiking up her pants to run faster. Little scratches marked bloody anklets up and down her legs; she hadn’t noticed where she’d gotten them. The hands didn’t respond to her plea but continued reaching upward toward her. Why hasn’t he come yet?

In the center of the graveyard, a small chapel stood, complete with that bell on the top. Erika faltered up the two steps leading to the building; each one morphed into thousands of those hands from before, supporting her steps but taking something in return. She stumbled through the creaking wooden door, then, breathless, clawed herself to a sitting position on the far wall.

Her breath came out in a wheeze; she’d run two miles. Erika wasn’t crying anymore--couldn’t cry, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t live. Not anymore. She watched the entrance, but Ryan wasn’t coming. Couldn’t follow. And he wasn’t here, either. Not yet, at least.

The church bell tolled for the last time, marking this deadly hour. Sitting on the floor of the chapel, listening to the bell’s deep sound resonate through the small walls, Erika realized that she was alone.