Alone, but not really.

It was a beautiful evening on the farm. The sun was setting gold, filtered behind orange, pink, and mauve clouds. The horses had been brought in for the night, but three heads emerged from their half-open stall doors to catch a glimpse of it, ears swivelling with every minute audio detail of the oncoming dusk. A breeze was blowing slightly, bringing with it a balminess from the South and the smell of sweet clover from the pasture beyond the barn. The smell was overwhelming in the best way possible, in the way that when you inhaled it you knew you were meant to be there. It was a favourite smell on the farm. It was home.

Was. Was. Was. How quickly things had changed.

Where normally he would have sat in that moment as long as he could, basking in the beauty of his memory, a sound from the barn snapped him back to his reality: his mother had missed the sunset, and just when he thought to go find her, he had heard it: a scream. His mother’s scream. And then he heard silence. Now he found himself huddled in a corner of the barn, fearing for his life.

When he had heard The Scream, he instantly shifted from the amber parts of the porch to the onyx, where he could hide, think for a minute. He was certain that it was his mother who had just let out that fearful cry. And it was odd that his mother missed the sunset. It had been an enjoyable daily tradition, catching the final rays of a summer day together. It was unlike her to miss it. After his father’s death she was all he had. He was all she had. He had to find her.

Upon making his decision to leave his hiding position he heard a sound from the barn that stopped him from stepping off the farmhouse porch, a friendly bit of deck which sagged from full family gatherings and wistful, restful afternoons. Was something there? Someone? It was probably just the horses shuffling as they happily nibbled their evening grain rations. Right? In the cold winter months he often found himself perched in a pile of straw watching them as their plush lips grabbed at their hay, so absorbed in their meal that they were oblivious to his presence. Or maybe they noticed but didn’t mind. Either way, they were all at peace, something which he very much missed feeling in this moment.

Maybe the sound from the barn was his mother. Truthfully, it was not entirely unlike her to shriek; ever since his father’s death even a bird flying overhead could startle her. Maybe she had been alarmed by something and ran into the barn to collect herself, it wouldn’t be the first time. He convinced himself that was all it was and calm started to wash over him, his tense little body beginning to relax. And then it hit him: darkness. It was already dark. Too much time had passed since The Scream and the worry renewed within him and welled up to his eyes. Fear gripped him, but he couldn’t stay on that porch forever. He had to go to the barn. He had to find his mother.

The barnyard light cast shadows on the ground between the porch and the barn that seemed to swallow him whole as he raced toward it. Careful not to make a peep, he crept around the barn. He was silent as he walked by the horses, who indeed were eating, passed the long-lashed milk cow bedding down for the night, and avoided that old orange cat who decidedly did not like him, having swatted at him on more than one occasion. His mother was nowhere to be found.

Wait. There was a muffled sound in the hay loft. He stood frozen, motionless for the longest moment of his life, both hopeful it was his mother and scared to death it was someone else; alone, but not really. Who? Who was there? He moved quietly and stood on the wooden floor below the loft edge, but there was no further noise. He turned around and started toward the exit when one of his feet stepped in something slippery. Something dark and slippery. Was that…is that…blood?

He was now huddled in the corner where the low wooden wall of the cow stall and the outer wall of the barn meet, just three or four feet from the hinges of the open door, now certain that his mother’s scream had sounded for a reason. With that certainty came the crushing weight of loss, of despair. He had heard of these attacks happening at other farms, but never really believed it could happen here, to his mother, to him. But he was wrong, and none of his past notions surrounding this violence mattered now. All that mattered was finding a way out of that barn before he was discovered.

Leaving the barn unseen would be no easy feat. It sat squarely in the middle of a dusty excuse for a lawn, between the old, warm farmhouse with peeling white paint and the clover pasture, a large red cube accessible on all sides. He had been lucky with his first dash between the weathered porch and the barn, but he was not so sure he could expect that luck a second time. His escape route offered very little to hide behind––nothing, in fact, except maybe a wide, somewhat crooked fence post near the gate of the pasture, and even that would require a few seconds of exposure while he made the sprint. Beyond that was the pasture with the tall, sweet clover. If he could make it to the pasture, he should be able to keep cover in the large field, despite its openness–he was quite small and it was very dark out. Besides, the moon was just a sliver and the barnyard light shone to the front of the barn, not behind it, so he would be free of any shadows that might exaggerate his movement and give him away. Settled on that plan, he decided to wait until his mother’s attacker made another sound; he needed to know where he was positioned. It was deathly quiet, even the breeze had stopped. Surely whoever was responsible for The Scream, for the blood, was still there. Somewhere. And surely it would make a noise again. Surely.

As these thoughts whirred through his head he began to tire and he wanted more than ever to relax into the false calm brought by the absence of sound.

What was that? Suddenly, more alert than ever, his eyes shot open at a noise outside. He couldn’t run now. It would be impossible. He would have to wait for whoever it was to come insi–. All too soon there was a thud directly above him in the loft. A horse stomped its foot in protest to the interruption of peace, and the cow repositioned herself on her bed of straw. Whatever it was, he knew it was not his mother. He also knew that hiding in the barn was no longer an option. With one last glance at the gentle horses, toward the cow, and in the general direction of where he last saw the cat, he bolted for the field.

He was small. He probably wouldn’t even be seen out there in the huge pasture, and his little body barely made a sound while he was running. Running! It beat being trapped in the barn with its limited corners to hide in. He breathed in the cool, fresh air accepting that he couldn’t go back to that barn, to that house, and that his new home was now a dark mystery before him. Pausing, he turned around to look once more upon the only life he had ever known. He didn’t want to leave the house, or the barn, the animals, the clover. Oh that sweet, wild clover! He inhaled one final lungful and started to close the gap between the field and the tree-line, aware more than ever he could never return. In his final steps he marvelled that he had made it, that he was safe; nobody would find him in that mess of trees ahead. In the very moment he began to believe he was safe, allowed himself to dwell in the warmth of that thought, his attacker dove from a starless sky and seized him with piercing talons before he could make a squeak. With soundless flight, the brown and white feathered owl flew his limp–soon to be lifeless–body back to the barn from which he thought he had escaped.