Silly Girl, Farms Are For Pigs

Run.

Run.

Run.

The only word that goes through my head. Breathing heavy and pumping my arms, my legs hurt and side my aches but I won’t stop, I can’t stop.

Twigs and branches scrape my already exposed skin and tear through the gown draped over my body- it used to go past my knees, but it now hovers just above them in shreds. The polyester material rubs against my skin in a way that’s bothersome but doesn’t compare to the bite of the cold on this frigid morning. The fog is hard to see through, but it doesn’t stop me. I don’t know where I’m going but I know it’s away.

Away from the pain, away from the screams, away from the terror of the barn.

Running through the trees this feels almost therapeutic- or at least it would be if the feeling could override my panic.

They held me for days, but it felt like an eternity. The marks of the needles run all over my arms like freckles. I’m surprised I have the energy to be sprinting like this; It must be the adrenaline. It has to be the only thing pumping through my veins, blood certainly doesn’t run there.

They took it all.

I’ve fallen at least a dozen times in this frantic marathon of mine... I know I should feel the pain, but my body doesn’t register any of it. My feet keep going and my muscles push me further, acting as if the ache doesn’t exist. My red hair tosses behind me, tangled and gnarly, unclean. There are twigs woven throughout the roots of my scalp.

I’m pretty sure I’ll never get home now. I don’t even know where they took me. I mean, the men in white plastic suits never spoke to us, so really, I never knew anything- they just come at me and the others with their needles and clipboards. I had been strapped to a hospital bed the entire time- but don’t get me wrong- this was anything but a hospital.

The farm never cared for us, we barely ate except for when we needed to- I was basically unconscious the whole time, constantly being drained of my life source. Only speaking when spoken to, unless the men in white weren’t around (which wasn’t very often), in such cases I found myself- if I had the energy- chatting with the little girl in the bed next to mine. Her name was Jimena, she was maybe six or seven- we never specified. I would tell her stories of my home in New York and she would ask about my friends; She had a particular interest in my friend Robby- who I had described as “the most charming boy you could ever meet, with a goofy grin that never failed to make any of the girls smile.” She asked about him a lot. When she wasn’t asking me, she was telling me. She talked about her family a lot. A heart shaped locket hung around her neck and inside it you could see that she looked just like her father. But she had her mother’s smile.

Thinking back to her, I can still hear screams of anguish as the men in white put her to sleep and wheeled her away out of the dirty, unkempt room that we stayed in. They had stripped her and thrown it all on the dirt covered floor next between our beds. I only heard the men in white say a few things as they practically attacked her with syringes and held her down. The words “cancer” and “useless” were the only ones that stood out to me. Her screams were piercing… until they weren’t.

I could put two and two together.

Darting through these woods I don’t know when I’ll stop- or If I’ll ever stop. I can see a tree standing right in front of me as my legs carry me toward it. I’m definitely gonna collide with that trunk- but that doesn’t register until I’ve already hit it.

Ow.

Lying on the ground, my brain feels like it’s swelling in my head. Wincing, I grab my forehead with both of my hands, using my palms to apply pressure. Maybe now is a good time to rest, I can already feel my vision blurring as I try to get up. Gravity pulls me back down and I realize that’s not gonna happen.

Pressing the base of my palms against the cold ground, I use them to lift my body so that I’m sitting against the trunk of the tree. It’s only just now that I notice that my side aches horribly from running so fast and hard, the muscles in my legs burn like hell and the soles of my feet feel like they’re on fire. The adrenaline is gone, everything hurts and I can’t think of a single part of my body that isn’t suffering. Even my head feels like my brain is expanding and shrinking inside my skull just seconds after my head hits the trunk.

The scars that freckle my arms taunt me; “You can run but you can’t hide,” they snicker. They encircle my wrists just like the locket now does. I took it from the ground the second I could when the men in white threw to the ground as if it were nothing.

I take in the silence; The sounds of the night are gone as the hushed sounds of dawn come. The only thing I can hear is my heavy breaths, and my heart hitting my ribcage like a jackhammer going the speed of light. It’s lighter out now, the sky is gray and I guess I can see the woodland around me now. With the fog almost completely lifted now, I see more trees than I did before, and now I realize that it’s a miracle that I didn’t run into one sooner.

A rustling in the bushes pulls me out of my thoughts, and I whip my head to the left of me. The bushes ten feet away from me stir as the leaves move to and fro.

It feels as if time stopped and nothing exists but the movement of the thicket.

Between the branches, I catch a glimpse of a yellow plastic material shimmering in the light and my heart drops. Dread sets in as I watch the hazmat suit walk out of the darkness of the shrubbery and into my view.

Holding a tranq gun like the ones I saw the night they took me, the suit points it directly at me. My stomach is in knots and despair fills my body as I realize what’s going to happen. I didn’t get away. I was never going to get away. They found me and they’re gonna keep me until they use me up and take everything that I can give.

The suit remains silent and so do I... our silence is enough to tell each other what’s happening as I stare at a mask and the emptiness of the mask stares back. Before I can even think of what I’m doing, my right arm picks itself up to grab at my left wrist to rip the gold piece of jewelry off of it and drop it to the ground. I won’t let them keep it.

A dart flies out of the barrel and pricks my right shoulder. I could say that it hurts but in a short time I guess I’ve already grown used to the feeling of being pierced like this. I can feel myself getting weaker and I’m not even sure I can fight it. My eyelids grow heavy and slowly they drop- the last thing I see is the suits striding towards me… It’s hand reaching out at me.