I look into his eyes. Run, they say, run.
I run. My boots kick up a certain dust from the ground that clouds around my legs. The suns stare determinedly down at me. I can hear my heart beating, thudding, blood pulsing in my ears-
All I have to do is cross the chalk line. All I have to do is cross the chalk line. All I have to do-
If I died today, they wouldn’t be able to see my words in my eyes anymore. I would be gone. The green of my eyes would fade away into this mucky field.
If I died today, would they remember me?
I cross the line seconds before the creature can reach me, collapsing in the grass across from the hard dirt where my friend had hastily drawn the line. I’m alive. I can see my brother panting on the ground next to me. One thing’s for sure: we are never telling Mum about this, she wouldn’t let us play out alone ever again.
R taps me on the shoulder, he wants to tell me something. He and I have been friends since I can remember – his are the eyes that told me to run. Now, they tell me: Close one, friend. Head back now? You know how I feel about breaking the rules. And I oblige, sending him okay.
I pull my brother to his feet and we three set off in the morning light. My uniform ins covered in mud, so I’ll definitely get into trouble once they realise we snuck out of school – the mud is a dead giveaway. Mud isn’t allowed in the school grounds cause of the bacteria that lives inside it, supposedly. I think it’s just cause they don’t like mess.
In Biology today, we’re doing Humans. They’re so weird – they have holes where skin should be on their face. They actually crunch up stuff and digest it with these squiggeldy things inside them; I’m so glad our forms don’t work like that.
My brother taps me on the arm, so I look into his red eyes: Brother, let’s not go to school. Let’s watch the fifth sun set over the rockfields, like we would before school was even a concept. Please, brother.
I silently agree. We both glance over at R, who is a stickler for the rules. We barely convinced him to come out here.
I look into his eyes, now!, and we suddenly break for the line of blue trees, leaving R behind. He doesn’t try to follow us. I look into my brother’s eyes and see laughter.
The only trouble with the line of trees is that the ground is mushy and wet – no good for drawing chalk lines, so there’s no way of keeping the shadows at bay. Me and my brother push to a sprint as we near the line, we’ll have to run faster than the creatures can to get through to the rockfields.
We make it through, but there is a creature on the other side. I reach for my chalk that I keep in a strap around my wrist, but it is gone. I flash a warning look to my brother, no chalk, and he stares at me, his eyes screaming what? in the calmest panic I've ever seen.
My eyes call to him, again, run, but he is looking away, then he is running and as am I, and I pray to the second moon; I wonder, can the gods hear me when I blink? I wonder, is the shadow still behind me? I wonder, for the second time today, would they miss me if I died?121Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhRgBvgVals
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