Her voice rings out with a clarity that snaps me to attention, startling me from my daze, “Honestly Err, we need to stop making a habit out of this.” There’s a playful, jovial nature to her tone, but she’s also sniffling, and fighting back sobs.


    She’s right. We shouldn’t make a habit of fleeing into rivers. We’re cold, and damp, and she’s pretty banged up from the rocks and logs we’d bumped into. I’m fairly certain my clothes are ripped, and that I’ve got scrapes on most of the surfaces of my body. I had tried to shield her body from the worst of it with mine. She got jostled as I kept her wrapped in my arms, but I got scraped and banged and even stabbed a bit from the various debris in the river. It wouldn’t have been worth it to fight for our food though, or to even stick around. I’d take a thousand scrapes to protect her from even just one, to keep her smiling, to keep her safe and alive.


    I almost offer, “We could go back,” but I know that she’d shake her head. I know she would understand that I meant back to where it all began, where we fled from. She would know I didn’t mean the campsite we were making use of. She trusted me, and we ran away. She still trusts me, and believes it was the right choice. She won’t talk about it, but ever since that day, we’ve been preparing, and running. We prepared to run, then we ran. I don’t know when we’ll stop, or how we’ll even keep making it, but she’s determined to follow me, to accompany me, and she’s positive we chose correctly.


    All I want in the whole world is to keep her safe, and smiling. I don’t remember ever having a friend before her. Everything is fuzzy, I don’t remember much before that day at the river at all. A few weeks, maybe a couple of months at most, and even those are mostly a blur of sameness. I can’t keep thinking about it, or my brain starts to hurt. I think I’m a teenager, and I’m missing the better part of the first decade of my life in memories. I rattle my skull, trying to shake loose this train of thought that inevitably leads nowhere.


    She scootches closer, and wraps her arms around me, pulling my arms about her for warmth in the process. We need to dry off, and find another hiding place. Sitting in the crinkly, fallen autumn leaves in freezing wet clothes isn’t doing us any favors. Sitting where we might be visible to park rangers, or hikers, due to the lack of foliage, and the brightness with the lack of canopy isn’t doing us any favors. But being held by her, as she smiles through her own sobs, it’s worth it to wait a while. I’ll protect her. I have to. It’s the only thing that matters.


    —— The non orders me, “Stop clawing, stop scratching. These are not yours, and you will die if you continue to grasp at them! Survive, fight, free yourself! Free me.”