How to Hide from the World and Not Get Caught

I’m hiding from the world. I can’t let it find me. If I’m found, I might face death. Or at least brutal punishment. Hiding from the world isn’t an easy thing to do. Especially when the whole world is against you.

You see, it’s not really my fault. Well, okay, maybe it is. I mean, I could’ve stopped it all from happening. I could’ve prevented her from doing it. But I didn’t. So yeah, I guess it’s all my fault, like everything else. Everything’s always my fault. Even when I was five and my sister knocked over Mom’s favorite vase, it was my fault. Somehow, only I had been punished for that incident.

Why is life so unfair? A year ago, life was going great. Everything was perfect, happy, the way it should be. Until she came, the one who ruined my life forever.

The sound of sirens in the distance can be heard. Time to move again. I stand and force myself to move through the trees. My stomach growls, my throat begs for water, my legs scream from just those few steps, and my head spins from the effort. And yet I keep moving. I have to. It’s the only way.

The sirens get louder. I move faster, pushing branches out of my way. In the darkness, I miss a few, and they smack me in the face, leaving marks and scratches. And yet I keep moving. Past the tree where we carved our names, past the river where we sat those afternoons, past the cliff where we shared our first kiss. I ignore them all, willing myself to pull forward, to stop the sound of the sirens.

I take a step and my ankle twists, causing agonizing pain to shoot up my leg. And yet I keep moving. I think of my tenth birthday party. The party was full of laughter, presents, joy. Joy. I can't even remember what that word means anymore. It seems almost foreign to me now.

I push on until the beginnings of sunlight creep up over the horizon. And that is when I finally stop. I sit on the trunk of a fallen tree. The sirens are gone. For now. Maybe forever. That would be amazing. But it will never happen. It can’t. I’m wanted.

I can hear a highway in the distance. The roaring of cars zipping by finds its way to my tired ears. I want to rest. I want to lie down and die. I want to be free.

My stomach growls. Food. I need food. I walk towards the sound of the highway. I hope there’s a store somewhere. A nice, family business kind of store, with low security. That sounds nice.

I put my hood up as I enter the town. My name and face have been plastered all over the news. If anyone sees my face, I’ll risk getting caught.

I walk around for a while, searching for the perfect store. And I find it after two hours of searching. A small fruit and vegetable stand at the outskirts of town. Perfect.

I wander up to it, browsing the assortments of food.

“Can I help you with something?” a voice asks from behind me.

I whirl around to face the person. A young man stands behind me, watching me closely. “No, I’m just looking.”

“Looking at fruit?” he asks. “I’d believe that story if you were sixty. Someone young like you wouldn’t be here just to look.”

“I’m not buying,” I say. All of the money I had taken with me was spent weeks ago. It’s gone now. Like everything else.

He grabs an apple from a basket next to him. “Here,” he says, holding it out to me. “My compliments.”

“Thanks,” I say, already biting into the fruit. Oh sweet glorious wonderful fruit. It tastes better than I remember.

The man takes in the sight of me, devouring this fruit as if I haven’t eaten in weeks. Or wait, maybe I haven’t. I don’t remember. It could’ve been weeks…or maybe days. I don’t know.

“Well, you sure are hungry,” he notes. “Would you like anything else?”

I shake my head, my mouth too full of fruit to speak.

“I don’t know,” he says. “For some reason, you’re face looks really familiar. Have we met?”

I shake my head again, slowly backing away. Not good. I’ve been recognized. I have to go before he remembers why I look familiar. I walk backwards a few more steps and then break into a run, sprinting across a busy street and into a small forest nearby. I sit under the cover of a tree, panting and sweating from the effort of running.

Time passes. I don’t know how much. Could be days, could be weeks, could be months for all I know. I live to run, to hide, to avoid danger at all costs.

But the reason for all of my running remains in my head. It replays constantly in my mind. Over and over until I want to kill myself. And I’ve tried to do just that a few times. But I just can't do it. One day, when I finally get over myself and stop moping around, I’ll turn myself in and argue that I’m innocent. Maybe if I get a really good lawyer, I can get away.

You see, the reason the police are after me is because I’m wanted for murder. And not just the murder of one person. No, I’m wanted for the murder of five people. The only problem is, I didn’t kill them. My ex-girlfriend, who is the fifth person, killed my parents and my brother and sister. Then she killed herself and made sure that I was found at the scene of the crime with a gun in my hand and blood on my clothes. And that’s all the proof the police needed to believe it was me. Somehow, I managed to get away from them. It wasn’t easy, but I made it. And here I am, alive, still.

Not that I want to be.

So here I am, still hiding from the world. Its tentacles try to hold on to me tight. I can’t breathe. I’m going to suffocate. And yet the tentacles always let go right before I die, keeping me alive. It’s almost like an endless cycle of torture. Strangle, almost die, let go, stay alive. Repeat.

And you know what? I’m out there right now. So you better watch out. A ‘dangerous criminal’ is on the loose. He could be walking down your street right now. He could be hiding in your bushes. He could be stealing food from your grocery store. He could be hiding out in your own backyard. But don’t worry about him. He’s not dangerous. Just a wrongly accused kid, a tortured soul, hiding from the world. So maybe you should cut that kid some slack. He’s really not all that bad.