You Can't Run Away From Your Past

• Hayley Every, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2022

I was pinned to the ground. I couldn’t move. The hooded figure lingering over me with their rotten boot on my shoulder pressing me down to the ground. I could hear them breathe. I could hear them whisper. “You betrayed us. You took away the one thing that meant more than the world. You hurt the only people that could save us. You told the world our secrets. Therefore I will tell the world yours”...

I felt a sharp pain in my head. Like my head was going to implode into itself. All these memories started replaying in my head. I heard voices, whispers and screams. Suddenly it all stopped. I woke in a dark room with nothing around me. I started running. I needed to escape. I needed to get back. I needed to protect everything I had worked towards. I needed to keep my secrets safe…

Then I heard a voice. Not just any voice but Laura’s voice. I started heading towards it. In hopes I would find her. But then I remembered that last time I saw her… she betrayed me. She stabbed me in the back. She told the organization what I had done. What I knew. She betrayed me just so she could get rich. Just so she could pay off her debt. Just so she could run away with her new boyfriend. Just so she could destroy my life.

I started running away from her voice and I didn’t look back. Then all of a sudden the walls start closing in on me. I ducked hoping they wouldn’t crush me. Then they stopped and then I saw my reflection. I saw my face torn up and bruised. My legs are barely standing. Then through the reflection I saw at the back of the room… Noel. He just stood there. He looked at me… disappointed. “I didn’t mean to!” I screamed. “I didn’t mean to hurt you! I didn’t know it was a bomb! I was only doing what they told me to do!” He shook his head. He sighed. “You had the choice, It wasn’t the organization's fault, It was yours, If you hadn’t of done it I would be alive right now. I would be living with my family. I would be living to an old age. But I’m not and it’s not the organization's fault. It’s yours

Then he disappeared. Then all of a sudden crowds of people walked towards me. Thousands of people walked in sinc towards me from every direction. But these weren’t strangers or unfamiliar faces. These were people I knew. People I worked with. People I killed…

They looked at me. They stared at me. They looked right into my soul and ripped it out. They walked towards me slowly. Then they screamed. So loud that the only thing I could hear was their terrifying screams. My ears were ringing. Then they stormed towards me. I ducked. Then they stopped. “I wasn’t the organizations fault it was yours”