Scarlet

• Brittany Palmer, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2009

The scarlet hues of dusk faded, leaving a sky streaked with light against the deep velvet blue. The girl’s fear rose as night fell, every step filled with a growing uncertainty. Her path was rough and she trembled as she moved swiftly across the rocky ground, arms clutched across the precious burden she carried, stumbling in the night. She caught herself the first time, with each step her strength fading. Her hands and knees grew bloodied as she pulled herself up, again and again.

The girl was driven by desperation now, her lone figured silhouetted against the hills by the pale moon. Minutes turned to hours, and the thousand steps of a single mile undid her resolve. She fell, and fell again, until she could get up no more. The slender figure of a young girl some way from home fell upon the cool earth – and stayed there. Arms clutched her swollen stomach, a dozen lies screamed as she lay there, defenceless. At their mercy really, she thought. At the mercy of whatever came across her, at the mercy of those who thought they knew what was best for her, at his mercy.

A faint smile drifted across the girl’s lips, as she lay minutes from sleep. Because he was coming for her, just a few more hours like this and then he’d be there. She just needed to hold on, just hold on. And then, then she would be free. But she was barely holding on. She began to shiver, fear rising as a pain that was both piecing and unfamiliar threatened her escape. The moon rose higher, its silver light illuminating where a child lay beneath the sky, alone in the night.

The night grew colder, darker, deeper. It was that terrible moment just before the break of dawn: the darkest moment of the night. It is this darkness that veils the trail of crimson the flows from her womb. It is the terror of night, the agony of the silence and the solitude – it is in these shadows that her cries go unheard in the distant night. Doubt of her actions flood her with panic like wildfire, fear for her child, oh her child, what will become of her child. No – dawn is soon to break. He will be here soon.

It is nearly morning. It has not been enough, though it should have been enough, the extraordinary sacrifice she’d made that night. It should have been enough, leaving everyone and everything she’d ever called home. It should have been sufficient. Indeed it was adequate, this brave gesture of immeasurable faith. But it was not enough. For when the sun finally broke through the tendrils of night in the early dawn hours, it exposed what had remained hidden in the darkness – the bruised and broken figure of a young girl, swollen, exposed, fading, and alone in her darkness.