Face Your Fears

• Daisy Stewart, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2012

FACE YOUR FEARS

PART 1

1894
AUGUST 23RD
I escaped with only the clothes I was wearing... dirty ripped and blood stained. Two other convicts escaped along side of me. I could barely walk with all the deep cuts from the barb-wire covering the solid brick wall I had jumped earlier. The sound of gun shots made me jump as they came closer and closer, I felt a bullet strike my left leg and I fell to the ground. My life flashed before my very eyes as I lay knocked unconscious.

AUGUST 25TH
When I woke I lay still in the long, dead grass, staring up at the grey sky. The taste of dirt swirled in my mouth. A couple of black blurs circled the sky. Later I noticed, they weren’t just a black blur... they were vultures, waiting anxiously to feed on my bare flesh. I slowly became more aware to them as they started coming towards me. I clenched a ragged branch in my hand; I could feel the thin pieces of wood digging into my bare hands as I repeatedly thought to myself, “is this the end for me?”
I struggled but I slowly began to stand, using as much energy as possible. I waved my branch around, trying to fend for myself as they surrounded me. It wasn’t long before there were dozens of vultures waiting to feed on me.

AUGUST 26TH
As I poked and wacked as many as I could, like I had been doing so for a day. I began to get tired... I couldn’t go on. I fell to the ground in exhaustion and just then, I heard a faint sound in the distance. It got louder and louder. Slowly, the big burdens started to stand down and eventually flew away. And then I saw it, a truck, and it was heading my way! I got up and ran towards it, I stopped in the middle of the road waving my arms in the air like a mad man. The trucks brakes screeched in front of me as it stopped, the man got out of the car. He was a nice man but he did not know that I was wanted all over town. But if I told him that would probably eliminate the element of kindness towards me, so I don’t.

AUGUST 28TH
He took me to the hospital; I thanked the man and then got out of the car. But if I was to go into the hospital I would just be noticed and put back that big cage (jail). So I just ran into the big bushland near the hospital and tried to figure out a plan. My only fear was that a policeman would find me. I was going to need a disguise.
Later I found a place with wigs, clothes, glasses, even fake noses! It was the perfect plan.