The Decision

• Mehretayehu Eyassu, Grade 7, Burgmann Anglican School - Forde Campus
• Short Story
• 2017

Excellence Award in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

You can hear them coming from blocks away, their footsteps mocking me from afar. I pant as my body moves up and down, my speed increasing every step and every second. ‘Stop’, my mind tells me, ‘They can help you’. I brush it off but it keeps talking to me, it’s them. I ignore it again like I did before but I can still hear its nagging voice. I don’t need help, I can do this on my own, and I’ve faced worse people and fantasies than this. Anyway, they haven’t helped me so far. I wish I never got involved. I wish I never asked. I wish that I’d buried it down inside of me until the day I die. But I didn’t want that day to be today.
It’s my fault I lost them. They were the only people I knew, that knew me, that understood me. It’s my responsibility, my job, to fix this. Fix all of this. I turn at a corner which lead to an alleyway. You’d think I would’ve gotten used to the area by know. But this part of the city was a place I’d never get used to, no matter how many times I go and come back to it. I smash my back against the brick wall, my shirt sticking to the wall. I try to stay stiff still, if I rip my back off the wall it’d make a noise, that’s the last thing I want to happen. I can hear voices, I hold my breath, as the steps get louder, their footsteps were calm and light. The footsteps didn’t sound as if they were mad. It was as if they calm. But I bet it was fake, that it was all an act to get me out. Cold air hits me as they pass.
It was a sign of victory, a sign of power. Now all I needed to do was run in the other direction. I think I’ve done it right this time, I don’t think they have any reason to send me back. I’m going home now, to get mum. But suddenly my eyes feel as heavy as boulders, they fall and I can’t see anything. All I see is a dark world, I have no control over my body as it falls to the ground. I know what this means. It means I have to go back. I start to feel my body fall, fall down an endless hole of which I know I can’t escape.