𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄 | 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

🌹 The Lost One

Author's Note: I found this last short story amid more old papers and decided to post it. This is actually a merge of three separate drafts I found so, hopefully, they blended well enough. One draft's date was unknown but likely somewhere between 2009-2010, another was dated "March 9, 2010", and the last was dated "May 17, 2014". I hope y'all enjoy this short story <3

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She knew she could never go back to her life. As soon as she started running, she could never stop, never look back...never see home again. Everything she knew before was over. She knew it from the moment she those five little words tickled her ears, "You are the lost one." And she knew in her heart that she needed to stay that way.

But perhaps, dear reader, I should take you back to the very beginning. Maybe then you can understand what this girl went through, how much heartache leaving caused her. What brought her to these ends. Yes...yes, let's do that.

The sun was shining, blindingly bright as a breeze blew the leaves in the treetops. It was a beautiful summer day in Wales which frankly put, was unusual.

And there in the countryside nestled in between two great rolling emerald-green hills was a tiny white cottage with a straw-thatched roof. And it is there in the backyard of this home where our story begins...

Young Ellie Weston sighed to herself as strands of her unruly ginger hair fell in her face. She could never get it to stay in place no matter how hard she tried. Sighing to herself once more, with long slender fingers that she lifted from the well-worn pages of her favorite book propped on her lap, she tucked the strands back into its bun. There! Now she could get back to her reading.

Suddenly, an ominous rustling in the woods that lay slightly beyond the hills caught her attention. Despite her agitation at being interrupted once again, she lifted her head to gaze out at where the noise had emitted from but there were only shadows. With a shrug, she returned to her reading.

Snap!

Now that was unmistakable. That definitely was something. She rolled her eyes in frustration and got up from where she was sitting, leaving her book lying by the trunk of the tree.

She marched over to the wood line and gazed out, thinking it must be one of her little brothers attempting to prank her. Unfortunately, the twins had now reached the age where they believed pranking others to be a type of sporting event.

"Okay, Liam, Richie! I know it's one of you three!" she called out, her voice loud in the silence that followed.

Huffing in annoyance, she tried again, "Guys? Come on, you're not fooling anybody!"

She waited a beat longer but still that infuriating silence met her ears. A tendril of fear curled in her stomach but she tamped it down. There was no need for that. It was probably just some local boys trying to rile her up. Nothing to fear. Yet her steps were still hesitant as she began to pick her way through the woods, her feet finding their own way around the labyrinthine-like tangle of roots.

Pushing hanging vines and tree limbs out of her way as she moved, she began to question her sanity. There seemed to be no sign of her pesky neighborhood boys and she wondered if this truly had been a smart idea. Just then up ahead, she spotted a dense smoky fog permeating the air. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. What in the world could that possibly be? she thought to herself.

But evidently, she was not destined to know the answer as a twig snapped behind her. She whipped around to face her attacker but it was much too late for that. Something hard and heavy hit her square in the forehead and she was out cold on the damp forest floor.

As she swam in and out of consciousness, random thoughts zipped by in her brain. For some reason, her mind latched onto a conversation she had just had with her nana the previous morning.

"I mean, I don't know, Nana. Whenever I see him, I feel excited and happy. But whenever he's not around or I see him talking to some other girl at school, I just...I see red. And I feel hurt. I...I don't know what's wrong with me. There's just...something about him that makes me have feelings I can't explain."

Nana smiled knowingly before taking a brief sip of her tea, "Oh, well, obviously we know what that is. It's love, dearie."

Ellie did a total spit-take with her own cup of tea which elicited a disapproving look from her nana.

"Love?! Are you crazy or something, Nana?! I'm-I am not in love."

The old woman shrugged slightly, "Never said you were. I just said it was love. You don't know the boy and he doesn't know you. So, how could you be in love? You can only be in love when there's two people who love each other. Therefore, IN love. So it is simply love on your part."

"Yeah, but...but..."

"Oh, no buts about it. You are. And I know these things."

"Nana, I'm not! I promise I'm not."

"Don't make a promise you can't keep." My Nana said, wagging her finger at me.

Vaguely, somewhere seemingly outside of myself, she wondered if she'd ever see that boy again - the one that made her heart beat a little too fast. Darkness overcame her suddenly and was lost to the world once more.

breathe. shhh. slowly. it's alright. that's it. breathe.

That is the voice she heard talking softly above her. Instinctively, she wriggled her body slightly. The voice sighed.

stop moving. it's alright. just be still.

She obeyed and did not move. She only wondered now when she finally did open her eyes, would she see her savior...or her captor?

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