BREATH . OF . LIFE . ~ { ReGenisis Chronicles Book I }

Chapter One : The Day I Died *NEW*

                       -Kathleen Firethorn-

I was running. 

Faster, faster, I could hear their heavy footfall on the ground behind me, catching up. The world raced by me in a stream of blended colours. Mottling into nothing but a blur and the smell of damp, decaying autumn leaves strong up my nose. 

Faster, I willed myself on, keep going. My lungs were sore, my chest constricting tightly around me as my muscles screamed for oxygen. My legs strained, but pushed on numbly, clumsily. My head was spinning, throat dry. My hands clenched so tightly into fists as I swung them back and forth that they'd become pale orbs, feelingless. If I released them they would tingle as if I'd stuck them into ice water. 

 My foot caught a tree root that had raised just enough beneath the cover of the dead leaf trail to trip me up. I knew it was all over in the fall, time seemed to slow and I couldn't help but think back to the moment I'd decided it was time to try and run again, one week ago. I always hoped this time would be the last I'd have to run, just not like this.

                                                  ONE WEEK BEFORE

My life is sheltered. Literally. I have no home,  just a cold prison masquerading as a mansion, hidden in plain sight. I don't go out beyond the front gate of its grounds. There are wardens, apparently for my protection, body guards, always stationed to keep an eye on daddy's little asset. No chance of sneaking out, I've tried it many times, each time I get dragged back and more restrictions incurred. I feel like a caged animal most days.  Over time it's made me feel flimsy.  Like I'm just some thin, pale, smoke like shell. Here, but wasted. I don't feel alive. Closest I come to it is when I run. I've only got the grounds to stretch my legs, some days I don't want to stop, I want to push through the barriers. Get out of here.

I'm not exactly a kid expecting to be given free reign. I'm no teenager trying to rebel. I turned twenty in the spring, it's autumn now, but for a long time I've been trapped in permanent winter. Waiting for life to start. For leaves to grow, for sun to shine, ice to melt. But it never happens.

I've often wondered if any of this is real. The house stuck in time, the mother stuck in protocol and the ways of the past, the father somewhere out there building a future, promising one, and never delivering. The child  never allowed to grow up, but not given the freedom of Neverland either.

Staring up at wall mounted weapons in my parent's bedroom, mother's downstairs in her office, dad's not due home for another couple days, if he shows up at all. I can't help but wonder what sort of person collects knives, daggers and swords, from many cultures, and then thinks it would be cosy to display them in their own bedroom. 

My father has an obsession with bladed weapons, guns too I'm pretty sure. But those are locked away. One in a compartment inside the top drawer of his bedside cabinet. You have to uncover it and slide a hatch. I only know because I had a nightmare one night when I was eleven, not long after my confinement from the outside world began. It already felt like forever though. I dreamed someone was at the window, terrible burns all over their skin, scars, blood, and animal eyes. My father automatically reached into his drawer and first pulled out his phone, hitting a speed dial button, requesting help, then he slid the hatch and pulled out a hand gun. Sleek and silver, I couldn't tell you what calibre. The internet's activity has always been monitored in our house. I guess he was just trying to protect me, everything he does is to protect me and my mother apparently. But she's allowed to leave with less than three armed escorts. I get that ,and more. I only wish I knew why. I wish I knew who my father was. But in all honesty, I know nothing.