The smoke chokes everyone. Chaos hits the street. People madly run about trying to find their loved ones. Some are even escaping off the island on boats, sirens blare from tall white towers - pounding against my ear drums. I scan the area attempting to find my family among the clutter of people. With no luck I await by our cottage home. Brushing the grass with my fingertips, I then adjust my hunting jacket around my shoulders. The feeling of its soft leather warms me of feeling secure and safe just as was over an hour ago.
Memories come over me; remembering when our family went out in the woods collecting pine needles for a homemade tea and sparing trout for our dinner. The woods are like a sanctuary to us. We can hide in it. Feel free, do what we want with no one peering eyes. Some nights my father, brother and I go down into the woods - while all were asleep - and practice snaring, spearing and fishing. My father is a local fisherman. He's quiet handy with a trident. He told my brother, Bryson, that he'd teach him how to use a trident and me how to spear in a year's time.
Another round of sirens go off along with gunshots and screaming. What's going on?
My heart starts picking up its pace causing my breathing to quicken. No one's come back for me. Have they gone off into the woods? Maybe thinking I would? I have no clue what is happening in the center town because never once have the sirens gone off in our two horse island.
But the thing we were told if this ever happened was to get out.
