The bus arrived at the designated time, and I tagged on before choosing a seat. The one that I’d picked was close enough to one of the doors that I could relax a bit and was a window seat (!) to boot so I could look at the scenery as the bus drove to Orland.
The last of the passengers boarded the bus, the doors closed, and the bus rumbled to life, beginning the long ride to Orland.
The sky gradually darkened as the bus drove, going from the vague dusk it was when I arrived at the station to the full starry sky. I tried to see if I could spot any constellations, but the light produced by street lamps prevented me from doing so.
I yawned as fatigue made itself known, and my eyes gently closed as I reviewed the events of the day, eventually falling asleep to the rumbling of the bus.
As I slept, I dreamt of the day my father took me from our home in Asniyo to Valeria’s Inner City.
I sat on the floor of my bedroom, playing with my toys, completely absorbed in the story that I had created. A cheerful song played on the radio in the kitchen, which my mother sang along to as she pottered around doing who-knows-what. Perhaps she was baking or tidying things up. Perhaps she had been making me an afternoon snack. I’ll never know what exactly she was doing, as that was when something bad happened to her. There was a cry of pain, a wet-sounding thump, then the sound of the radio being smashed against the kitchen floor.
That sound was what pulled me out of my storytelling, mainly because of the unexpectedness of it. It startled a little four-year-old me, and I began to cry. My father came in to soothe me, blood still under his fingernails, and he told me to “pack the things that you want to keep, we’re going to go on an adventure!”
I remember my tears drying near instantly as I quickly forgot about my fright, and I ran to pack the things that little me thought was important, namely my absolute favourite stuffed animals (of which there were only three because they were all I had), my little tin of money, and a small, ornately decorated box that my mother had given me. Now that I look back on it, had Dad more closely inspected what exactly I had packed, and not just crammed clothes on top of it, I would have almost certainly been unable to take that box.
My dad took my hand and led me through the house, stopping at the bathroom to grab toothbrushes, then my parent’s bedroom to grab money, before he grabbed our coats and led me out the back door, avoiding the kitchen. We climbed over the garden wall and out onto the road, following it for a few minutes, before my dad abruptly scooped me up and sprinted into the woods.
We travelled through the woods for several weeks, only stopping to sleep until we came to the Valerian border outpost. We got through with little trouble, and we travelled through a bunch of towns until we got to the Inner City.
The bus pulled me out of my dream as it drove into the station in the early hours of the morning. I swung my bag onto my back and made my way off the bus, tagging off as I did so, then grabbed a map and found a bench to sit on as I contemplated what to do next.
The first item on the agenda was to get a phone, since dear old Dad had thoroughly broken mine by nailing it to the kitchen wall, and I wanted to check the news to see if there was anything about me being reported missing. Second item: find a place to stay. I didn’t care if it was a hotel room, an abandoned building, or a homeless shelter. I just needed a place to crash until I crossed the border. Once I had a ‘home base’ of sorts, this meant I could take a moment and properly assess what supplies I had, and give me a chance to take a quick nap before sunrise.
* * *
I ended up accidentally falling asleep on the bench. Listen, it had been a long day, what with me running away and all, and I hadn’t intended to fall asleep to begin with, but I guess my exhaustion had caught up with me.
The sky was light, and there was enough light that I could see, but the sun hadn’t risen enough to become visible yet. I think it was about 5am, but I didn’t have a watch to corroborate with. Whatever the time it was, it was early enough that very few people were out and about. Nothing was open yet, not even a single bakery, so I wandered aimlessly around Orland until it was a more respectable time to be awake.
I took the opportunity to duck into some public toilets to change my clothes because honestly? The clothes I had been wearing until then were getting kinda gross, and I welcomed the feeling of clean clothes - well, cleanish; they were a little musty from sitting in my schoolbag for a day - against my skin. Going over to the sink, I wetted my hands to see if I could get my hair looking somewhat respectable, but I ended up just making myself look like I’d walked through a waterfall.
Dammit.
I sighed, then leant over the sink, gripping the sides and looking at myself in the mirror.
My face, staring back at me, looked a little better than yesterday, probably because I had been under the sun for the first time in a long while. My eyes were still a little dull, but the purple bags - actually, they could have just about qualified for suitcases - were less prominent than they had been for the past few months as well.
Turning away from the sink, I slipped my jacket back on, tucked my mask into my backpack, and left the small building. The sun had risen a lot higher, which meant that I’d spent more time in the toilets than I’d meant to, but it also meant that I could find a tech store or something similar to pick up a new phone. If that turned out to be too hard, I was sure there had to be a library around here somewhere that I could use a computer at.
* * *
Forty minutes later, I was down about 400 dollars, but I had a phone. It was just a simple flip phone, but that was all I needed. It had even come with a charger. I’d also picked up some hair bleach and some concealer in what I guessed was my shade, which I figured I could use to change my appearance up if it turned out that people were looking for me. If I needed to, I could buy hair dye at a later date, but for now, just having the bleach as a fallback was good enough.
One problem down, many more problems to go.
I then went in search of a place I could crash. I wasn’t very picky about it, so I ended up booking a motel room for a few days. It was a moderately sized room, boasting a double bed and a small table with a TV on it, and had a small bathroom off to the side that also contained the smallest shower I had seen in my life. I set my bag down beside the bed, out of sight of the door, then grabbed my wallet and went back out again, this time in search of a library.
It didn’t take long for me to stumble upon the library, where I politely asked if the computers were for library members only, and if so, could they sign me up for a library card? The librarians were very sweet, and told me that no, they were open to the public, but if I still wanted a library card, they would happily sign me up.
Had I not been in the process of running away, I would have dearly loved to sign up, but alas, I couldn’t. I expressed my regrets, and the librarians were very understanding. With that out of the way, I logged onto a computer and immediately went about setting up a new email address. It wasn’t worth trying to keep any of my old ones, mostly because they were either a) deactivated or b) monitored by my dad 24/7. I got it set up under the name Jamie Connors (a shortened version of my name plus my dad’s old last name), then drafted an email to my girlfriend to see if I could ever get back into her good graces. It was short and went something along the lines of:
Hi Annie,
It’s Jamie Malcolms. I’m sorry for practically ghosting you, but I had to leave and I don’t think I’ll be coming back. It’s not your fault, it’s the fault of my dad. For what it’s worth, I genuinely enjoyed being around you, and it really fucking sucks that we can’t be together.
If you’re willing, I’d like to stay friends. If that’s not possible, I completely understand.
From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry for any pain or anguish I’ve caused by my abrupt disappearance, and I wish you well in all future endeavours.
Love,
Jamie.
I must have reread it a thousand times before I sent it.
Navigating away from the tab, I turned to the local forums to embark on the extensive and difficult journey of job searching. I looked for any odd jobs, babysitting gigs, or pet sitting gigs that people needed that were close enough that I could get there by walking. There were a couple that piqued my interest, such as people needing someone to mow their lawns, clear gutters, fix things, etcetera, so I sent those people an email expressing my interest along with my contact details, then turned to the local news sites.
Thankfully (well, thankfully for me ), there was nothing in the news about one James Malcolms. However, and oh, wasn’t this interesting, I spotted a news report about a kid that I vaguely remembered being in a few of my classes at school back in the Inner City named Taran. Apparently, they’d done a runner just like I had, except they’d been nearly caught by the YPO on the cable car line. I clicked back to the homepage and scrolled there for a bit, but nothing caught my eye and I ended up logging off and leaving soon after.
As I was making my way back, I saw that a nearby op shop had some schoolbags, and I came over to check them out and see if they could replace mine as the zippers were pretty busted, plus one of the straps had started to come away from the main bag. Two of the bags that were in view had holes in them that I didn’t think I could repair with my limited skills, one was too small, but the very last one was perfect. Well, almost perfect. The only thing that irked me about it was that it was a quite vibrant shade of blue. I honestly considered it for a bit, before deciding that I had spent enough money for the day and moved away, heading back in the direction of the motel. I figured that if it was still there after a couple of days, I would go back for it, but I was content with my old one for now.
The sky was dark, and I felt the chill of the air as I arrived back and fumbled the key out of my pocket. I went in, shutting the door behind me, then opened the box that my newly-acquired flip phone came in, looked for an outlet to plug the charger into, then set the phone down on the floor beside the outlet to let it charge. With that done, I shifted my stuff off the bed and onto the floor, took my shoes off, got under the covers, closed my eyes and did my best to fall asleep.