Photo: #CCC48
She crouched and tried to still her heart and limbs so the water would not give her away in wavelets or ripples.
Her teeth chattered. She wasn’t dressed for wet and the day’s sun had little warmth, none of which reached the shaded culvert.
She strained to listen.
She did all she could think of to hide her steps, but she wasn’t likely to escape the dogs. If they brought them. Oh pray please, please, that they did not. Not the dogs.
Her breath hitched and she bit down on her lip to try and swallow the sob that rode on it. The metal taste of blood filled her mouth. She heard barking. Surely the dogs could smell it. And her fear.
She closed her eyes and prayed to become stone.
She would not feel their chains, the bites, the clubs, their touch, their lashes, if she were a stone.
For the Crimson Creative Challenge
Na'ama Yehuda 
Ooh, that’s so descriptive and chilled no.
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Thanks, Sunny … Somehow the contrast between the still, sunny, clear water, and the darkness in the culvert brought this up … For stillness isn’t always what it seems to be. …
XOXO
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Whew. This was a thriller, Na’ama
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Yeah. Took me on a ride, this one. Yikes.
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Echoes of runaway slaves. I used to read books by Frank Yerby, many of which were set in the southern slave states. He told it real. He was black. And this has echoes of some of his books.
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Yes. I could well echo those stories.
As it could the realities of those escaping North Korea, or trafficking, or tribal wars, or the forced ‘marriages’ (also trafficking, really) of ‘war brides’ (aka sex slaves), and the other realities of human slavery. But yes, certainly those of runaway slaves in the not-too-long-ago history of the US, too.
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The one I’ve read most about. 🙂
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Yep. I hear you!
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