I can feel the sharp blades of grass tickle the back of my legs. I can smell the sharply sweet smell of fresh honeysuckle nearby. I can feel the heat of the sun beating down on my back, but the cool breeze dancing across my white sundress accompanies it. And then, I hear it. The faint sound of a…hum. I slowly open my eyes and there it is, a brilliant green humming bird, floating right above my face. Instead of flying away, it just hovers above me, like a majestic floating emerald. It was almost as if it was as perplexed as I was. And it was almost as if time had stopped in that instant.

And suddenly, the bird’s head snaps to the left and then back to me, it’s beady eyes focused on mine. And then it turns and quickly flies away. My breathing begins to quicken. I sit up, looking all around for the jewel, but instead I spot a thunderous cloud, with rain pouring out of it, hurdling towards me. The winds begin to pick up, making the air cold. The hair on the back of my neck stands up with alertness as a sense of foreboding overcomes me. I stand as the cloud gets closer and the wind flaps my white sundress against my legs. In the distance, I make out a large dark object running in my direction. My heart stops. My arms get chill bumps. My entire body turns rigid, but every alert center in my brain is telling me to do one thing: run.

I turn and begin pumping my legs as hard as I can, trying to put as much distance as possible between the figure and I. But it is almost as if the ground I am running on is inclining. The more I run, the steeper the hill becomes. I turn my head and I can see the figure behind me, not even two hundred yards away. My heart is racing. Sweat is dripping down my face and soaking through the back of my white sundress. But I push forward, determined not to let him get near me.

The rain is on top of us now, coming down in large sheets, making the ground slick and slip with mud. The more my feet sink into the clay, the harder I trudge. He is getting closer; he is faster and bigger, almost three times my size. I see the crest of the hill forming up ahead; it can’t be too far now. My body is screaming with pain, begging me to stop running. He’s so close; I can feel his eyes burn into the back of my skull.

I. Will. Not. Give. In.

The top of the hill, it’s right there. I’m almost there. I have to keep pushing. My feet plod through the mud-caked grass and twigs and pebbles. The rain has made my white sundress stick to me, almost like a second skin. I am exhausted, but I can’t stop; he’s gaining on me.

I made it! I stand at the top of the hill. The view beyond, it is just so spectacular and magical. There’s no rain, the grass glistens with fresh dew, and there, the sweet smell of honeysuckle returns to my nostrils. Just as I am about to scamper into that safe paradise, I feel a strong hand grab a hold of my long hair and pull me back so hard that my feet lift off the ground. My back lands with a thud on the wet ground, and all the air that I could hold gets expelled from my lungs. I choke. I gasp. Anything to get the air back in. Before I can actually wrap my mind around what is happening, my hair gets wrenched again, and I am being pulled away from paradise and back into my horrifying nightmare. Back into the rain and into the darkness and into the pain.

I attempt to pull my hair back, but he is too strong. I can feel the mud slide into my dress, dirtying the pure white color. I try to flip over onto my stomach and pull my hair back, but I only manage to twist my body and hair in pain. I begin to pull back with all the strength I have left. I hear a tear, and a white hot flash of pain goes through my scalp as a pig piece of my hair gets pulled away in the man’s hands. The pain brings tears to my eyes; I will myself not to start sobbing. I try to get up and run once more, but my mind is nothing but a jumbled mass of confusion. He grabs my ankles before I can even attempt to regain some mental stability and begins dragging me down the hill again. I try everything in my power to get away: I dig my nails into the ground; I kick, I scream, I pull, I flail my body all around. But, no matter what I do, he holds fast to my ankles. I’m still fighting when I hear a blood curdling scream from up ahead. The scream chilled me to my core. It made me panic. It was the scream that belonged to my twin.

This made me fight even harder, kick harsher, dig my nails deeper, scream louder. I yell “You can’t do this to us!”

The man turns and leans into me, almost putting all of his body weight on me, and puts his face very close to mine. A combination of sweat and rain drips from his face onto mine. His hot, disgusting breath smells like death and stale beer. He gets his mouth really close to my ear and says, “Why? Ain’t nobody gonna do anything about it. So I can to whatever I want.”

He pulls his face to reveal the face that not only haunts me here in my dreams, but in my reality as well. I see the eyes that take my sister’s and my clothes off when we walk by. I see the strong and fatty build of the man who stands in our doorway at night. I feel the strong hands that hit Momma and sissy and me grab my ankles again and just keep dragging me.

I scream as loud as I can for help, but I know that no one can hear me for miles. And the only thing I hear is my sister screming. And just as I am about to give up entirely, let him take my sister and me, I see the jewel again, fling back to me. It hovers above my face and, again, it seems as if time stops in that instant. The bird tilts it’s brilliant green head to the side, looking at me with this strange curiosity. It’s beak opened slightly and I hear words come from the direction of it: “Get out now”.

And right before the bird flies away again and time resumes, I wake up, gasping for air again. My clothes, my hair, and my bed are all matted with sweat. My heart is racing. Every muscle in my body feels like its pumped full of liquid lead. I reach for my scalp and let out a sigh of relief when there isn’t a bald spot on the crown of my head. I look over at bed across from me and see my twin sister sleeping soundly and, more or less, unharmed for the moment being. I begin to calm down, my breathing and heart rate begin to slow, and my muscles begin to relax. And outside of the window above my bed I hear it again… a faint hum. I sit up and kneel on my bed to look out the window. To my bewilderment, there it is, the brilliant green humming bird floating outside my window in the middle of the night. And just as quickly as I heard it appear, it turns and flies away.

It is then that I know exactly what I needed to do. Trying not to make a single sound, I crawl out of my bed and slide over to the closet that my sister and I share. I pull out a bag for the both of us and stuff it with necessary articles clothing. Then, trying not to make the floor boards creek, I walk across the hall to my bathroom and grab the necessities for my sister and me. I return to my room, kneel down in the spot where I’m almost positive it is. I move my hands across the wooden floorboards until I feel a groove, and I peel off the board from the floor, as gently and swiftly as possible. My hand wraps around the hard surface of the money and stuffs all of the money I have earned and saved into my bag.

I tiptoe over to my sister’s bed and gently wake her; upon instinct she flinches, thinking that it was someone else. I lean into her hear and whisper, “We’re getting out of here. Get dressed quietly and quickly. We’re going to sneak out the back door, walk as far as we can or until we find a bus stop. We are going to go to the police, and we are going to show and tell them everything. Don’t be afraid, because I will always be right next you. But we have to leave now, understand?”

She gives me a tentative nod. We get dressed, clothes go over our bruises and the cigar burns on our arms and legs. We grab our bags and quickly, but quietly, tiptoe past the hallway, our mom’s room, the living room, and the kitchen until we reach the back door. We carefully open the door, praying that it doesn’t squeak, and slip out into the night. We hold onto each other’s hands and run as fast as we can through the night, with hope being our only guide.