Ficlets

Her chest is on fire, the world is blurred around the edges. It moves against her wishes. It breathes and twists and tears at her, but she pushes forward. Instinct is all she has now.

Later, when the drug they gave her wears off, she will finally have the presence of mind to congratulate herself on her daring escape. She will take stock of what she still has: shoes, shoe laces, socks, long pants, long sleeved shirt, underwear, under wire bra,elastic hair tie, two bobby pins, her glasses, a jacket, her health and her brain. Everything else was taken away.

She will administer to her wounds (inflicted both by man and nature) as she was taught to do. She will acknowledge she is lost deep in a woods she doesn’t know, but she will remain calm, orient herself to the cardinal directions, find and follow running water. She will survive to return to the Agency and give her report.

But right now, she is running for her life, and she’s half out of her mind.