Manqué

The light flashed across the field for the third time. She raced through the forest, almost instinctively ducking and weaving through the trees. Her short sharp breaths filled her lungs with a cold pain but still she ran on.
The fear controlled her.
It carried her through the pain.

The forest became a clearing. Men stood. Guarding the hatch. They read her face and leapt into action, leading the women and children into the dugout. She was last. The men scattered.
A silhouette closed the hatch.
Silent tears fell on the dirt as mothers held their children, shaking.
A hand smothers a baby as it begins to cry.
Silence.
Dogs…barking.
Gun shots punctured the frozen air. Shouts became shrieks then died with their owners. A wife cries out as her name echoes through the woods dissipating with her lover.
~
Shards of light fracture the den as morning comes…too soon. Children wince at the intruding rays as they snuggle up to their mothers…safe.
She is the first to rise. Cautiously, the hatch is lifted up, startling the nothingness that plagued the trees. Moans waft up from the pit as the light leaks in, touching the vacant faces.
~
She searched the woods. The men are gone.

Her mind drifts…
…school…friends…family…netball…violin…
…DOGS.
her legs had carried her a couple hundred meters into the forest before she could think. Her face and limbs assaulted by a constant onslaught of twigs and branches. The barks got louder. She could hear voices. No where to hide.
Gun shots. She kept running.
Faster and faster.
Teeth pierced her leg
She fell forward.
Defeated, she lay.
Cheated of the life she could have lived.

Manqué- That might have been but is not, that has missed being