We were sprinting for our lives, fear propelling us to our maximum limit. I kept glancing back, seeing if we had lost them or not. I couldn’t hear them. All I could hear was the rasping of my lungs and the loud, thunderous throbbing of my heart beat pounding and pulsing in my ears, like a raging thunderstorm was erupting within me. But the faster I sprinted, the harder it was to lift my legs, like it was a heavy weight pulling me down.
I wanted to scream out something, to tell Ellie and Corrie which way to go. But the words kept getting stuck in my throat, struggling to escape like a frightened monkey in a cage. I attempted to swallow saliva stuck in my mouth and gulp down large amounts of air so I could shout out something, but my body couldn’t spare the breath. My mouth started to produce copious amounts of white, sticky saliva as the wind soared into my mouth, and I felt like I wasn’t able to swallow or talk properly.
We swerved into a dark driveway and caught our breath. “Let’s stay off the road,” I gasped just as a person’s shout echoed into the night. Suddenly, the rapid rattle of rifle fire burst through tree branches with colossal force, a short shower of death whizzed around us. The bullets ricocheted off houses and splinters of wood and dust hovered in the air like a small sand storm. The hurricane of dust impaired our vision for a few seconds, choking us, slowing us down.
We ran. We dodged. We weaved. I would have screamed if I could have afforded the breath, the thought. All I could do now was run. We followed Ellie, past a few houses and then got round to the back of a house. Some more cries were heard through the intense heat of the night, loud thudding footsteps were closing their distance on us. My deafening heart beat faster. I could barely stand from shaking. I tried to calm down but it was no use. Suddenly, I realized no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get away.
We were