She didn't know what she was supposed to be running away from. Every night, she dreamed about running away from someone, yet she didn't know who. It was always in some house. In one dream, she was in a mansion. The other night, she dreamt she was in just some ordinary middle-class home. Sometimes, the dream showed her watching a black-and-white horror movie in which a bunch of people were running. Yet, the majority were dreams in which she was trying to escape a stranger stalking her. But in none of the dreams did anything ever happen to her.
She did get found in one dream, but he let her walk away. In real life, would it be that easy?
One sunny summer day, she was outside trying to tan on her clear white porch. She was a 23 year old woman living on her own for the first time. The home she lived in belonged to her grandparents a while back. In her grandmother's will, she found out that the home now belonged to her. The home was three stories and was bright and homey. The sun always was shining through the windows with cute lace drapes. The house was quite old, but it felt safe. It was a place she wanted to have a family in for generations to come.
While listening to the same songs on repeat on her 4th generation IPod touch, she opened her eyes and noticed something odd. In the distance, she saw someone walking through the woods. She sat up thinking it was one of her neighbors checking up on the new girl. However, it was an unfamiliar face, and he did not look as friendly as her overly happy "Pleasantville" neighbors. She wondered if he had a home behind the woods, but how desperate would he really be to bring neighborly hospitality when he lived on the other side of the woods? When she saw him walking closer, she looked at his eyes, and he reminded her of the guy from her dream.
"How is this possible?" she thought to herself for she did not know what to do.
She decided to walk into her house as if nothing strange was happening. I mean how often does a random adult walk through the woods alone? She quickly locked her door and kneeled under a window. She began to spy through the window to make sure that she was just being paranoid or that the guy really was some random creeper. That made her remember all the times when she would roam the forest with her cousins and she realized that those woods went on forever.
One summer day in 2006, a bunch of her cousins stayed for a week at their grandmother’s house and they decided to walk throughout the woods to take a hike. They always longed for adventures when the group got together. That same day, they found a little home with a beautiful pond with the greenest grass she ever saw. Oh, there were other homes behind the woods, but that house looked as if the property belonged in a classic movie. It did seem as if no one else lived in that home since there was never another person in sight.
That was not the last time she went to visit that home. The last day she stayed with her grandma, she decided to walk back to the quaint property. She got her cousin Amber to walk with her. Once they arrived, they decided to lay by the pond and watch the classy white swans swim around the pond. They stayed for an hour and rambled on about their favorite movies, their childhood memories, and sang random Hilary Duff songs as they used to sing on the back of their grandfather’s tractor. In that hour, no one else appeared. It seemed as if no one lived in that little home. As the girls walked away, the girls decided to sign their names on the large oak tree. As 13 year old 8th graders, they did not realize that maybe it was not the smartest of ideas.
She then noticed him walking around her yard taking her out of her haze. She noticed that he was trying to find something... or someone. "Maybe he lost an item that belonged to him here. But what would he find here?" She thought. Suddenly he was walking up towards the back door, making the girl run to her den. She waited to find out if he was going to knock on the locked door. Except, she did not hear him knock, she heard him trying to open the door himself! She could tell it was not a family member or a friend, and with that knowledge, she ran as fast as she could upstairs. She couldn't help but think that if he wasn’t sketchy, he would have at least knocked on the door. Before finding a hiding place, she found her grandfathers old gun to keep with her to protect herself from danger. She ran into her bedroom closet and climbed into a secret hideout she had back there. She did keep her bedroom door open to throw him off. If her door was locked, he would know she was hiding in there.
She sat in anticipation that he was going to find her. She did not hear any footsteps around her home, but her paranoia made her feel like something bad was going to happen. Her dreams seem to foreshadow something that she thought was never really going to happen.
Finally, she heard loud strides through her home, and before she had time to process what she was hearing, he appeared before her very eyes.
"Hello Victoria, I have been excited to meet you for forever..."
Be sure to catch his side of the story!
