Blood. Tears. Run. Faster. Blood. Tears. Blood. Tears. Faster, faster. Don't look back. Faster. Blood and tears mixing. Run. Don't stop. Run. Run from the blood. Let the tears leave you. Bloody tears. Run now. Run!

That was all that went through my whirlwinding mind as I fled, my pale arms pumping at my side, my shoes scuffing on the dirt beneath me. The dirt was tinted red, but it wasn't iron which colored it. My dark bangs were stuck to my face by tears and sweat, as my lopsided gate tossed my two messy braids.

I couldn't see, vision blurred with water, and stumbled, forever clutching dearly onto the bloody ragdoll who's bones my grip would surely have broken, had she had any, and not been merely a thing of wool and cloth.

My side ached, but I couldn't feel it as I continued to run.

It is amazing how much strength sadness can thieve from you, and how much energy is used by the rampage of tears. How empty it leaves you, no matter how terribly you wish to cry again.

I stumbled again. Why couldn't I think straight?

With both thought and vision impaired, I kept running hard... Anybody who saw me might have thought me running for my life-and I very well could have been for my unthinking rush, and the state which it left me.

But I had to get away.

I had to get away from it all. Slow. Think.

I kept running. No! I have to keep going!

Slow. Breathe. Where are you going to? Why don't you stop for a moment's breath? It will still be there, wherever you are headed.

Oh, but I couldn't stop, no matter what part of me knew I should. No matter the fact that my mind conflicted as two squabbling siblings might-I wasn't about to slow my pace, even as my breath grew heavier and heavier, harsher and harsher.

The wind tore at my throat, and I kept going. My legs turned to cement weights, and I kept going. My heart pounded, thudded, making my shoulders vibrate with each lub-dub, my skin was fiery red... and I kept going. Some may argue me idiotic, and some may call me brave, but at that time, all I knew was the blood which lay behind me and the dark which I threw myself headlong into.

I was never an apt runner-hadn't been brought up to be-and I finally collapsed, my legs sprawled around me, my fist still clutching tightly to my ragdoll's neck. Frantically, I looked around-I surely wasn't yet far enough from that which I wished to leave behind. But, I couldn't stand back up, my energy completely leaving me, like a burst of escaping glory. In one cough, it was all gone...

And I sat there... and couldn't cry.

I wanted with all my strength (of which there was nearly none) to cry. I wanted to soothe myself with tears, and allow my emotions to leave me. ...But now they wouldn't come. I do wonder if there is such a thing as crying every tear inside of you. Can you ever shed them all, the place within yourself where they are stored left completely dry?

It was beyond my comprehension.

I stared around me, my heart still racing, but my mind quickly becoming more calm. It had begun to darken.

I looked out, and my eyes-mere child's eyes-saw beyond the tall shrouded trees, back to what may have at one point been a park, if the signs which stood at the entrance were to be believed. ...What had I been doing there? Drawing with a stick in the dirt? I had never learned to read or write, but had spent much time etching lines in the sand. Sometimes the lines even formed images if I was lucky. And... I knew of the blood. I had seen it too. I had seen war.

Or I had thought I had.

But never anything like this. This... this must be what they called a massacre.

They had come in broad daylight to one of my few places of sanctity, where I had thought myself safe. Creatures of the night I had believed them to be, but yet, there they were, and the sun glistened on their skin just as it did on my own. I bet they would have cried too, and they fallen their own prey... I bet they knew how to cry. I bet they knew how to be human.

And yet the single beggar squirrel fled when his beady eyes caught their's, and the world went dark for so many as death subdued their eyes and eclipsed the sun.

But how had I gotten away?

Where I sat, I slowly raked my fingers through what could hardly be called "braids" anymore, grabbing the strands at the end and yanking hard. Everything played before me so vividly, and yet my thoughts were ridden with bald patches-places where the pictures wiped away, and nothing was left but the emotion of fearfulness.

Animals think differently from us, I believe... They only sense a few thoughts, which they are not capable of completely processing. ...So what were left in the blank voids of mind must be the thoughts of the hunted rabbit-petrified, oblivious, and rooted to the spot.

"Damn," I spat into the earth and realized that my mouth carried the salty taste of blood. "Damn," I repeated and swished around my saliva, spitting again.

"Da-" my brief burst of anger faded, and I broke down again, pressing my doll to my eyes in a foolish attempt to stop the tears.