What’s Behind A Act

 

Our story  begins with a dark burnt sienna male staring the clear grey sky, wondering about something, as he has a duffle bag filled to where sleeves are poking out.

“I wonder if I’m doing the right thing,” he thought to himself before continuing to walk to the nearest train station.

He remembers how his life was when he was growing up. The only one who had to grow up while everyone else was free to still be a teenager.

“Its time for you to act like a  grown up,” a masculine voice echoes in his mind.

“You shouldn’t have left for the milk,”  he mumbles underneath his breath.

After he stumbled into the  nearby train station, he thought about everything that just happened to him. His clothes were slightly torn, his face was bruised and muddy.

Every since he was little, he could only saw the world in a black and white tint like a mole 1$rat.

The very people around him, the greenery, everything was like a movie from the 1950’s in his eyes.

“One ticket to the city two cities ” he said to the cashier, passing him some cash.

It’s not New York or anywhere big but its better than nothing in his opinion.

He wanted to pull out his wallet to make sure he had all his money. But he read way too many books where someone have money in a folder or something, it would randomly disappearing. Especially if it is a lot of money.

Instead, he pulls out his obsolete flip phone one last time, looking at the all the pictures he took with it as he waited for the train to Huntsville, a town way further than he expected but he didn’t mind.

Even thought the bright colors was gone from the pictures, he felt a profound sense of nostalgia for them as they held a pretty significant memory to him.

His eyes start to well up with tears, but he’s got to stay committed to his choice. No backing out now.

“The moment you became an adult, they saw you as nothing more than a potential transaction. Keep that in mind, Elijah.”

After a moment of reflecting on them, drying his eyes, He takes the battery and SIM card out of the phone and put them down for someone else to use. He sure someone Is going to see a free phone and try to sell it. Or trash it, he didn’t care either way.

After browsing the store and selecting some snacks at the gift shop , he finally heard the announcement for his train’s arrival.

“Time to leave this nightmare.”

As he stepped on the old fashioned locomotive, handing the conductor my ticket, he feels this strong, strange feeling that he was being watched grows as he did everything he did up that point, including leaving his home.

Once  he gets to his window seat, he pulls out a compact tape recorder already with a  tape he had. It was a tape taking about the town he was born and raised in. The scenic small woodland town of Millbrook.

 It was your run of the mill quiet southern hometown you would’ve seen in a stereotypical Hallmark movie on the surface. But the whole world only sees the happy go lucky side of it, at least for those are  just visiting  but for those who were born in that town,  it’s a different story.

Once you are born into the city, the only color you would be able to see is only within that town and some surrounding areas, considered it a way to keep them from leaving that “piece of heaven” or so he has been told.

As well as the fact that there’s a urban legend surrounding the annual summer festival. A random person goes mysteriously missing  but he believes that couldn’t be far from the truth.

No one tries to even to pretend to look for the person a few days later. It could be some important like the local butcher or a local artist.

With that knowledge, he became a person of interest to them. Surprise visits at his home, everywhere he went, even somewhere simply as the local park.

At that point, he had recently graduated from the local high school a few months earlier that most of the people in that isolated town. Including the mayor’s daughter, Annabelle  Snow.

“You are off age. So you should marry the daughter of the major..” his mom delightfully says, bringing me back to the conversation he had with her.

In fact, she was planning on throwing him a early graduation party and sneak a marriage proposal in there since the mayor had a major affinity for him and his mother.

“ That Annabelle…..She’s taking quite a liking to you.”

“So did some of the people who went missing,” he thought.

“Listen, Mom…..”

Soon, there is a unexpected knock at the front door.

It was the Mayor and his wife, here to discuss something important. That made Elijah’s heart stop.

Over dinner, he talked about how he saw Elijah as a son. So, he offered his daughter’s hand in marriage.

“ I’m sure Elijah here can be a great secretary down in my office since he graduated from high school earlier that most people here. I’m just making sure that big brain of his doesn’t get bored.”

“I will have to think about that, Mayor. You can only turn eighteen once.”

“Oh, please you and your darling of a mom can call Ethan. Just let me know when you have made up your mind.”

But this was a conversation he has been thinking about once he was in high school. And his decision to leave was always on his mind.

So, from that point , leading up to now , he was packing to escape until a week before his eighteenth birthday.

Cutting ties with anyone who he befriended so he didn’t have any reason to go back, besides his mom.

After waking up at the Huntsville train station, Elijah breathed a sigh of relief, silently rejoicing that he had finally escaped the suffocating confines of his small hometown.

The colors around him suddenly burst into life, exploding with shades he’d never seen before. His eyes… he could finally see the color of everything!

He flew over the scenery, feeling pumped at first, but then it hit him how much he’d sacrificed just to see something so incredible.

So, he pulled out his wallet and pulled out a picture of him and his mom.

“Mom…”

He gets teary-eyed, feeling like he wants to scream his heart out, but he knows he’s got to keep quiet and stay hidden in case someone’s searching for him.

All The tapes in his room….

 

“They probably thought she was feeding me ideas of leaving. But why? Why did she pay for my actions?”

After running away from the train as he was in track race, trying to keeping himself from crying, he finds himself standing in the middle of the train station with people staring at him.

“Who is this boy...?”

“Is he ok?”

Soon, he races into the bathroom to get himself together.

All of this…everything was started with a dark truth he learned on those cassette tapes: The mayor’s daughter, the charming brunette, Annabelle Snow. The common  southern belle. Turns out, it was a cover. She is really a  human-eating monster in human skin. The lucky person is selected to play the part in the festival’s annual tradition where are to be sacrificed but they are brutally killed and devoured by the girl like they are meat, under the guise to that bullshit urban legend.

Given that he knew all of this, he didn’t tell anyone anything but the Snow family stayed on his tail. Popping up everywhere he went, even surprised him at his house.

To them, he was a loose end they needed to dealt without killing him. Plus, Annabelle was obsessed with him to the point where killing was off the table.

“I made it out.”