She was awake in the darkness and no matter how hard she tried, today was not a day that she could sleep. Her eyes circled the old grandfather clock, its silvery edges shining against the single ray of moonlight that flooded in through her window. Everyone had gone through the feeling that she was going through in their lives. Multiple times. It was the feeling of how one age would never, ever come back when the following day announced its coming. In other words, she would never be thirteen again once the clock stroked twelve.

But staring at the clock was not all she could do. She couldn’t sit still, like her mother, and pray for hours and hours at a time without food or water. No, her curiosity was the locked up passion inside of her, layered underneath all of the harsh scoldings and reminders that she would at no point in her life go anywhere past the garden.

Katrina leaned back and tried imagining what was past the garden. Maybe mountains, or animals, or maybe even other people. She closed her eyes and tried remembering looking out of the stone door. Bushes, and hedges, and endless trails of colorful flowers for miles and miles. There was no escape; even if she had wanted it.
And then there was her mother.

Katrin’s mind took a quick jump back to memory lane. Katrina had sat on the sofa, poised and proper, like she always was around her mother, and stared at the wooden floor with a deep desire.

All of a sudden, Katrina pushed back her brown curls with a strong gesture and burst out a question.
“Mother, may I have a friend?”

Her mother, swaying back and forth, eyes closed,  and praying before a picture of God, abruptly paused. The tension in her voice rose, unmistakably.
“A… a person, you mean? L-like a—“

“A friend, mother! A human!”
Katrina had said it a bit harsher than she had wanted to, but either way, it angered her mother.
Eyes wide and fiery, she whipped around and gnashed her teeth together.

“You will do nothing of the sort! You will stay at home, stay safe, and pray, and hide forever!”

Katrina cringed in her seat as her mother inched closer and had eventually bookended her. Hair strewn aside wildly and clothes tattered, she fisted her fingers and yanked Katrina by the ear, commanding her to pray and never again say or think about what she had said.

Katrina shivered in the pure warmness of the night and reverted to her vigil with her eyes glued to the clock. She sat there, rocking from side to side, and arms enfolding her knees. Suddenly, her stomach sank, like a stone had settled abruptly in the pit of her belly.

Someone was coming.

She momentarily froze, unaware of the fact she was supposed to be sleeping. And that was when the door burst open, banging harshly against the wall.

Katrina’s mother stood in the doorframe, face pale and in her nightgown with fear and anxiety written across her lips. Katrina sat up stiffly, beginning to speak, “Mother, what—?”

Her mother seized her, unintentionally clasping Katrina’s wrists so hard that they turned white. Katrina stumbled behind her mother, panicked, trying to wrestle out of her tightening grip. Her mother then paused next to a magnificent red-wine carpet and shoved it aside recklessly, revealing a trap door. She reached for it and opened it, looking back at Katrina.

“You have to hide,” she hissed, “they’re here and they’re coming for us!”

Even before Katrina had a chance to react, her mother had pushed her down the door and bent to whisper the last few words.

“If anything happens, you are not to move. You will stay down here and hide and I don’t care if you die here, but you will hide.”

And with that, she slammed it shut and Katrina stood in the blinding silence, listening to the padded footsteps walk down the hallway until she could hear no more.

Was this another one of her mother’s tantrums? Something that God had whispered to her in her dreams at the middle of the night? With no choice, Katrina, wrapped in confusion and puzzlement stayed there for what seemed like days.

Suddenly, when she was about to try and find matches or lighting of some sort, footsteps of more than five individuals clonked down the hallway.

“The girl? Where is the girl?” At first, the bellowing male voice was left hanging.

“Where is Katrina Scott, you old lady?”

A quivering voice answered, “You will never find her. She is long gone.”

A growl was let out from the male. “But we need her. She is the key to everything. To all our problems and I know you know where she is.”

The female, none other than her mother, yelled back, “You fools! You will never—“

A sickening choke and a thud echoed through the corridor.

“Enough of that old haggard,” the man barked. “We shall return at sunrise. It will be easier to hunt her down.”
Clanking faded into the dying night and Katrina gulped down the wad of anxiety left in her throat. It had seemed like hours until she had finally pushed open the trapdoor and stepped into the light. Katrina stifled a breath looking down at what was left on the marble floor. Katrina’s mother lay very still, a metal handle poking out of her stomach and a pool of blood gushing out of her side.

Katrina exhaled and leaned close to her mother’s face, flashing her blue eyes. Katrina’s mother’s eyes were open and her mouth was twisted in an ugly position with a trail of red liquid trickling down the side of her swollen cheek.

Katrina shivered and whispered, “I’m sorry, mother.” Katrina gently closed her eyelids and rose up bravely. “But I can’t hide forever.”

Katrina flicked her head over to the window, embracing the first rays of the rising sun. And then, she darted down the corridor, never to be seen again.