The Shrouded Darkness

"There's a place I've been told that when I grow old, I may go there

-The Cold Acre by Augie March

Important note
This story was inspired by the Augie March song The Cold Acre. Yeah, I get a lot of my inspiration off them.

Beyond the mountains
Ever since Amelia was a little toddler, she had always been a hardy and resistant girl. She once spent a whole night outside in -20C in winter at age 5, spent a whole week lost in the nearby forest at age 7 and for her 10th birthday, she managed to get herself lost in the nearby city and somehow got to the nearby desert. So she trekked over harsh sand, through unforgiving forests and back to the frigid mountains where she lived. Amazingly, she seemed largely unaffected by these incidents and indeed, seemed very excited whenever she managed to get herself lost or in dangerous situations.

Her parents thought otherwise. They thought it was only a matter of time before she managed to kill herself. So when she turned 13, they moved back to the big city.

But Amelia hated it there. It was too noisy, to organized and way too boring. Her parents could do nothing to ply her away from thoughts of adventure. They tried desperately to get her interested in 'normal' things. But no matter what, either she couldn't do it, or had absolutely no interest. Her only passion was survival and adventure. Every night, she dreamed of the adventures she got herself into in her past life and it tortured her knowing that it no longer happened.

Yet her parents would not budge. They never realised she had a knack for survival and always assumed she was an incredibly vulnerable girl as all the others were at her school. Of course she wasn't, but her parents would never believe that. They were more concerned about her safety than her well-being, which slowly destroyed her.

So one cold thursday night, she decided to run away and return to her birthplace in the mountains. Even if her parents panicked their souls to oblivion and even if she did manage to die out there, she decided it would be much better than spending any more of her precious life in the miserable city. She seriously could not stand it any more.

So late in the night, she donned a heavy jacket, put on a large hat and quietly exited the building and followed the path towards the cities exit.

Her parents would not discover she was gone until it was too late. Despite their homeliness, they were heavy drinkers, which made them sleep in a lot later than the ordinary teenager would. They woke up long after she went to school. This was another reason they didn't trust her. She could be anywhere before they woke up. It had taken 4 years to gain their trust. That trust was all she needed to escape the city.

That day after school her parents waited for hours for her to come out. Then they found out that she never came to school. Their first idea was that she'd gone off into the city. But from her past, they ruled that out. But they could not figure out where she went. Then as a bus with a large advertisment on the side for a mountain trek for two passed, it all fell into place.

And as for Amelia, she had long since gone off into the uncharted wilderness...

Through the Eternal sands
Coming soon!