The Escape

The sky was no longer young. I couldn't tell whether it was late in the night or too early in the morning. The moon was nowhere in my sight when I looked up to the dark sky, so dark as if promising me some sort of incoming perils. I tossed my head away, looking at the people around me. They were not very well-dressed and designer clothing would be more than exorbitance to them.  They were the homeless and abandoned. The betrayed and alone. The feeling that they'd had very difficult pasts came strong for no reason and all of them seemed to have overcome their problems and come this far in their lives. I dared not ask any question in the fear that I might offend them, unintentionally cutting open the wounds that had been feeding on them in total brutish.

It took me a few minutes to realize myself interacting with them in that seemingly abandoned parking lot, with a few vehicles located at different corners; they were so scattered they were not even parked properly. We were exchanging our goods, negotiating prices and engaging ourselves in the oddest trade of all. We had important stuffs like food for survival to limited edition Pokemon cards. (Don't ask me why Pokemon cards, I don't even know.)

Everything seemed calm and forgiving until a tiger whom existence was taken granted for, softly growled.

Yes, the promised perils.

As if planned ahead, everyone grew into silence in unison. Fear was slowly engulfing the people, including the timid me. It was only pure rationale to immediately depart from that jeopardous place. Two men and I quickly ascended a van with one of the men as the driver. What could be seen from my window seat was people finding their way out and climbing into other vehicles in the hope to save themselves from the ghastly, raging hungry tiger.

The driver punched the van towards the exit, like people escaping from villains in an action movie (or vice versa). We almost came into a disastrous collision with the shoddily designed small exit. What I thought was true was apparently wrong. We were not abandoned. Instead, we were held captive. But there was nothing a few unarmed guards could do with a racing van. We broke through a few exits to finally see daylight. We were safe.

-------------

It was a few years later that I saw myself clad in a black dress, taking moderately fast steps to that familiar van. It was the same van. I cautiously got into the van to only see a whole lot of impolite students, as I randomly heard vulgarity and cuss words being excessively practiced in their conversations. The driver was someone I know but I could barely tell who she was. Then, I saw the two men who saved me, or rather, who escaped the horrible scene with me a few years ago, coincidentally clad in black too. A faint smile was exchanged between us, as though everything was understood.

This was actually what I dreamed of this morning. Often times, I dream about escaping. I dream about being attacked by monsters, ghosts or just anything that can prove harmful to me. I don't know why I could see this similar pattern in my dream, that I am always escaping. And it's also unexplained that sometimes I could remember these vividly. So as soon as I woke up this morning, I decided to pen them down, or shall I say, to transform the dream to what you have just read in front of a computer screen. So yeah, peace out!