Run Away

Zak slammed the door as loudly as he could. Incoherent yelling from the other side of the door could be heard, but all of it was nearly impossible to understand. The door rattled and shook as Zak's father pounded on the door. Zak rushed to the closet and grabbed the duffel bag he had been keeping there. He opened it and made a cursory check through it. Clothes, book, paper, pencils, money, food, and his father's loaded gun he had stolen several weeks previous. There was also a note inside of the bag. Zak pulled it out and put it on the bureau.
Zak opened his window and tore the screen off. He tossed the bag out the window. It landed with a solid thump on the grass below. Zak then grabbed his bed mattress and forced it through the window as well. It landed on the ground below but much more noisily. Zak's father hadn't heard it because he was much to busy threatening to beat Zak as soon as he got in there.
Zak climbed over the window sill, shot one last glance at the door and, though his father wouldn't be able to see it from behind the door, gave his father the middle finger.
"May you die and burn in hell you asshole." Zak said. He looked down and aimed his jump carefully. He then dropped out of his second story window onto the mattress below. He bounced off of it and landed hard on the moist grass. The impact left him winded and slightly dizzy. He waited until his breath returned and grabbed the duffel bag he had thrown out the window. He then walked off into the darkness without another backward look.1


It was morning. Zak had been gone for three days now. As far as he knew there was no search party looking for him, his parents had not gone to find him, his 'friends' didn't care that he had gone. Zak was alone and sad. He had been sleeping on the streets. His food was nearly gone by now and he had had little money to begin with. All of his clothes were dirty by now, even the one's he hadn't worn since he had left.
Zak simply sat in an alley on a piece of cardboard. People passed him frequently, but no one stopped and no one acknowledged his existence. Zak was just another bum on the street to them, they had no concern whether or not he lived or died. The people only viewed him as a drain on society, dragging it down and making the city look bad.
Some people dropped money in front of Zak, but it never seemed like they were actually giving it to him. They saw him and noticed he was still young. Out of a sort of pity they would drop money for him, but never actually giving it to him.
Zak looked to the bag and opened it. He rummaged through it and his hand met the gun. He had not known what he had originally been searching for when he had opened the bag, but the gun simply felt right when he had touched it. It was then that Zak knew what he needed to do. He had no purpose left in his life, no home to return to, no parents that might care for him, no friends to relieve the pain or loneliness, nothing.
Zak grasped the gun tightly and moved it quickly to conceal it in his pocket. He rose slowly but steadily. He had the look of a person who was technically alive, but was completely empty inside. He was simply a walking shell, no longer truly human. He did however walk with purpose. He himself had no true purpose, but he still had a destination. People on the sidewalk looked at him strangely, he was after all dirty and quite smelly. Simply sitting around was normal for this type of appearance but walking around this way caught their attention.
He didn't know how long it had taken for him to get there, but Zak found himself standing in the middle of the town square. There were not to many people there, nearly no children present. Most of them were simply passing through but some were sitting around chatting or reading.
Zak could no longer truly feel any of his actions. He simply watched as some invisible force controlled his limbs forcing him to move in certain ways. Zak saw himself pull out the gun, he saw an old man yelling in terror at the sight of it, he saw raw panic grip the people in the square, he saw himself bringing the gun level to his head, but then he saw nothing. He had closed his eyes and only listened now. He heard shrieks of fear and other calmer voices telling Zak to put down the gun.
Zak simply stood there for a time, the gun's barrel pressed against the side of his head. His finger slowly began to go against the trigger tighter and tighter. Then there was the bang as the gun finally discharged the bullet into Zak's brain. It was a deafening sound that pierced the square. Zak gasped, a single sharp stab of pain went through his entire body.
Then everything was weightless. There was no more pain and the noise was gone. He could almost feel his feet on the ground, but he was falling to the cobblestone below.
Then it was all over. All thought and memory just disappeared. Zak couldn't remember what was or had happened. He didn't remember himself or his evil parents. He only subconsciously knew one thing, he was finally freed. 2