I was in a van with them just riding. I didn’t know where we were going but that didn’t matter. It never does. I enjoyed car rides in that time.
We’d go to many unfamiliar places and funny smelling homes and I’d be a good little girl and hug the people as though I knew them, then while the adults talked I’d sit and wait to return to the car and home. Sometimes I was lucky and I’d be given a book to read or the remote control to the tv.
I was not especially excited by the house we stopped in front of today. It looked like a simple log cabin but it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The driveway was hardly visible and the entire place made me a bit uneasy, but I ignored that and tried not to judge the home as we walked towards the front porch.
I act like it’s normal. Like I’m used to walking through grass that reaches my knees. Like the uneven, invisible ground is actually easy to walk across. Like the smell and unnatural silence don’t bother me at all.
I sense it before I see it. A dark brown hulking mass barreling towards us.
We all race back towards the car but the others seem to purposely fall behind so that I can get there first, and they shut the door behind me.
I tried to save them, but they didn’t want to be saved. They wanted to suffer, and they wanted me to watch, and they wanted me to know that I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to sit in safety and watch the bear tear them apart.
Even though I know I shouldn’t have felt it, I did. I felt myself getting torn apart with them. I felt the stinging in slices across my arms as I woke each morning.