Safety

She keeps speeding and drives through a red light a couple of times. She passes by a sign telling her she now leaves the city. She stops speeding and turns right into the parking lot of a big supermarket. She checks the rearview mirror as the same red sedan has been following her for a while. Is it the man with the crooked smile? One of her kidnappers? Or the red-haired lady? She breathes nervously as the car gets closer to her. She quickly parks her car at the far end of the parking lot, where she has a clear view of the entire parking lot, the store entrance and the main road and stops the engine. The red car parks a few cars away from her, but no-one gets out of the car yet. Shall she drive off again? Or run into the store to hide from them? She rolls down the window to let some air into the car, she holds her breath for a second and starts breathing normally again. The red sedan is still parked, but no-one is near it, are they keeping an eye on her? At that exact moment, the passenger door opens. She holds her breath and takes a closer look at who gets out of the car. It’s a woman, mid-thirties. The driver’s door opens as well, another woman gets out and they walk to the front of the car. They look at each other and give a nod, they wrap their hands into each other and walk towards the entrance of the supermarket. She can breathe normally again. She quickly starts the engine again and drives off, towards the main road. She needs to head towards the forest where she came from, but has no clue yet how to get there. But her main priority now is to get away from the city as far as possible. She takes a right, onto the main road and hits the gas.

It’s fairly quiet on the road, which makes it easier to leave the city far behind her, but she still needs to make a plan on how to get back to the forest as she still needs to head back and release her family. She keeps hoping nothing happened to them and they’re still ‘safe’ in the basement of the cabin. She spots a sign on the side of the road, the next town is just a mile ahead. She turns her steering wheel to the right and takes the exit. She slowly drives through what seems to be the main road of this town. It looks cute, little buildings with flowers at the side of the road. She finds herself a parking spot on the side of the road to take a look at the road map she just got at the gas station. She turns off the engine and grabs the map from the passenger seat. She quickly opens it and looks for the circled x on the map. She places her index finger on the x while looking for her current position. She’s unsure what direction to look on the map and takes a look out of her window, in hope to find the name of this town on a sign or one of the buildings, but nothing to be found. She sighs and places the map back on the passenger seat and unbuckles her safety belt and opens the door. She gets out of the car, closes the door and walks around the car towards the other side and sits down on the curb.

A soft hand lands on her shoulder. She looks up and is eye to eye with a Hispanic woman, who looks like she’s somewhere in her late 20s. “Do you need any help?”, she asks. She’s still too afraid to talk freely, but nods her head and stands up from the curb. She opens the passenger door and grabs the paper route map from the passenger seat. She unfolds the map and places her index finger on the marked x while looking at the woman. “Do you need to be there?”, she asks her. She replies “No, the forest”, with a whisper. The woman looks at her with a frown, she clearly does not understand her yet. After a couple of seconds of complete silence, she whispers “Sorry” while folding the map again and wants to put it back on the passenger seat. The Hispanic woman walks up to her and asks “Do you need to go to a forest?”. She turns around to the woman and nods, with a look of hope in her eyes. “Which forest do you need to be?”, the woman asks her. “Don’t know, I escaped”, she quietly replies while looking down at her feet. The woman looks confused still, but she wants to know more. “Listen, I have an appointment in 5 minutes, come with me, it’s just across the street”, she replied while pointing at the building across the street. It’s the cute building with the pots with pink flowers in the window sill, she realizes. The building has two doors, one on the left and one in the middle. The windows on the left look like a house, inside big plants carefully placed in front of the window, on the right the curtains are closed. She agrees with some hesitation and they walk towards the building together.

The woman unlocks the door which is placed in the middle of the building and pushes it open. She leads the way. In the hallway are two big comfy chairs placed facing the door. Immediately on their right is a white door, closed. On the end of the foyer is another door with a ‘Toilet’-sign on it. “I’m a therapist”, she tells her. “In a couple of minutes I have a session with my patient, please take a seat. In about an hour I’ll be back for you and I’ll help you find your way to the forest you’re looking for”, she continued while opening the first door on her right. The woman leaves the door open while walking inside and turning on the lights. A few seconds later, the doorbell rings. The woman walks back into the foyer and opens the door. A woman, somewhere in her 50s is on the doorstep. She greets both with a big comfortable smile. They both walk into the room on the right and the door closes. She’s alone for the next hour, she carefully takes place in one of the big chairs and looks around herself. The room is filled with big plants, has white walls and nice paintings on the wall. She gets comfortable and allows herself to take some rest, she slowly closes her eyes while slowly drifting off to sleep.