Chapter One

Author's note: This is the first chapter of the book, so that's why it doesn't really have an ending. There will be more chapters!

Escape

The wind wafted across the warm summer air and brought the delightful smell  of cherry blossoms and  lavender to my nose. I took in everything. The smell, the view, the grass, the sky, everything. I couldn't  believe after all the years I've lived in a world where you never knew if there was going to be a  tomorrow, I'd finally found the one and only place where  could feel happy. It was almost as if I was a  princess.

That was until I looked down and saw my brown and white, tattered clothes that I'd been wearing for at  least a month without being washed. I never wanted to go back to my homeland, my province called  Falafia. Falafia was a terrible place where our rulers, which we call Falafails, controlled everything we  did. No one had ever broken the rules, knowing there are serious consequences like torture and death,  until I came along. I just couldn't take it anymore. Living everyday wishing  I could just be free. Now I am  though and I don't regret it at all, and I'm going to tell you exactly how I got here.

I sprinted down the cold, hard, rocky gravel road with nothing but skin on my feet. Though how my day  was going, I didn't know if there was going to be skin by the end of the day. Actually I didn't know if  there even is going to be a me. The Falagaurds have been chasing me for at least three miles now and I  didn't know if they were ever going to stop. It was almost as if they were robots. Keeping a consistent  pace the whole time and never running out of breath, doesn't seem right to me.

I turned around and saw them gaining on me knowing that I couldn't keep it up much longer and I kept  going back to how I got into this situation in the first place. It all started a couple days ago when I woke up at  crack of dawn and grabbed everything I needed to run away; food, water, a first-aid kit, some coins that  my great grandmother gave to me when I was six, and last, but definitely not least, the locket my  parents gave to me on my first birthday. I packed everything into the backpack I found in my parent's  closet and went to the kitchen write a note to my parents. I grabbed the dark black pen off the counter  and found a white napkin to write on in the kitchen.

I brushed my dirty blonde hair out of my face and started writing:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving you after everything you've given and done for me. It's just…. I can't  take it anymore. I can't take living life with no control over anything. I can't take living with no  control over anything. I can't live the life that I know I'm not supposed to be living. I just can't. This  is the first decision I've ever made in my life, but I know it's the right one. I'm going to miss you  more than anything else in the world, but I know I have to go. So, goodbye Mom. I'm going to miss  your smile and the way you could always make me laugh no matter what happened. Goodbye Dad.  I'm going to miss you piggybacking me around the house when I get a bruise on my leg and when  you play board games with me when I'm sick. I am saying goodbye to the best parents in the world,  so don't let yourself think it was something you did. Nothing you ever did to me has to do with any  of this. I love you.

Love,

    Layla

I crisply folded the napkin into a perfect little square and set it in the exact center of my kitchen table.  Then I realized that my hiking boot was untied, so I leaned over and tied it. Right at that moment I really  figured out what I was doing. I wasn't just running away, I was leaving everything I'd ever known. I was  leaving my family, the only people I'd ever loved and pretty much the only people I'd ever known  besides the Falafails and the people who lived right next door to us. That's when I started to cry, so I  rolled up onto a tiny little ball on the floor. I cried and cried in the exact same spot on the floor for about  an hour or so. That's when I realized that there was no way I could continue crying.

I had to leave, and I had to leave now. Sitting on the floor crying was the biggest mistake I'd ever made.  By now the Falagaurds were all up and starting the first part of their shift and my parents would be home in about an hour. I had to be really sneaky and swift with what I do now. I got up off the cold floor and pulled myself together. I looked around my house one more time, knowing I would   never see it again. After I finished memorizing every nook and cranny of my house, and walked out my front door, slowly shutting it behind me making sure not to cause a ruckus.