Running sucks.

I never liked running, not even when I made those stupid New Year’s resolutions to get in shape.

I stopped at a gas station, ignoring those deer-in-headlights stares. I washed my face and changed in the bathroom. The clothes the girl handed me somehow made it out of the house intact. I took a donut, a hotdog and a bottle of water, nodded at the man behind the counter and walked out. This was how Worshipers lived. They took what they wanted and didn’t ask for permission.

I gave up on the idea of dying. Obviously I didn’t want to. And it wasn’t like I could just get a job. So, at least for now, I would live like a Worshiper.

I sat at the picnic table beside the gas station and ate my stolen goods. I was already heading south. Gods were everywhere but the further I could get away from the Prince the better. Might as well see how far south I could get. I rose and stretched.

I walked to the highway and grimaced. I didn’t want to run all the way to Florida. I looked down at myself. I looked human and not like a serial killer anymore. May as well try to hitchhike.

I walked with my thumb out. At least the baggy t-shirt and jeans didn’t advertise hooker. Cars zoomed past; no one gave me a second look.

I must have walked for hours before an old white Chevy pulled off the road ahead of me.

An older man sat behind the wheel, “Need a ride, young lady?”

“Yes, please,” I hesitated, “I don’t have any money though, I just need a ride as far south as you’re going.”

“Don’t need money, can’t just leave a young girl like you to wander by yourself. I’ll take you as far as Raleigh, get in,”

Raleigh. Raleigh. North Carolina, right? I scrounged my brain for geography information.

The almost five hour drive was rather pleasant. The man had snacks in the car and shared freely. He attempted conversation for the first five minutes and then gave up.

I told him to let me off on the highway and continued my hitchhiking south. To my surprise, people were friendlier than I expected and I got rides without having to walk more than a half-hour or so.

I stayed up and hitchhiked through the night, arriving in Florida by next morning. Still I kept going south, not sure where to stop.

“Oh, you should see the beaches here, they’re beautiful,” the twenty-something girl that picked me up was on a road trip with her two equally beautiful BFFs. I smiled wondering if I was ever that carefree.

“Yeah, we’re hitting Sarasota beach as our first stop. We’re covering every beach down this coast and then returning north up the other coast,” her friend yelled as the wind carried her words away in the convertible.

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And since I didn’t have a better plan, I agreed to check out the beach.

It had been years since I’d seen the beach, not seeing the point of the hot sand and hot sun. And at first, both of those things made me think I had been right. But then I saw the ocean. The blue water and the bluer sky may as well have been a painting.

“Oh my God, it’s gorgeous,” one of the girls squealed.

The girls immediately started snapping pictures with their phones. I realized they were posting on social media, probably Instagram. Didn’t I used to do that? I wondered if all my social media friends thought I was dead.

I rolled up my pants and waded in the water. Compared to the scorching sand the water felt cool. I wished I had an extra set of clothes so I could dive in.

“You smell like him,” a shadow cast over me.

The scent of decay and cotton candy assailed my nose just before I heard screams and people scrambling to run all around me. My heart hammered in my chest but I was too scared to look up at the god standing over me.

“Like rotting corpse and sunlight,” I felt the god get closer to take a sniff.

“Has he let you run free?” a strange giggle, “No, I think not. Then I should return you and take my reward.”

Of course he wouldn’t kill me, he’d take me back. Fear had me running. Running blindly with no course…just away. But I couldn’t outrun a god.

He appeared in front of me. I grunted as I realized I had run straight into a major thoroughfare.

I had never seen this god. His appearance had me pause. He looked like a man in a peacock costume; complete with the colorful tail. I almost couldn’t take it seriously.

“Come, little human, if you fight, these other little humans will die as collateral damage,” he had beady little eyes that blinked rapidly as he swept a hand to show the people running and hiding.

“I can-can’t go back,” I stammered.

The peacock cocked his head, “The Prince has shown you such favor and you insult him thus?”

Favor? I gagged.

“You shall go back, I just need you alive, not unharmed.”

I stared in shock as he aimed his tail of all things and sharp feathers filled the air like arrows. Instinct kicked in and I dodged. But other people were not so lucky. Oh God, how many people will die because of me?

I don’t know what came over me when I attacked Feather, I barely remembered what I did. I tried to get angry, as angry as I had been but all I felt was fear and desperation.

And then I heard a scream. Not an adult scream but a little girl. I turned in horror to see a girl younger than ten, with a feather/arrow in her leg crying over her dead mother. Something snapped.

I don’t mind dying if I take a god with me.

I looked at the creature in front of me with new eyes. I wanted to rip his head off. Anger like nothing I’d felt, anger at the motherless little girl, at the despair even the thought of New York now caused me, at all the Prince did to me.

If I could run fast enough.

I was running before I finished the thought.

“What are you doing, Worshiper?” but the Peacock seemed to have figured it out as he posed all his arrows at me, “Killing you may get me punished.”

I didn’t stop.

He let his arrows loose. But it was too late. I scaled walls by running up them; I didn’t even think about it. I braced myself as I leapt at him. I didn’t feel the arrows tearing me apart; maybe I have something to thank the Prince for after all. Somehow, I kept my arms attached long enough to grab the green, feathered head and pull with all my strength. I screamed as the head didn’t want to separate. I kept pulling.

With a sickening tear blood sprayed in my face.

I was falling now. But I had his head. I smiled, satisfied.

My body didn’t go splat like I thought it would. No, it strangely bounced before settling. I tasted blood as I laughed.

My vision grew dark. I hoped there was a heaven.