Project Create 2013 - FINAL DAY.

Lost At Home

"I need to get out", Lewis said to himself. It was a sentence he had said to himself at least ten thousand times, but he still said it with the same feeling, the same yearning to be back where he belonged. It was nearing 3 years since he had been taken from his people, abducted by Samoan pirates to effectively be used as their work-horse, but it felt like a lifetime. How times change; you have the same supportive netting for 18 years, but, within two weeks of it being stolen from you, it feels like it was never there in the first place. Lewis sighed, and stared up at the stars. He remembered how he felt staring up at them back in his homeland, lying amongst acquaintances, friends, and the woman he loved. He could still picture her face; the dimples which lit-up her cheeks every time she smiled, the eyes which he adored so much that he would enjoy drowning in them. How he longed to wrap his arms around her, to stroke his fingers over every inch of her body, to share her body heat...But the chance of that ever happening again was non-existent. The Lewis who was alive back then had long been dead; the Lewis which lay in the grass staring up at the stars now was a new being, one who wished he could go back to his old way of living, but knew he had to force himself to adjust to his current existence, as hard as it was for him to do so. A light breeze made it's way over the area where his body was resting, the cool air sending shivers up his back. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to preserve the little body-heat that still remained, willing his body to fight off the cold that was clinging to him like a terminal disease. His teeth crashed together, his whole body shivering and shaking, his eyes half-closed. He forced them open once more, not letting himself be beat by this, determined to fight on for at least one more day.

A plane flying overhead caught his eye; he followed it, the slow flight piercing through the sky, the quiet, distance noise of the engine softly penetrating the silence in the atmosphere. "Where are they going?", Lewis wondered. "Where-ever they are going, I wish I was going there, too", he sighed, glancing a look at the chain that prevented him from going more than fifteen meters from his current location. He sat up, scratching his head, sand falling out of his hair as he did so. The beach was empty for miles, far away from the hum of civilisation. His memory of society was foggy; as for faces, he could only remember a few, the rest confined to the ether, nevermore living amongst his fragile mind. He raised his left-hand, hastily scratching his chest; within a matter of seconds, he stopped. He heard something. Foot-steps, coming all the more closer, approaching his location. They were fast, but soft - complete opposites of the slow but heavy footsteps of his captors that he had become accustomed too. Lewis' was frozen in his place, his brain racing, trying to work out whether his mind was playing tricks on him, or whether his saviour had arrived. As his breath hastened and the steps became louder, a forein voice rung through the air:

"Come on, lad. We've come to take you home."

There we have. Project Create 2013 Day 31 is complete. Thanks to Duncan Munday who gave me the idea by tweeting to say I should write "a short story about an 18 year old boy who moved to Scotland and how he escapes?" - I used the base idea and ran with it somewhat, resulting in the piece you see above.

Thank you to everyone who read any of my Project Create 2013 entries - and double-super-thanks to any of you that read every single one! You're lovely people.

Extra thanks to those who joined in with the creating this month; it wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun without you.
Here's to doing it again next year!

Tom.