Run For My Dreams

I stared out at the water through my bedroom window, "Wow! The ocean sure is pretty tonight!" I set my book down on the little desk that I was sitting at and then got up, quickly making my way to my bedroom door and leaned my ear against it. There was no sound. I grinned widely and hurried back over to my window, where I opened it and climbed onto the sill, "Hang on Ocean, I'm coming!" I giggled as I climbed onto the tree that was sitting only a foot away from the window. After gaining my balance, I made my way down the tree and onto the garden below me. "As long as I am back before dawn, everything should be just fine." I glanced back at the house to make sure no one had awakened before I dashed out to the open ocean that awaited me.

I wasn't sure how many hours went by before I was soon joined by a small group of Pirates. They had landed on the shore and had started a party a ways away from town. Filled with curiosity, I followed them deep into the forest, watching them all with widen eyes. "Those are pirates?" I thought about how the village had always told the children to never go out at night or else the pirates would kidnap and kill you. But these pirates didn't seem like they were dangerous; in fact, they merely just built a fire and began to get drunk, reminiscing stories about different islands that they had been to.
"Hey." A voice spoke next to me and I let out a squeal "I'm so sorry Mister Pirate! I promise I won't tell the village that you're here!" In return for my sudden fear, I only got laughed at "Man, calm down. I ain't gonna hurt you." The pirate smiled, "I just saw you admiring the party and thought you might want to join." "Really? You'd let me join?" I asked, the fear being replaced with excitement. "Absolutely!" The pirate led me over to the bonfire, where the group began to explain to me the exciting adventures of being a pirate.
I giggled as I watched them dance and sing just like normal people. I clapped along as they all cheered, living their very best lives. "You don't seem like the type of pirates that kill kids..." I admitted to one, who looked at me with absolute shock, "Now who told you that?" "My whole village doesn't like pirates." I explain, "They tell us that if we stay out after dark, pirates will come and kidnap the kids and then kill them on their ships." The pirate I told frowned before taking a sip of his beer, "Well that is just the most stereotypical thing I have ever heard about pirates."

Once dawn had almost arrived, I bid the pirates farewell and a safe journey to wherever they were going before I began skipping towards home, climbing up the tree, and making my way back into my room; but before I could lay down, the bedroom door slammed against the far wall. Father stared at me angrily as Mother began weeping tears. "Mother, what is wrong? Why do you cry?" I asked. "Tell me it isn't so!" Mother wailed "Tell me that the night guard didn't see you partying with pirates!" "B-but they didn't do any harm..." I started and there was my mistake. Father marched into my room and snatched my arm "How dare you party with the likes of them!?" "Papa, you're hurting me!" I clawed at his hand, trying to remove his iron grip. "Answer me!" He barked, shaking me like a ragdoll, and for the very first time in my life, I felt fearful of my father. "But they didn't do anything wrong!" Tears began to slip down my face as I tried to explain that the group of pirates I was with meant no harm to anyone on the island. But neither of my parents would listen to reason.
"Call the doctor, we must make sure they didn't poison her mind!" Mother raced away to the phone as Father kept his hand around my bicep. "Papa, please! You're hurting me!" I exclaimed again, my words falling on deaf ears. "We can get to him immediately!" Mother rushed back in, "We must be quick!" I squirmed as they dragged me out of the house and down several city blocks to the doctor's house, who gestured us inside immediately. "Sit her on the couch." He pointed over to his sofa. I was forced to sit on the sofa and explain why I was up all night. I began to explain that I had been drawn to the ocean and that I went for a midnight swim, watching the pirates come to shore and followed them. I watched them party and tell great stories. And then I joined them. Mother's loud gasp interrupted my story, "No! Not my daughter! Please doctor is there anything you can do!" "I can but it is risky." The doctor responded "I can't believe those pirates didn't eat her alive." I looked over to my father with pleading eyes, "Dad...?" Surely he wouldn't allow the doctor hurt her. "Pirates are the devil, child!" He growled at me "Do whatever you must doctor!"
When I awoke next, my neck hurt so badly. What had they done to me physically? I was scared to find to remove the bandages from around my neck, constantly having a strange feeling of unable to breathe properly. After weeks of being in the doctor's office and repeatedly told that pirates were evil, my parents paraded me around as if I had been saved from the devil. I learned right then and there that hell wasn't a place you went to when you died. Hell was the very ground I walked upon.
I then began to keep to myself and learned to love singing in place of swimming.