We found ourselves running through the meadow - bare footed and stepping on twigs and thorns which felt in a way equivalent as to walking on the little army figurates that young Benjamin often leave laying around in the big house. We can hear the masters brothers behind us and the petrifying sounds of the chase dogs howling off the leash in front of them. I’m trying to keep my breath so I attempt keep breathing through my nose and out my mouth. However, Anne is so young and focused on the fear she’s going through, as she’s screaming loud enough for any and every bounty hunter in the area to hear and join in on the capture. We been running so hard that I can feel the bitter metallic taste of blood in the back of my throat. I can feel the nerves running through my blood and chills I have never endured before, for I know the only two ways this will end. In this moment I can feel everything in my body. I feel the depths of the wounds on my back, I feel the the hairs standing off my soft dark skin, my full lips running dry and chapped as I feel the wind blowing through my open mouth. Its as if the world has slowed down, as I’m observing everything around me leading up to my last moments. I see the trees coming closer, the bay just next to them, the bumble flee flying around that beautiful cornations and daisys.

“This way!” I snapped my neck to the left and shouted to Anne. She followed me through the trees that led us to a straight path that we had to get off of to get out of sight. Oh I wish to be granted mercy, to be captured and just receive lashings and to be kept in the box for the night, but I know that could never be delivered. I’d be captured and turned inside-out with my limbs, tied to a pole and burnt to ashes in front of everyone and they will sell Anne; My young, smart yet naive babysitter at the trades, and only the good Lord knows where she will end up. Im just afraid she will be alone, as I’m all she’s got since mama died last August due to consumption.

“Stop all this noise at last Anne!” I shout out of fear.

Looking terrified, she locked her jaw obeying my order.

As we kept sprinting our way off this path, we found ourselves face-to-face with a dead-end. I turned around, slowly accepting our fate that there was no way out of this and instantly regretting my actions of grabbing my sister and escaping in hope to reach Philadelphia. Oh how we gotten so far for it to all end like this. I turned around my shoulder and seen the men and their dogs just about 10 metres away from us. They got us. They win.

I look over the edge and see waves roaring and smacking into the rocks below.

The odds of us surviving this jump is risky, as the tide has not come in yet but the current is near deadly. “What choice do we have though?” I ask myself for what I thought was in my head but not even realizing those words came out my mouth. Anne turned to me. “I understand what you’re thinking and you mustn’t feel guilty, you were trying to reach us to freedom. I wish to be with mama again Cornelia”. Those words broke me. I promised mama in her last days that I will make it my soul purpose to protect Anne and to find us peace. I feel as if though I failed. Why does life for us have to be so unfair. We can go home to the lord or we can go back to the plantation and die in torture.

“Get em!” The big men yelled to the dogs as they unleashed them once again.

Not much time being left to make a choice, I grab my sisters hand and pull her towards the cliff edge with me. We look at each other with pity and tears filled in our eyes, but a smile slowly crosses my face to reassure her that we will be okay. She nods slowly in my direction.

Then we jumped.