Things to Run Away From Really Fast

★★★★☆

12/29/10

The shop is open to the street, choked with dust kicked up by the people and horses bustling by on the busy dirt road. A woman with short, strawberry blonde hair arranges the merchandise at the front of the stall. Her movements are quick, angry, but she looks tired. The heat and the dust and the people and the fact that she's working for nothing for someone else are wearing at her patience and her sanity. I am that woman.

A man walks by. I have time to register that he's tall and handsome, with longish dark brown hair, before he's brushing by me. He stops long enough to whisper, "I'm taking the harmonica back. Are you with me?" I've never met the man, but I'm nodding and setting things down, moving away into the street, my movements perfectly synchronized with his.

The mark is looking at silverware two stalls down. I'm threading through the crowd as he shows off the silver harmonica. I'm tapping him on the shoulder, smiling as he turns around and we chat about the silverware on display. He's waving the harmonica over his shoulder, and the first man, the thief, snatches it from his hand. The mark turns to shout, and I'm brushing by, cutting the strings on his purse.

We run. Through the countryside, on the uneven ground of the foothills. I thought we were safe, thought we'd outrun our pursuers hours ago, but arrows are raining down on us and the horses are hot on our heels.

I'm hit. The arrow pierces through just below my ribcage, and I feel the blood soak through my shirt. I fall behind, am left stumbling through the brush. The dogs are quieter now, and I take refuge beneath the roots of a giant tree.

At the bottom of the hollow are three doors, each small enough to crawl through. I pull out the small leather pouch I stole earlier and turn it over. A key falls into my hand. This key will open any lock in the dreamworld, a voice whispers in my mind. Smiling, calm, heedless of the wound on my side (suddenly much, much younger) I drop to the moss-covered ground and slide the key into the lock.

Thievery. Scare Factor: 3.

Isn't that the perfect amount of obvious symbolism for the guys in the Dream Interpretation forum?