Tara's word: Sorrow: deep distress, sadness, or regret especially for the loss of someone or something loved: resultant unhappy or unpleasant state

Every time she arrived in her secret place, there were always a few seconds of panic. Always for a moment she would feel the adrenaline pushing her heart faster and faster, her breathing ragged with the effort of squelching the anxiety. She took deep swallows of air, willing herself to calm down. The more quiet she became, the more she could once again prove to herself that she was in fact, alone. She knew deep down it wasn't actual fear that someone would follow her, or that she was vulnerable out in the open at night like this. Guilt was the pursuer that chased her to this place time and time again. Guilt was an odd demon to have.
Guilt knows that in the light of day one is distracted and too busy to give it much mind. The light lets you rationalize, lets you see things in better focus. In the dark, well. Guilt uses the blindness of night to hunt you. Fills the quiet with doubt and unease. It pushes and taunts you to your breaking point until you are consumed with abating it all costs. Running, hiding, confession....Anything to exercise the demon out of your heart and mind.

She lifted her face to the cool night breeze and sank down against a boulder on the sandy bank. The woods that surrounded the beach lay still as if holding their breath as well. The waves and the full moon seemed the only elements unaffected by her panic. Lazily they rolled onto land, obeying the pull of the moon with ease. She found the waves, content in their lolling, hypnotizing. She hugged her knees and allowed her breathing to slowly match their pace. Closing her eyes she tried to visualize her burden as an actual weight. She imagined it under the same power, subject to the pull of the moon. Ever so slowly, she pictured it being pulled from her, the undercurrent finally sucking it under and pulling it far out to sea.

"Liz! Liz you have to run!"
"Ryan? Ryan where are you? It's so dark, I can't see you!"

Liz had that strange awareness that she was dreaming, and realized she must have fallen asleep. Almost as if her subconscious was giving a momentary choice to sink deeper, or rise back to the surface. She fought for a brief moment to open her eyes. A prickling sensation in the back of her mind told her she needed to wake up. The moment of choice passed, and she sank deeper into the weight of sleep. She had become increasingly more tired lately, so maybe just a moment more. She pulled the waves around her in her mind, like a warm and soothing blanket.

"Liz! Liz you have to run!"
In the dark of her mind, she heard her mother's voice.
"Mom? What are you doing? I'm here, I'm trying, I'm just very tired."
"Liz!"
"Please Mom, I promise, I'll run. I'm just so tired. Just give me one more minute and I'll do whatever you a--"

The noise of footsteps sinking into wet sand and the snapping of a tree branch ran through her body like a gunshot. Her eyes flew open and the skin raised on her flesh, trying to sense the air and the direction of the sound. She frantically scanned where the woods met the beach willing her eyes to make sense of the shapes around her. She felt the words more than heard them this time. Run Liz! You have to run! Pushing herself up in one swift movement she waved her arms in front of her in a split second attempt at balance, and tore down the beach, into the night.