Jump

Light shone onto the sleeping girl's face. The source was a small opening in the roof of the barn, the girl had used as shelter for the previous night's storm. Slowly, she began to wake. Shivering against the chill morning air,she pulled the thin, ragged blanket up to her chin.

She had been dreaming about a mysterious stranger that had appeared in her dreams for as long as she could remember. Dark, and broding he had been. Dangerous seemed too tame of a word to describe him. Black eyebrows knotted together in concentration under his furrowed brow. And stunningly clear blue eyes shone with unregistered intelligence.

In every dream he had been planning. The girl was never able to understand what he had been conceiving. She could never get close enough to see what he concealed so well, behind his facade of deception.

Each morning she would wake with a start, and realized it had been nothing more than a dream.
Slowly, the girl stood and worked a kink in her neck. The large scar on her left leg throbbed with a familiar ache. Carefully she gathered her scarce belongings and made her way out of the barn.
The cobblestone streets were littered with refuge, and were covered in a thin layer of snow.
"Hey girl, what are you doing here?" a familiar voice chided from a narrow opening in one of the small buildings.
Every warning in her head told her to run. For the majority of her life, she had been running. Never knowing where to go or who to turn to. The days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, and finally those weeks turned into years. She never found solace, and she never knew love or comfort.
The girl ducked into a narrow crevice to avoid a passing cart full of overripe fruit. Stealthily, she followed the cart and crept into the back to snatch an apple. Mournfully she looked at her solitary breakfast, and wished more than anything, that one day she might not have to steal to be fed properly.
"You there girl, what do you think you are doing with that apple?" A voice from behind her asked.