A little to the left. A little more. Ok, now up, up, I think as I try to position the crosshairs on the head of a Roman. They have been going to and from the town located about two miles from here, bringing the Jars with them. I don't know what the Jars are for, but I'm guessing that they are important. I finish making the adjustments on the wind and distance and I am ready to take the shot. My finger hovers over the trigger. 3...2...1... "Hi!" says a female voice from behind me. I jump and accidently squeeze the trigger. The gun goes off, but doesn't hit the soldier. I whip around and jump towards where the voice was. I make contact and slam the figure to the ground. After a bit of struggling, the figure gives up. I recognize the face. "Maree! What was that for? Now they're going to kill us!" I motion towards the commotion that has started at the base of the hill. I hear shouts and gunfire. Bullets whiz past and hit a few trees around us. "Let's go!" I tell her. She doesn't argue and we take off into the woods. We run until my legs burn and beg for rest. We stop in a clearing and catch our breath. I look around at the towering, green trees around us. "So can you explain what you were doing right behind me as I was about to change history?" I ask angrily. "Well, I was out looking for any settlements like you said I should last week," she counters. I recall our meeting in an abandoned barn located a few miles from here. "And I found a group of Romans," she continues. I listen closer when she mentions that. "I followed them into the valley where we just were, and saw a gun barrel sticking out from the top. I thought, well that’s gotta be Amnisty, so I walked up there, and it was," she finishes. "Well," I start, but am cut short when gunfire erupts from behind us. A bullet grazes Maree's shoulder and she lets out a cry of pain. I grab her good arm and we sprint away. I turn and pull out my own gun, letting go of Maree’s arm. She keeps running. I position the sights on one of their heads, the one I was about to kill in the valley, and fire twice. I don't see him fall. I turn and run towards where I think Maree went. I would call out, but I don't want any Romans after me again. I spin, looking for signs that someone has been through here. Nothing. I hear rustling behind me, but I stay still, until I see someone emerge. I turn and hold my gun to their forehead. A Roman. My finger brushes the trigger, but I hold my fire. He looks younger than most and he is unarmed. An unarmed Roman. There's a rare sight. "Who are you?" I ask, still holding up the gun. He doesn't answer. "You do realize I could just kill you now, right?" Still nothing. Figuring I won't get an answer, I spin the gun and whack him in the head with the handle. He crumples to the ground. Now, what to do with him. Leave him here? Fitting, but no. Take him with? Never. I compromise and dump him in the bushes. I start towards where I think the woods end. I look around at the trees, with sunlight pouring through. I see a few with bird nests, and wonder what it would be like to make a home, raise kids, always be safe. Always be safe. My thoughts are interrupted when I see a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I raise my gun, but I am too late. A body slams into me, knocking the wind out of my lungs, and slamming me into the wet earth, holding me there. I see a face, a man's face, the emblem, and the barrel of a gun. "You are under arrest," says the man "for murder.” He smirks.“But there is no law here, so I'll deal the punishment myself." He raises a fist, letting a hand off of my arm. I raise it, but it doesn't save me. His fist slams into my face. Pain shoots through my nose and cheek and I let out a scream. Spots start to form in the corners of my vision. He raises it again for another hit, and I realize I can fight back. I raise my free arm and return the punch. I nail him square in the nose. He yells and drops to the ground. Blood drips from his it and he holds his hands to it, setting me free. I stand and kick him in the chest, hard. He yells again and falls over. I take his gun and run away.

The woods seem to go on forever. Endless trees, their branches tangled together like a spiders web. After running for a solid ten minutes, I decide to walk. My pace slows and I can take in my surroundings a lot easier. The oak and the birch, the cardinals and robins, and squirrels and chipmunks. It’s so peaceful here, I feel like I could just lie down and let the sounds of nature envelope me. I start to think of how nice it would be to rest. My lungs burn from all of that running. Sleep would be nice. Sleep. No. I tell myself. I just have to keep walking. Maree would have run to the barn. We have always met there. And thankfully, it’s only a ten minute walk from here. But where is here? I know where I’m going, but I don’t know where I am. I have never been in this part of the woods. Seems more like a forest now that I know how big it is. I think. But I don’t. I have no idea how big it is. If I was in a hovercraft, I could just look down through the glass floor and search for the barn. My foot hits something hard, and I fall. I stand and wipe off my now muddy hands on my pants. What did I trip on? I look around and find a metal thing buried in the ground. A handle. I pull on it and an area of the forest floor opens. A trapdoor. I click on my flashlight and look down the hole. It’s about a 6 foot drop. I am such an idiot, I think as I lower myself into the abyss.
I shine the flashlight along the damp walls of the tunnel. The air is heavy and tastes like rust. I lower the beam to the floor, and it lands on fresh blood. Images race through my mind of what could be going on down here. A Roman torture facility? Seems like something they would do, but probably not. An abandoned prison? No, the blood is fresh. I’m still thinking of the horrors the end of this tunnel could hold when I hear someone call, “Hello? W-Who’s down there? Amnisty? A-Anyone?” Maree. I race down the tunnel towards where I heard her, and turn a corner. There she is, against the wall, clutching her shoulder. “Maree!” I shout. She looks over, eyes wide. “Amnisty? I knew it! I knew you’d find me!” She replies, grinning. I walk over and crouch beside her. “How’d you get down here?” I ask. I regret it the second it leaves my mouth. “Well, I was running away from those Romans and one of them shot at me and the bullet grazed my shoulder and,” “I know what happened! I was there, remember?” I interrupt. “Oh yeah,” she replies. “So after you let go of me, I ran in a straight line, ‘cause I knew that that’s what you’d do to follow me and I saw the handle so I pulled open the hatch and came down here and waited for you.” she finishes. I think about our situation for a moment. “So now what?” I ask. We had escaped the Romans, but now we have no idea where we are and they’re probably looking for us now. “We’ll spend the night here and in the morning we’ll just keep walking. This woods has to end somewhere, right?” I nod. The stress of today has overwhelmed me, so I slump against the cold wall and let myself drift off.
The next morning we decide to continue in the same direction to see if we could find a way out. I open the hatch and a blast of cool morning air hits my face. I breathe it in and let out a sigh, missing how I used to sit in front of the fan back at home and pretend I was in a hovercraft, sticking my head out of a window and letting the wind whip my hair back. Before I ran away, my life was what most people would call perfect. Sure, I was an only child, but I still had fun. Finding an animal and following it all day, seeing where it lived, watching it eat berries and scamper along the unlevel ground in the woods. And in the winter, building snowmen, counting how many flakes would fall in the same place. Perfect. I climb out of the tunnel and back into the woods. Maree follows right behind. We walk in a line searching for a break in the sea of bark. I run my hand along the rough bark. It leaves small scratches, but I don’t care. I’ve been through a lot of pain in my life. Like when I was seven and I fell out of the tree in our backyard. Our only tree. I always loved being outside. Until I found out that the Romans did, too. When they raided us, I was only thirteen. I had climbed the tree and hid there while they burned our house. I watched as my childhood went up in flames, taking my parents with it. I had cried for hours. I cried out of anguish. Out of anger. Out of hatred for the Romans. It was then that I dedicated the rest of my life to watching them burn, just like they did to me.