“What?” He growled. I stared at him, not knowing quite how to respond. “What did you say?” his voice was low and dangerous with a certain light quality to it that made me feel like a prey under predator’s gaze. I tried to speak. To move my lips and make the gears in my head turn again. But nothing came. It was shocking, horrific. I had read before the unoriginal idea of a main character in a book declaring that they couldn’t talk, or couldn’t seem to persuade their feet to move, to run away. But never before had I thought that it was actually possible. Never before had I thought of it as more than bogus.













Never before had it happened to me.








I let my thoughts distract me and the next thing I knew I was stumbling backwards by the force of two big, fat hands. I quickly came to my senses and caught myself before I tripped and landed on my behind. He had shoved me and now was crossing his impossibly large arms over is chest, his face twisted with frustration and rage.










“I’m going to ask you one more time little man.” He snarled, spit flying from his face to mine, “Where. Is. The money?”










But this time I was ready. What he didn’t know was that when he had shoved me it was like he was slamming all the sense back into me, right through my chest. And now I had an advantage over him. I was small, scrawny, but also nibble and quick. And so, just before I sprinted away leaving him there, on the dusty old playing field, I spoke just one word. The one word that I had been trying to muster up for what seemed like ages.
“Gone.”