Red Flowers Can Lead to Danger

She had seen other girls do it and didn’t really know if it helped or even worked. She decided to try it and see what happened. She plucked up one of the red daisy-like flowers. She started to take each petal off at a time. As the first on fell she recited to herself “He loves me”. The second one fell, “He loves me not”. The third one, “He loves me”, on and on and until there were no more petals on the flower. But before the last one fell and before she was able to say “He loves…” she had the feeling that she should run. Her heart began to beat faster than she knew it could. She dropped the petal-less flower that she had been holding and took off. She started sprinting out of the grassy area in the woods where she was. She could hear something or someone following her, chasing her. It, whatever it was, sounded mean and gruff, and large, she thought she could almost hear its feet pounding the ground as it ran. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t even know where to go. There wasn’t much civilization around these woods. She didn’t even have a phone to try to call anyone for help. Her mom didn’t think she needed one, despite her many tries to convince her. As she was running she started regretting not getting one of those cheap minute phones with her birthday money a few months ago. She tried to think of what to do, she knew she was coming up on a small bluff. She climbed down it as quickly as she could and hid under a bit of a rock ledge. She was so out of breath she didn’t know if she would ever be able to breath good again. She stood as quietly as she could and waited.