Night descends my hiding place inside the stonewall. I shudder and moan with sad thoughts of home. Where my mother would stroke my hair and ask with sad eyes, "Are you the man behind?" I would nod my head vigorously and close my eyes. No more this shall happen to me. I left that place of hurt and hid away as the man behind. The stone grows cold to the touch and I know it is time to leave, and hunt. I rise to my full height and scuff the earth with my brown foot. I start to run, and run, and run until I can run no more and I sit. I look around at the trees that shelter me like a mother's arms and at the leaves that whisper a sweet goodnight like a lover. Under the roots of the tree lay food that taste good and sweet. Like small umbrellas bursting from the organic matter they come and they come for me to eat. I pick one of the many and shoved it into my mouth and told my self to try to remember anything.

Arms caress my body and I look away from the face of the arms. "Come to me." Says the evil temptress. "No!" I shout and struggle a little for I want to hold the temptress in my arms and feel her warmth on my hands, but I mustn't for I have work to do. She pouts and says to me, "Are you the man behind?" I stare at her and realize she knows. I roar with anger and strike her face. She screams with pain in her cheek. The woman must die! I wrap my hands around her neck while she is screaming and I press. Harder and harder the pressure becomes, higher and higher are the screams of the woman...

I break into a cold sweat as the memory comes back to me. I emerge from that darkness and close my eyes. "That is not me any more." I tell my self over and over again. The velvety blackness behind my eyes settles and I am comforted. "Forget that, it was only an accident." Says the little voice inside me. "You are right." I say remembering the limp body of the woman across my arm and empty stare of horror forever imprinted on her face. Time to move on.

I crawl to a new hiding spot. Very clever of me, so very clever. Some people never do that. They stay in one place and never move. Those people are found and killed; I shall never be one of them. I curl into a ball with my knees near my face and slowly drift off to sleep as the sun shows his pale face and grimly smiles at the land.

Most nights I dream terrible dreams of my past and future, but tonight I see something different, something good in my dreams. A face, so familiar, appears. The face looks surprise and talks over her shoulder. "Mother! His eyelids are moving!" She smiles down at me and says, "You'll wake up for me won't you Chandler." I try to move my arm toward the voice. The so-called mother behind the face in front of me whispers, "That means he's dreaming." The face says, "I sure hope it's a good one." Then everything fades. Once more I wake to emptiness and shed a tear or two for my pitiful existence.

The sun is hiding its face when I come out and meet the night. The high reaches of mountaintops and other such vistas are covering his golden face. The moon looks down on me with pity and lights the world around me with a silver glow. Tonight is meat night. I need substance to keep my stomach full and my health at its finest. I peer out. Waiting, watching, and searching for small prey. "Just one rabbit." I tell myself and sit still. I don't see any rabbits, but I do see a man. He is tall and muscular, but I am better. I have better senses. "NO!" I tell my self. "I mustn't kill again. It is wrong because Shay told me so." I whisper, but I am so hungry. I lift my head and brush the black hair out of my eyes. I spring from the bushes and knocked the man from his feet. We rolled on the ground with his yells and my screams of delight. I finally get my hands on his jaw and snap it from his skull. He gargles and blood gushes from the wound. I have his lower jaw in my hand and I lick at the liquid that drips from it. Then I drop my prize and press at the now unconscious man's neck. "It can't be wrong to kill if the man was going to die anyways." Says the voice in my head. "Right." I say and enjoy my deserved meal.

I drag the body to my next hiding spot and cover it with bushes and say prayer just like my momma would do. I lie against the dusty ground and fall asleep like a child with a full belly.

Dreams come to me once more this night. The same face stares at me with tear in her eyes. "Momma, we can't. We just can't." She weeps. "Honey, you heard what the doctor said. He has a 20 percent chance of waking up again. We'll wait another month, but then...'� The mother trailed off and a burst of anguish comes from the face in front of me. "Look Mother! His eyelids! They are moving again! Darling Chandler wake-up! Please wake for me!" I feel a pounding near me and a spot of wet drop on my cheek.

I wake with sadness in my soul. My mother once said a soul is an invisible thing that flies to God when you die. Sometimes the soul feels happy, sad, or any other things I might be feeling. I look toward the dead man under the bushes only to find he is gone with out a trace. Sometimes this happens to me. I don't know why. I sit and look at my surroundings. High trees and brush everywhere. I hear rushing water near by. I stand and walk toward the sound. I get right up next to the water and look at the face looking back at me. It had an oddly shaped nose, two beady eyes, and a wide mouth pursed into a small line. I cup my hands and drink deeply from the water in stream. I crouch and take off my shirt. Gashes on my chest and arms are slowly healing and I wince each time I bathe them with water. I feel a new pain. I feel a pain in my heart. I clutch at my chest and gasp for air. My hands reach up and look for something to grab a hold of. I passed out.

While in the midst of my black out, I hear new voices. They shout and buzzing noises come from large pieces of equipment. I feel a shock in my chest and I see them. They are in white with calm hiding panicked faces. They look at me with stone faces now and regard some screens that have green spikes and making beeping noises. Soon enough they fade and I lay by the riverside.

I sit up and feel my chest. "All in tack, I'm lucky I was not killed. I shouldn't do that anymore." I tell myself. I feel pity for my self and want Shay or my mother by my side to hold my hand and say I am the man behind. A voice in my head, a strange one, says, "Is he okay?" The next one whispers, "He's going to die soon." The first one repeats, "My dear brother! My poor brother!" The second one asks to end his suffering now." A sob comes and I plug my ears and scream. I feel myself getting weaker and I need a place to hide.

I lie down in a net of roots and cover my self with branches of pine. I'm very cold. I close my eyes and fall into a fitful sleep.

The sobbing continues from that far away place and I finally recognize that face from previous dreams as Shay, my dear sister. Then the other voice as my cold mother. Shay walks toward me and places her hand on my face. "Mother, he's running a temperature.'� she says and she strokes my cheek. "Honey, there is nothing more we can do. He's going to die soon. It will be painful for him if it is natural. We need to do it.'� Mother answers with a voice like iron. Shay cradles my head and I try to speak and manage to say, "Behind." Shay cries louder now and whispers to me that she wouldn't let me die and I fade away back into loneliness.

I hurt all over. I can hardly move. I have spasms of pain that shoot through me like injections. The pain dulls a little bit. Enough to drag my self to the riverside to drink and drag my self back to shiver under the criss-cross roots of my new spot. And I fall asleep into a dark sleep. I do not dream and wake up feeling worse. I scream with frustration at my own body and huddle inwards. The scream hurts me. I lay motionless and I feel a darkness creeping into my eyesight and the voice in me whispers, "Goodnight." I struggle against it in vain and slowly grow cold. Never to move again.

Shay lays her head against her dead brother's chest and cries as he grows cold, the cord in her hand.

The next day in a small article in the paper reads:
CORD PULLED ON CHANDLER READLE
On Wednesday May 23, 2007 a man in a coma for over 4 years was taken off life support. Chandler Readle was in a hiking accident when he was a young man and was left mentally damaged since he was 12. During the trip, Chandler, his father, and a friend went hiking in the woods and the conditions had gotten so bad that he was forced to eat the friend when the father left and never returned. This caused the mental damage. In 1993 he killed a prostitute. He wasn't sentenced, pleading mental retardation. Chandler may have been in connections with other crimes, but was not convicted. He was put into a coma by a car accident that left him little hope of recovery. By the 3rd year of the coma he was brain dead and had little to no response to medical treatment leaving the family little hope other than fluttering eyelids. Today is also the day that Chandler was re-united with his family after the ordeal in the woods. So the family now says, "Goodnight.'� to Chandler and sweeter dreams.

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