Run on Red

by Noelle W. Ihli

I’d been bracing for something bad to happen for as long as I could remember.

“You just have to remember the rule of threes. You can survive three minutes without air. Three hours without shelter. Three days without water. Three weeks without food. First things first, and you’ll survive.”

Men like this said things like that to girls like us, knowing we’d been told our whole lives that if we listened carefully and followed the rules, we’d stay safe.

Don’t let them take you to a second location. Your chances of surviving an assault at any given location are 97%. Your chances of survival, if you are taken to a second location, drop to 30%.

Fear was a warning, a survival instinct. It meant there might still be a way out, if only you could keep your legs pumping and your brain firing long enough to find out.