Asher was walking with his mind in the clouds. He couldn’t stop thinking, he was crying, he felt terrible. He wanted to get out of there, and he would do it anyway, in a few weeks.

Or so he thought, because when he arrived home that same day, he found the security guards in his house. There were so many of them, they had discovered him. He was going to die.

Asher did the first thing that came into his head, he ran, he ran as fast as his weak feet would let him, and got back to the Giver, he had everything he needed. The security guards were chasing him, but he was faster, so he made it back to the Giver.

They could no longer follow the plan, Asher had to get out of there quickly. There was no time for anything, just to gather everything he needed and get out of there.

After getting everything, he got on a bike and left, he left so fast that the last thing he saw from his parents was a disappointed look, he felt his heart broke even more. He couldn’t explain to them, he could say goodbye, but he didn’t want to die, so he left.

Weeks went by and he had little food left, the cold was too much, the trees made driving very difficult, and it was even worse when that white thing he had forgotten the name of fell from the sky.

Asher’s eyes couldn’t stand to be open any longer, he had to rest and eat something, but it was very difficult, he couldn’t eat that much, with luck he had managed to catch a… dibs? Bidys?

It didn’t matter what it was called, but he had only managed to capture one. It was very difficult if every time you made a noise they flew away, those stupid… birds, that’s what they were called. But it didn’t matter, what mattered was to save food while he managed to get more.

Asher decided to keep going, he couldn’t stop, he didn’t know how much longer he had to go and he wasn’t going to ruin everything for a little food and rest. Asher felt a little better when they passed a downhill, there he didn’t have to pedal so much, and he could rest his feet.

When the bike lost speed, Asher decided to rest and eat a little. He still had a few things left to eat, some apples and a few drinks, but he had to save them. Asher grabbed an apple and started to eat it.

Asher took his attention off the apple, closing his eyes, but when he opened them again, the apple had changed. Asher smiled and watched it for a while, there he remembered the time he played with Jonas, maybe that was what he had seen. Asher looked up to see the place, everything had that white powder on top.

The trees looked beautiful with that mix of green and white, the flowers of different colors had disappeared, and the… Snow! Yes, that’s what it was called. The snow had completely covered them, it had stopped falling, but the snow was still on the ground, not melting.

The boy blinked once more and the colors disappeared. Asher got up with his feet sore and climbed on his bike to then stop and put a blanket on it. He didn’t know if he was still missing much, didn’t know if he was going to find Jonas, but he had to get to Elsewhere.

Asher went on and on until he encountered a climb, tried to climb a few times, but always went backward and became worse when snow began to fall from the sky again.

So he came down from the bike and walked up, walked and walked, he couldn’t stop. If he did it would take longer, he felt his legs even weaker, and when he finally managed to get up, he found a cabin with lights in front of him.

It was Elsewhere, at last. It was a beautiful place, so messy, so free, so different, it was perfect. Asher threw his bike and took a few steps ahead to get a better view of the place. There were lights, lots of huts, and flowers everywhere even though there was snow.

It was a beautiful place, I could not see the color of the lights at that time, but probably he could see them in a few hours or a few minutes. Asher fell to his knees too tired, and there he saw him, inside one of the cabins, there was Jonas, laughing and playing with a young child.

He knew that he was finally in a safe place, where he belonged. That he could finally be far from the community at last, he was far from all the pain and loneliness that the community transmitted to him and that he could finally be with his friend.

It hurt to leave his parents and sister behind, but there he couldn’t live. Not after knowing all that the Giver showed him, all the love and hate that existed in the world, all the bad and good that people could do.

He didn’t know what Elsewhere was like, he didn’t know if it was the same or different from his community, he didn’t know if it was even worse. But when he saw his friend’s laugh while playing with that child, he knew that Elsewhere was the place where he belonged. And he smiled.

After so much suffering and effort to get there, he finally smiled, feeling huge happiness growing in his chest. Asher felt bad, was weak and hungry, but that happiness became bigger and bigger as did his smile.

Asher fell to the floor unconscious. Even with that smile on his face, he was sure, away from all those rules of the community, at last, he was free. The last thing Asher remembers after that, was seeing Jonas turn to see him before hurrying out of the cabin to help.