The Moments I Recall

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

I visit the camp in the morning, alone this time. The atmosphere here is like being stuck in a dream state and yet, I can think more clearly here now that I'm aware. There's a saturated brightness to the environment compared to the duller natural tones of the real world.

"Real world." I mutter. I use this term impulsively. Who's to know that this place isn't the real world. Our lives have shifted, our home if no longer safe, our noses bleed more frequently now. Are we slowly dying? Is she waiting for us to die? Well if she was, she wouldn't have had to poisoned Coby's mind. He was getting closer and she was afraid. Afraid of what? If camp shuts down, what does she lose?

I take a seat on the bench I had sat in when I first came here, holding every note Coby Ray had ever written, every letter he has ever hidden, anything he'd left that could help me understand. You'd think I'd do this sooner. Why not read it all and figure it out and be done with it. We are caught up in our own problems, our own minds. We all have lives now, I must remember we are no longer hollow shells of ourselves. We didn't have to do while we were here. Never a battle with ourselves or our lives to be honest. We could blame someone else for our problems. We never actually knew anything. We were comfortable.

Theo knows more about any of this than we do, and he won't even share anything he found in Coby's notes. Whatever he knows is clearly something we should avoid, but personally, I'm just delaying something I know should happen because not knowing is causing me fear. I'm enlightened here. I feel like I'm a part of the camp, it's been born into me. I sometimes wonder why I ever left. It all makes sense here, everything makes sense here.

If I read here, I might just understand. And I can't delay this any longer....

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