Dark Side

Serena

Serena's POV

Knocking, jostling bodies. I fight my way through the sea of people. Push aside curtains of perfectly styled hair, squeeze past bodies pressed together in little clumps. Cliques. I accidentally knock into someone, and they stumble.

“Hey!” they shout in my ear. “Who do you think you are?” I don’t respond, although mentally I’m asking the jerk the same question. They’re not giving up, though. Their big, sweaty hand wraps around my arm. “Who are you?” they demand angrily.

I open my mouth to answer when I realize that I don’t know. In this mass of human bodies, how is one person supposed to separate themselves from the next? I have no identity here. The boy is still in my face. He wants an answer, so I give him one.

“I don’t know,” I tell him calmly. He growls a bit. His breath smells really terrible. It reminds me a bit of a skunk.

“Well do you know who I am?” he asks. Clearly he thinks I am supposed to know. I say the first thing that comes to mind.

“A skunk.”

His clique laughs and he lets go of my arm. I leave. The encounter didn’t bother me, but his question did. I don’t know who I am here. I have no name besides the girl with the dark hair. The girl with the blue backpack. Those are superficial things, and I don’t like those names. The people are pressing closer to me, crowding uncomfortably. Disembodied voices are floating around me, and I don’t like feeling this lack of self. Girls are gossiping. Boys are rough-housing. I am stuck. Here. My heart starts to pound.

Breathe, I tell myself. Focus. Head high, look straight ahead. None of them are here. And it works--the sounds from the shuffling crowd of people fade away, leaving me alone in the blissful silence. The blinding sunlight is fading, too. Everything is in shadow. My head slowly begins to clear. I walk forward in this darker, calmer place. The ground is soft. The trees are tall and strong. The sky is a deep purple, and the only sound is a gentle rushing, like a river. I cast a soft glow in the shadows as I walk further in this etherworld. There is no one else here. I am alone. And I have found myself again. I know who I am.

I am Serena. And this is my Dark Side.