Nights of Fire

chapter 11: Noel

         Cabin 5 was much quieter that night. Everyone looked away from me. Casper was the only person who talked to me. I lied in bed that night staring at the ceiling. I thought about how everyone thought I was a freak. Even with the people who were most like me I was still an outsider. My mom told me that everyone here would accept me,that this place would make me feel welcomed, well...she lied. Inturned away from Casper and faced the wall beside me. Silent tears streamed down my face. I knewnhoe to cry secretly, I practically lived alone my whole life. Not alone like homeless and without family, but alone as if emotionally.

"Are you OK?" Casper's question shocked me.

"Yeah. I'm fine." I lied.

"You don't need to lie to me. You know I already know."  I didn't say anything. I didn't want to give him that satisfaction of  being right, all my life I was wrong. "Listen, I...don't want to push anything but, you are not alone. Do you think being imottal is easy? My mum and da' have been dead for almost eighty years now. I know exactly what it feels like to be alone. Before I found this camp all I did was run. I could never meet old friends, old loves. I have lived through so many deaths and I will live through so many more. Believe me, talking will help."

I was reluctant towards but after what he said  I couldn't not talk, that would just be rude. I sat up, turned around, and faced him. "WhennI was young and my mom and my mom found out about...me, she decided to keep me isolated. She kept me homeschooled but she had to work so I did not really learn anything. I lived my life in the stories of other peoples great, and adventures lives, and when I wasn't reading, I would lock myself in my room with the lights off and o would hide in the shadows. O was vulnerable to almost anything. After a while my mom got super worried. She took me to a therapist and the said that I had PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder but I completely dismissed that theory and just decided that I had anxiety and that lie went on for a while but my mom truly believed in the PTSD thing. I just kept living the same way as I had before is was diagnosed."  Tears were coming down even harder and Casper's concerned look never looked away from me. I kept going. "My mom then got me a dog so I wouldn't be alone the whole time that she was at work. He really lifted my spirits but I was still really messed up. Then my mom started telling me about this camp, when I showed up here I thought I would be accepted. I guess I thought wrong." I put my face in my hands and started crying. Casper got up. He stood over me and his face showed the most concern anyone could ever have on their face. He sat down on bed next to me. He looked me square in the face, he put his hand up to my face and pushed a strand of hair out of  the way of  my ongoing tears. He leaned in and I got frightened but it wasn't what I thought. He wrapped his arms around me. I put my arms under his and Nuzzled my fave over his shoulder and began to cry. He accepted it. It was a good thing my bed was located min the corner because right now a lot of people were looking at us. His blonde hair smelt like Axe shampoo and his gray sweater smelt like Axe cologne. He rubbed his hand over my back and the other was fiddling with my hair.

"Thanks." I said pulling away. "Listen, I should...uh...get to bed. Its my first day in the real camp tommarrow. Uh, goodnight." Casper nodded and returned to his own bed.

I started to think about the day we had a head and how I hardly knew anything about the normal schedule. What are the classes? What are we training for? "Casper...?"

"Don't worry, all the cabins travel together, you won't be lost." I didn't answer and we both dropped the subject. I suddenly drifted off into a silent slumber with one of the most unusual dreams I have ever dreamed.

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I was back at my old home. Nothing had changed from when I left except it was now early spring. The windows were open and the smell of fresh petrichor wafted throughout the house.I was laying in bed with the early morning sun shinning shroungh my tan colored curtains. My red and white patterned blancket was scattered across my bed and body like I had kicked it off in my sleep. My small flat-screen TV was flashing with scenes from the local news channel. Everything was completely normal. I could hear the scrape of a spatula across a pan so I assumed my mother was already cooking breakfast. Then her voice echoed through the hall and into my room. "Honey?nplease come down to eat." I reluctantly got out of bed and started to head out the door of  my bedroom. I was only two steps into my normal path to the kitchen when I felt a hand on my arm. My mom was coming out of her bedroom. "Don't go down there honey, I heard it too."

"Are you coming?" It was my other mother, or my mother that was in the kitchen, maybe even not my mom at all. But then a thout crossed my mind. What if this one was not my mom.

I thrusted my arm out of her grip and backed away. She stared at me blankly for a moment and the she seemed to finally come to her senses. "Please! You gotta trust me." I couldnt . in this situation, how could I even trust myself.

I started to back away and she came at me, slowly but still consistently. "I'm coming up sweetie. Are you alright?"

"I don't know. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!???" I screamed. Right before my upstairs mother attacked me the scene changed.

Richard was laying on the rock floor Ina big crying heap. He was there. What was he doing here? His shadow was kicking  Richard hard in the ribs and he cried out in pain. I just realized the banshee like screams imittng from his shadow-like mouth. I brought my hands to my ears and fell to the floor on my knees. I hid my head in my thighs and squinted in pain. But then the screams stopped.  I looked up. Richard was bleeding from his mouth and from his abdomine. His eyes were open as he stared at a white, whispy figure of a girl. She had shoulder length, black, curly hair. Her skin was pale, almost purple and her brow eyes were glassy. She wore a pink sundress and she looked about eight years old. She was crying as we stared at Richards lifeless body only he was still barely mumbling something. "Amanda, Amanda, Amanda..." She tried to grasp for him but she couldn't. She cried out in frustration.

"Please! DONT LEAVE ME ALONE AGIAN!!!" Her voice cracked and the cave walls and the rock around us fell in. Everything went black, and the little light I still had in me vanished.