Dream Journal

Capture The Flag-- Team Deathmatch Style!

I stood aloof in the middle of the forest, surrounded by a canopy of enormous redwood trees. A barrier of confusion clouded my thoughts, but I could smell the fear lingering in the heavy air. There were five others glomping around like a pack of zombies. A beautiful dark-haired girl; a fiery young girl with pig-tails; a serious-looking boy with glasses; an adventurous boy holding a spear-headed branch; a fair-haired girl clutching a small, bulging bag. They scrambled and shuffled their feet in the ocean of withered needles on the forest floor. 

At the edge of the forest, where the horizon seemed to drop off into an endless blue, a long, metal rocket. But the most peculiar thing about this rocket was not its uncanny resemblance to a canoe, but the countless knives and daggers jutting out from it. Knotted at the end of each of the long spears, just before the blade, was a little dark green flag. I ran my finger across a blade and a sharp, searing sensation was left behind. Blood leaked from the slice; these blades were real. 

A sudden whisper urged me to grab whatever I could; sticks, rocks, needles... and the others seemed to hear it too. The voice had spoken only three words, but they awoke a fear in my heart powerful enough to swell my throat.

"Capture the Flag."

I had only played Capture the Flag one time, at camp, in the sixth grade, though I knew in my gut that this was not the same game at all. The others gathered around me, backpacks on their backs, pots and pans sitting loosely on their heads, oven mitts taped over their hands, and pillows strapped to their fronts. Everyone's cheeks had been striped with dark green war paint.

Everyone looked at me like I was either a leader or a setback. I wasn't sure which, so I simply turned from the group, picked up an armful of rocks, and set them in the bottom of the metal body. I then picked up a hefty supply of large branches, and began snapping off the excess notches.  

Everyone around me began to do the same, and I realized that they looked to me not as a setback, but a leader. I smirked in admiration, but quickly scolded myself for being so cocky. Then, the voice whispered in my ear, "We have already begun. Climb aboard, or be devoured by flame." I heard a shrill scream, and found that the young girl that held so tightly onto her bag was left squished between two logs flickering with live fire. It licked up the forest in no time at all, and everyone on the team- though we sacrificed all our canteen water- managed to pull her free. 

We piled into the rocket, the sound of our bare feet smashing against its metal sides echoing through the burning forest. A sliding screech made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, like a knife running through a knife-sharpener, or a stick of chalk screeching against a blackboard. Another silver rocket blasted by us, this one literally on fire!

The rocket blasted by, the flames extinguishing themselves right off of it after it left the fiery inferno behind us. Unlike our rocket, this fireproof rocket fully enclosed its passengers, though the cabin was smoke-filled and I couldn't see its occupants- our competitors- through the window.

"The fire is catching up, we have to shove off!" shouted the boy wearing thick-framed glasses behind me. Everyone reached for a stick at the bottom of the rocket and waited as the boy shouted, "Ready, on three!" and counted down. With a final shove, the rocket teetered over the edge of the horizon and raced down the nearly vertical cliff.

The screams of my allies filled the air as we gripped onto the edges the rocket and prayed that we wouldn't fall out. But we found that we were practically glued to the bottom of the rocket, as the blades surrounding us sliced clean through anything that might slow us down. Shrubs, plants, even pesky trees were no match for the rocket. The earth shook as a massive tree trunk fell to the ground, sliced clean in two. The wind pulled my hair away from my face at last, and as the smoke cleared from my eyes, I saw what we were up against.