And so I found myself riding in the back of a midnight black van, with pitch black interior, a boy with raven black hair and my heart feeling pretty dark too.
It was an extremely uplifting experience of course.
I was sat in harsh silence save the rumbling of the tyres rolling over the dusty, stony ground. I could tell it was dusty because every now and then on the extremely long journey there would be a cloud of what looked like fairy dust come flicking up from under the tyres of the van, illuminated by the dim moonlight.
I couldn’t help crying but most of my tears had dried up now so I was just left feeling hollow, as if someone had pulled out my insides and left them back at the tent too. The length of the drive and the sheer amount of adrenaline, pressure and tense atmosphere was all beginning to push me into a corner of my own mind, making me less inclined to try and talk to the one person that might be able to help me.
He sat, hunched up in the opposite corner to me, next to the open door on the left hand side of the van. No-one had bothered to close it but I wasn’t considering jumping out any time soon. The boy’s hair was covering his eyes but every now and again the moonlight would catch his face and I’d see a twinkle appearing on his cheek.
That night was the first time I saw a grown boy cry.
********************************
He didn’t look like he knew what he was doing here any more than I did myself but, despite his tears he looked content in himself and confident in a way I hadn’t seen before. I envied him; at least he could keep himself together.
And still the car rolled on. I was sat for hours and hours, my body gradually growing stiffer and stiffer and my eyes steadily closing.
When I awoke, I didn’t know where I was. I assumed I was back at home, the nightmare I had been living the night before- exactly that- a mere dream. The temperature of the room seemed a bit chilly but it didn’t matter, my room had obviously been devoid of any sort of movement all night so it was bound to make the air feel a bit still.
Right?
And then I opened my eyes.
It wasn’t my room. It was a cell of some sort- cold, grey and dark. I stretched out my arms, hoping that I wasn’t tied down or restrained in any way. It seemed fine and so I sat up, confused again as to what was going on. I was even more confused when I found a snake attached to my arm. I screamed, trying to pull it off but it was firmly latched on, its tail was trailing upwards however so I looked up to see if I could somehow pull the animal off by its tail.
I realised it wasn’t an animal when I saw it was attached to a whole other bunch of wires trailing up and twisting around each other up into a hole in the ceiling, which I noticed wasn’t that far away from my face. I sat up fully this time, taking in my surroundings properly. There was a basin in one corner of the room, with a pile of clothes stacked next to it, the walls were made of concrete and metal beams were stationed around the room, holding the room together.
I was clearly on a higher level than this and when I managed to regain my senses I realised I was on a bunk bed with highly industrial looking purposes. I shivered, wondering what purpose the wires in my arm were serving.
I tried dragging my legs up to my chest, remembering that there had been a horrible stabbing pain running through my upper body the last time I had been awake…Whenever that was. My chest was fine, odd. I was sure I’d broken something. I scanned the room for some form of date recognition, or even just a way to find the time. I checked my wrist even though I never had a watch on anyway.
Looking over to where I expected there to be a door, I found a simple cage like entrance. No escape there. The bars looked thicker than my arm so I wasn’t going to manage to saw through them with my teeth within my life time and I certainly wasn’t going to try when there was someone sitting out there.
The boy with the black hair was sitting there, playing around with a set of keys he had in his hand, pushing one key back and forth with his palm. I cleared my throat and he looked up, startled, his green eyes flooded with confusion. And then he saw me and his eyes went back to normal and he simply stared down at the ground again.
Some welcome.
I dared not get off of the bunk bed for fear of tearing the wires out of my skin; however, I did sit up and try to get his attention again. He looked miserable and slightly confused and I was both of these things and I needed to talk to someone. On the other hand, I didn’t want to bug him and I sort of didn’t actually want to talk to this guy either.
It turned out I didn’t need to worry about this anyway since he looked up and smiled at me. Butterflies suddenly appeared in my stomach and I tried really hard to ignore them since I wasn’t happy about being here. I tried to look him in the eye with a look of complete defiance and mistrust. I managed the mistrust part because I didn’t trust this black haired boy one bit despite the fact he had stuck up for me.
“Are you ok?” He asked, smiling warmly as he said it.
I didn’t say anything.
“Hmm, well you seem ok,” He grinned “So I’ll leave you alone.”
This boy had only known me whilst I was asleep and he already knew how to wind me up. This was not a good sign; I wasn’t going to let myself fall into the trap of any sort of friendship.
“Oh…but…” I whined.
His face lit up and he started laughing at my annoyance. I grinned too, just happy to see someone, anyone, smile.
“Don’t sound so disappointed!” He smiled “I’ve got all day to talk, and more besides.”
His face clouded over again and his mood changed to one of gloom when he mentioned that. I looked down at my hands rested on my lap as the awkward silence followed.
