Wildflowers

Chapter One

She heard them whispering again as she pulled the hoodie of her head. She only glanced at them for a split second before looking back at the mirror placed on the wall.

They loved her eyes for some odd reason that she could not figure out. One said it was because of how they changed color in the light and dark. Others said it reminded them of home with a blue sky. But she personally hated them; they brought back memories from the past.

She turned around her eyes looking at the exposed brick wall that her bed sat next to. She would have thought the brick and concrete walls were pretty if it weren't for the dark beings that lived upon them.

When she first got to the orphanage, she remembered bright yellows of the sunflowers that waited outside of the front door. Bright daisies keeping them all company on the two dining tables that made the floorboards sing under the weight. But the thing she remembers the most is when she arrived in her assigned room. There was a heater under the bared window and a red bedspread on the twin mattress with a dull green trunk waiting at the foot of the bed. When she looked to the walls she saw him. Waiting and whispering with a faint smile erased from his mouth.

"Hello," he had said to her, causing her head to tilt.

"Hello," she squeaked. He scared her from the moment she saw him and his whispering voice scarred her nightmares. He was 2d and seemed glued to the wall, amazing the five-year-old. He was the first of many and king of the shadows that inhabited her room walls.

"Juniper," she heard it, almost feeling like the wind blowing on trees. Her eyes glanced up from the mirror, meeting her reflection for a quick second before she moved her gaze to the wall. She heard screaming in the room besides her, knowing that it was one of the workers trying to give Dandy his medication for the day.

"I don't want to talk to you," she said, tying her hair into a bun. Her hair was shoulder length, curly and frizzy. She saved enough money from her paychecks to dye her hair so that it faded from blonde to blue. When she finished her hair, bright blonde frizz fell from the front, along with a few of her bangs.

"Oh? Why is that?" She turned from the mirror in frustration, pulling her light blue skinny jeans up her legs, jumping and dancing. She pointed to the black silhouette that was painted into the wall.

"You and all your other friends made the workers think I'm crazy!"

"Well, they're not wrong, love." Her eyebrows fell softly.

"Yes they are," she sighed out, grabbing her shoes and slipping them on, leaving the laces untied and dangling for help.

"Oh, Juniper, aren't they?" She scoffed as she looked at the familiar shadow, her mood fading. She pulled her hood over her head and turned quickly.

"They're wrong," she whispered as she slammed the room door. She was one of the lucky ones, or that's what she gathered from the way they treated her. She was one of the only people who didn't have to share a room, or get overly injected with "medication" that would slowly kill her from the inside out. No, she wasn't one who had a straight jacket on with black circles under her eyes or one who had a drinking problem since they were five. She was a lucky one.

She was one of the ones who didn't get adopted; the ones that had one outrageous flaw that no one could over look. What? She didn't know, she didn't even know if she would ever know. But she did have a guess as to what it might've been. Maybe it was because she was known for how her parents died, or maybe it was because she heard things she never wanted to hear. Maybe it was the fact she could speak to the painted shadows along her walls at night. Maybe it was the fact that she was all wrong.

Whatever it was, she didn't care anymore. Being 16 and in an orphanage is sucky as it is, why dwell on asking 'why' or 'what if'. She wasn't asking that question anymore, she didn't know what question she even had to ask. She only knew what she had to do.

So as her feet splashed in old, mukky water that laid on the streets of what was once New York, she knew what was awaiting her in one short mile, and she was dreading it to the fullest extent she could possibly dread anything.

  . . .

"Juniper, how did you feel that day?"

How did I feel? I felt dead sir, she wanted to so badly say, but she didn't. She only shrugged.

"Sad, as most five-year-olds would feel, Mr. Bonks." He sighed, looking at her from where she sat on a broken down couch.

"What did you see?" She looked up at him with such annoyance. What did she see? They've been over that question so many times it made her sick to her stomach.

"I've told you this already."

"Tell me again." She sighed angrily, shaking her head as she played with her thumb.

"I saw my family being murdered. The look on their faces haunts me. My brother was drowning in his own blood, Mr. Bonks!" She looked up at the aging old man after she slammed her hands on the oak coffee table. His chin seemed to point under his imperial facial hair. His head was poking out of his gray hair and his eyes were scary. They were gray, almost white in some lights and almost black in others. He always wore pinstriped shirts with pitch-black slacks and shoes that made his feet look as though they belonged to a clown.

"Well, Miss. Cameron what else did you see?" She rolled her eyes at him. She saw everything; she sees it every time she looks in the mirror. Her eyes replayed the images over and over and the story of it all was the reflection in her eyes.

"I don't know, Mr. Bonks."

But she did.

"Did you see their bodies?"

"No."

She did.

"What did your mom look like?" Dead. She wanted to say. She looked lost and dead and bloody and gone. She looked like a child's worst nightmare. She looked like a tale from a horror story.

"She had bruises," she glanced down. "She had bruises on her neck, and her eyes sparkled with fear, and- and I don't know what else." She couldn't describe the other emotion sparkled in her mother's eyes that night.

"Your father?" Mr. Bonks starred at the young girl as she choked on her words. Her blue eyes were glossy; she seemed lost in her mind. And that's exactly what she was.