Between the Constellations

The Archer

Being adopted isn't as easy as you might think.

I don't remember much from the orphanage I used to live at, but I remember being told how amazing it was to be loved and to have a family to love you.

Or at least that was the rumor.

None of us had ever been adopted- some fostered but always given back- which was why we were still there.

Even though it seems as though I now have people who I can trust, the horrors that haunt me in my slumber every night tell me otherwise.

It always starts with a bow. No, not a hair bow - the weapon kind. It always appears in my hand, out of no where.

Next comes the footsteps. They echo behind me and my body wills me to turn around only when they are directly behind me. And then I am faced with my father, a syringe in his hand with my mother behind him telling him - go. Then I feel a pain sink into the side of my neck before I wake up the next day.

I started getting that nightmare about a month after I got adopted last October. It never once crossed my mind last Sunday evening when I began flipping through my little sister's gossip magazine. It was in the middle of a scorching hot summer and I was too bored to be doing anything else. I laughed lightly at the cringy sketches that the little kids sent in. When I got to the last page of the magazine, a torn page fell from the crease. It was a horoscope.

Normally I would be done with the magazine right then and there because everyone knows the descriptions are rubbish, but it wasn't like I had anything better to do...

December 6th. There were few things I knew about my background but one thing the orphanage did know about me was my birthday.

That's when I found my sign - Sagittarius. The symbol was a sword tilted at an angle. I ended up reading the description-

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21) - Everyone knows you're kind and caring, which is why a friend you lost touch with will reach out to you soon! Plan something fun with your bud, and you two will totally reconnect!

Totally reconnect I mused before closing the magazine and sneaking it back into my sister's room.

I looked outside and noticed it had gotten considerably darker since I had last checked.

I slowly opened the door letting the humid, hot hair hit my face. I breathed out and stepped onto the wooden porch and soon onto the fertile soil that covered our small backyard. I wiggled my toes in the squishy dirt and looked up to see the sky painted with orange, pink, and yellow streaks as the sun descended behind the horizon. That's when it happened.

I looked down and saw the outline of something in my hand. Slowly the figure began to appear and I finally realized what it was - a bow.

I almost fell backwards. This must be another nightmare I thought to myself, but the dirt Bennett by feet begged to differ. I felt my shoulder get heavy and I looked to my side to find a quiver with exactly fifteen arrows. Then I heard them. The footsteps.

I knew this was where the dream should end, but I also knew that this wasn't a dream. My body acted before my mind could and I whipped around- latching an arrow onto my bow in the process - to find my father with my mother behind him, but instead of noticing how they kept inching towards me, I noticed how my father's hand with the syringe began to shake and I noticed the worry in my mother's eyes. But instead of hesitating and thinking this out I felt my hand uncurl from the arrow.

It all happened so fast. The arrow duplicated in thin air and hit my father first then my mother. Blue light flashed around them as the arrows touched their skin. It was so bright I couldn't see. Then I began to feel light headed and my sight became darker and darker until I felt myself falling backwards onto the soft soil.