Masked Facade

Chapter 13: The Trip

Alice's (Raelyn) POV

Six years ago...

Humans have this illusion that there's nothing in this whole wide world that could change who we were inside, making one compromise where they should stand firm. Some recognize it as time but it was never time, from my perspective.

Because, if anything, time took its own time to plot every spike and pit in my life that it never held me hostage. My moral enemy was the parent of cruelty - fear. Quietly sitting inside me, it eroded the person I was born to be. Each time the fear tried to shake me off with an intention of breaking off my balance, part of me got stronger, learning how to cope, while part of me weakened. Every time I feel threatened by its impact, I crown it as fear of failure. Against it, to recover, I put the fear of never trying; the fear of failing through cowardice. This is how I kept moving forward, and how I let others think of me as brave. I was not. I just knew how to push through fear better than the others... make forwards less painful than hiding in the shadows.

On the city streets, I was a walking wallet, a consumer, a citizen. There were rules of conduct any which way you go. I must cross the street at the lights on command; I must wait in line-ups in the stores and be courteous. But here in nature I was just another organism, another animal, albeit one with fancy clothes and a cell phone in my pocket. There was something liberating in that. I always felt it whenever I dedicated my day to spend it with five sensed living creatures and their habitat. If I wanted to I can shout my lungs out, I can run, walk or turn cartwheels, there was not a soul to cast a disapproving glance or whisper doubts as to my sanity. Well, not exactly considering the bunch of class mates I was tagged along with. But still, their presence didn't matter to me much. So, I had a free way out.

The trees grew so thickly that there was no undergrowth at all. About our feet were only the browned remnants of branches and needles that had fallen in the recent high winds. If there was a path here I couldn't see it, so instead I wend my way through the skinny trunks that grew so tall, racing for their share of the sun's rays. In places they were so thickly clumped that I must alter my path or risk my backpack becoming wedged. The air had that smell of woodland before rain, perhaps above the canopy there were clouds fit to burst. It was dark for this time of day, so perhaps soon the filtered light would be accompanied by water droplets.

But none of them could cure the twisting sensation in my stomach. And the reason? Well, watching someone giving an audition for adults' movie for free in the middle of nowhere caused the knots in my stomach into bile that rose through my throat. Higher and higher with every passing second though my eyes looked away from them, since every single soul who made it to the trip were encouraging them with hollers of cheers.

Is it so difficult to keep in check your hormones? I wondered while picking up my backpack and tossing it into my tent. My nose was scrunched up in disgust when I noticed Ryan picking up the cheerleader, aka Blair Bennett, by her waist as she wrapped her legs around his hips and disappearing between the trees to complete their unfinished business. The twilight was approaching which was perfect for them to pounce over one another.

Heaving out a deep breath, I felt my body relax when soft wind washed me over with the scent of burning wood. Thinking back to this day that I spent away from my family and stepping out of my comfort zone made me realize that I didn't do that one thing for which I came this far.

"Hey, uh, Alice?" A stern yet calm and soft voice greeted me from behind. A lot was going on in my head and if anything, I just wanted to be left alone. But at the same time, I couldn't just ignore the effort put by someone else to have a conversation with me. Because I knew how much it took for that person to come all the way till here to me. Just like I always did with that someone.