The Dream Catcher

A Squirrel Named Amber

Crunching. Tripping. Laughing. That's all you could hear from that terrible woman. The animals cower at the sight of her, the owls retreat into their nests. Even the bears avoid that woman.

It was just enough to wake up the sleeping girl. Violet opens her eyes, alert. She doesn't tend to be tired when she wakes up. She's one of those morning people who just jump straight out of bed. Violet carefully looks at her surroundings and sees the woman.

"Government," she whispers. How she knew the ogre was from the government? Violet's had a run in with her a few times, but enough about that story.

Violet scoots behind a fallen tree; she still couldn't stand even if her life depended on it. Which it did. The old over stopps abruptly and looks over to the fallen tree. She had heard Violets little scoots and some moving of sticks.

"HEY, YOU THERE! COME OUT!" The ogre screeches, forcing the birds from their nests. Violet doesn't move--mostly because she can't. But also because she couldn't go back. She peers over the fallen tree and lookes straight at the woman, now well-concealed. She started making small animal noises. She knew they would come in handy at some point on her journey. The ogre just rolls her eyes and walks back to the car.

Violet sighs in relief, and continuesto observe her surroundings. As soon as the ogre was out of sight, the night animals came out again. She looks down because something is nudging her leg. It is a squirrel. She shoos it away, but it came back. After she shoos it a few more times she gives  up. She starts to stand up, propping herself up on the tree for support. Finally standing, she walks in the opposite direction from the ogre. Violet wonders what the woman was doing in the forest. Little did Violet, know she was going to find out sooner than she thought.

After about five minutes of walking, she looks down to see the small squirrel had followed her. She crouched down and pickes up the squirrel. She sees a small paper attached to the squirrel and takes it. She opens it slowly and a single tear ran down her cheek. The letter contains two words. The sad thing was that it was in her father's handwriting.

"Help me."

It takes a minute to process. Violet shoves it in her pocket and stands up, still holding the squirrel. She looks at its tiny face and said:

"What will I name you?" The squirrel just tilts its head in confusion. "Well, what about Blue?" The squirrel shakes its head, understanding what she was doing. "Purple?" The squirrel disagrees. "Red?" The squirrel appears offended, not that I know that squirrels can physically do that. "What about...." Violet looked around the Great Wood for ideas. "AMBER!" Violet exclaimed making the squirrel jump. The squirrel quickly recovered it's with and nodded its little head. "Well little buddy, you're Amber now," Violet tells the squirrel with a smirk on her face. The squirrel runs up and onto Violet's head and sat down.

"I guess you can be up there," Violet says, looking up at the squirrel. "But if you poop, I'm never going to forgive you, and you can find your own way back." The squirrel nodded.

In only a couple minutes the squirrel is fast asleep on Violet's surprisingly comfortable head. Violet stops to get something from her backpack and soon remembers that she lost it a while back. She groans in frustration and starts walking again. She isn't paying attention to where she was going and runs into a tree. The squirrel awakes and Violet rubbed her head. The squirrel tugs on her hair and motions her to look up. Violet looks up in awe. That is the best tree house she has seen in her entire life. She rounds the perimeter to where she thought was the front door and listens inside. She could hear soft breathing, and then a thump. She heard two male voices but couldn't understand what they were saying. Violet tried to peer in, but couldn't see anything for the darkness if night. Soon there was another silence. She thought they must have gone back to bed. Deciding that she wouldn't want to risk getting caught by the government, she walks away from the tree house. The government has posts everywhere in the Great Wood, so she decides to continue on. The squirrel tugs on her hair, telling her to go back, but she ignores it.

Eventually, the squirrel gives up and falls asleep for the second time. Violet goes quite a ways away from the tree house, not wanting to get caught. She finds a a small little clearing secluded from the outside world. She takea the sleeping Amber off her head and places her on the ground. Violet thinks about a lot of things before falling asleep. Was that really her father's message? Will she ever find the others like her? Why was the government so cruel? Why is Amber so damn smart? Lots of questions are just running through her head. She closes her eyes and goes to sleep.

Violet awakes with her vision blurred. She sees the squirrel on her chest. Its eyes are wide, trying to tell her something. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up. She wasn't ready to see what she saw. She burst into tears. She finally found them, more like they found her. But still, she was lucky. Others like her.