Gen One- Chapter Sixteen

I swatted at a mosquito who dared trying to land on my arm. There weren't many of the perky buggers at the lot we were staying at, thankfully, but boy did the ones that were there like to target me! I had already put on bug spray, but I was going to have to add a bit more once Allium's story was over. It was the Saturday after Amaranth's week of detention. In order to help de-stress him and make up for the playing time we had lost, Blaze had suggested we all go camping while the weather was still nice. That was how my five friends, Eden, Blaze, and I ended up at a little camping ground further away from all the houses and closer to the small Berrybrook farms. We hadn't been at the lot for long before Allium announced that he had to tell the story about where we were. Apparently, the area used to be a haven for fairies. I was wondering what the several incredibly small houses on thick poles were, and that they were fairy houses answered that. According to Allium, there was one fairy that was bigger than the others. He was the king. His wings were so brilliant and colorful that a jealous human decided to rip them all out.

     "The fairy king and all of his followers used their strength to fight off the human," Allium continued, "But the human was a tricky one. He hid two of the king's feathers in places the fairies could not find. With even just one feathery wing missing, this left the leader of the sprites unable to fly. He fell into a deep sleep to hide his shame. The others took his body away from here and hid it so no harm could befall him again. Then they kept on searching for the lost feathers. The human hadn't been able to travel much before they stopped him. He couldn't have hidden the last two parts of the king's wings very far. However, nothing was ever recovered. The fairies gave up hope and decided to hide themselves away from humans in order to prevent their king's fate from happening again."

Allium took a dramatic breath.

     "Yet, rumor and legend insist that the fairies are still watching. It is said that the fairies will reward even humans who find the feathers with piles of gold- enough hold to make them rich for their entire lifetime."

Allium's story was met with decent approval. Conversation quickly turned to what everyone would do if they had a whole bunch of money to do with whatever they wanted. Amaranth joked about how he would use the money to fund his coal-to-diamond machine, and that got him and Blaze bickering lightheartedly. The others and I began to move about. I stuck by Eden for a second until I noticed Sunflower going around examining all the fairy houses.

     "I wonder what it would be like to be that small." I said as I peeked into the little open front door in the wooden carved building.

     "I had a dream I was a fairy once. My family and I had come camping here actually, and when I 'woke up' after we all went to sleep I was super tiny and all that. I had so much fun flying around and going into all the fairy houses that I cried when I woke up to find out it wasn't real."

     "Really?" I laughed a little.

     "I was four." Sunflower replied with a small laugh of her own and a shrug.

I bent over further to peer deeper into the house.

     "There's rooms and furniture in here and everything. It's not just an empty box. That's amazing!" I remarked in awe.

     "You know, a lot of people believe the fairy legend to be true." Sunflower revealed.

     "They do?"

     "Yeah. Supposedly, this area was sculpted around the fairy houses. They weren't something added in for decoration. They were already here- tiny rooms and furniture and all. There are pictures in the museum as proof!" she explained.

     "I had no idea. Do you think there really are hidden feathers around then? Do you really think there's a reward of gold for whoever finds them?" I questioned.

     "I think it's nice to have the hope that there could be. Life would be boring otherwise without these little, magical myths to believe in."

I nodded, then I paused in thought.

     "Do you believe in ghosts?" I asked my friend next.

     "Ghosts?"

I nodded again.

     "You're talking about Snowbell, aren't you?" Sunflower grinned knowingly, "I remember Sap saying you had a weird experience at that last sleepover. I don't know if I full out believe in ghosts, but I do know enough creepy stuff has happened at those sleepovers to take away my right to say that I don't think there could be any spirits about."

Our conversation was interrupted by Eden having a go at Blaze. The latter had volunteered to build the fire for dinner, but his idea of getting the fire started quickly was dousing enough gasoline in the fire-pit for there to be a substantial puddle of it collecting at the bottom. Having been about to lazily toss a match in, Eden had practically tackled Blaze away and snatched the box of matches and lighter out of his hands. Blaze pouted at his lost glance to create an inferno, but he quietly withstood Eden's reprimands and made no protests. The gasoline drenched fire-pit was made off-limits until it was cleaned. Eden prepared a much safer fire in the other pit on the opposite side of camp.

Blaze got over his disappointment rapidly. He pulled out a football from a pack of activity items he brought along, and he started up a game of catch with his nephew. I wasn't interested in joining in myself, but I had fun watching the two of them for a while. Amaranth was incredibly athletic, but I was surprised to find out that tossing a football around was one thing he was quite bad at. He dropped it almost every time even though Blaze tossed it lightly. Amaranth was just as terrible throwing it back as well. Blaze had to reach really hard for a lot of them. Neither seemed to mind though. Both teasingly joked back and forth as they never stopped doing, and I was rather loathe to pull away when Sunset placed a hand on my shoulder.

I was forced to turn around. Eden had allowed me to bring a certain someone along on the camp-out with us. Button had been shuffling about sniffing everything and behaving generally well. Now Sunset was showing me that my dog was making up her own agenda. She had wandered a little ways into the farmland bordering the campsite and was furiously digging into a row of plants. I hurriedly rushed over.

     "Button, no! Stop!" I reprimanded her with a cry.

Pulling at her did nothing. Reprimanding her further did nothing as well, which was highly unusual. Button truly didn't like a chastising voice. She would always stop whatever bad thing she was doing as soon as I commanded her. However, my dog kept digging and digging until she was satisfied. Pushing her nose at something in the hole she made, I finally got her to move aside. Sunset bent over and picked up a colorful something covered in dirt.

     "Would you look at that, it's a feather." she revealed with great amusement, twisting the blue, green, and orange object in her fingers.
     "A fairy feather?" I questioned eagerly.
     "There's no way!" Sunset laughed, "With all the machines that dig up and chop through this dirt, there's no chance this could be a feather buried centuries ago."
     "Oh." I said with sudden disappointment.
     "Way to ruin a nice bit of farmland for a feather, you silly dog." Sunset chided Button gently.

She was smiling though, and Button, quite proud of herself for what she had done, merrily padded around Sunset rubbing up against her legs.

     "Let's see if we can't fix this a bit. Hopefully, no one will notice a small hole." Sunset then suggested.

The two of us knelt down and filled the hole back in. Once we covered the dirt with some vines, you could hardly tell that anything had been disturbed.

Button wasn't the only one finding things that evening. The campsite was full of something I really hated- bugs. Creepy, slimy, multi-legged bugs. Frost, it seemed, had no problem with them though. He kept pulling them off places I didn't want them to be, namely our bags with our clothes and toiletries. Frost tried to show off the bugs to us. It was clear he knew a lot about them and wanted to share his information, but only Sunflower was able to stand holding them and listening to his long-winded explanations. The others, majorly Sunset and me, had to focus more on avoiding Allium who had a fascination with trying to sneak the bugs he found himself onto our hair and clothes.

As the day grew darker, we grew hungrier. The fire Eden made was the right temperature and size by the time we were begging to eat. He whipped out a bag full of different things to roast. We started out with the hot dogs to get a somewhat decent meal in before moving on to the better stuff. I was surprised to find out that a lot of candy was in the bag as well! My friends introduced me to the wonderful world of the roasted sugar, where the outside grew crispy but the inside grew gooey and delicious. It was a bit too much sweetness for me, so I turned my attention to the orange fruits Eden brought as well. They were sweet in their own way, but they also had a spicy aftertaste that tickled my tongue.

Allium did more talking than he did eating. It was then that I got an idea. He wasn't paying attention to how close he was holding his fruit to the fire. It was the perfect circumstances for me.

     "So, my mom got really mad you see," Allium continued the story he was telling of how a mildly drunk man mistook Ms. Charm for his wife, "The guy was so loopy that he didn't even think his wife suddenly being pink was anything to blink at."
     "How did he react to you?" I asked to push the story forward, for I could tell Allium was about to conclude it otherwise.
     "Oh, yeah! I forgot about that. It was hilarious. I think the rational part in him knew he didn't have a son, but he pretended to know about me because he felt bad. He even promised to buy me presents to make up for all my birthdays he missed!" Allium laughed.
     "Did he buy you a bunch of stuff then?"
     "Nah. Mom wouldn't let him. She 'reminded' him that he had bought me presents, and he accepted that. I did get him playing with me on the playground though. Besides being tipsy, the guy was absolutely harmless. I actually had a lot of fun. Mom had to ruin it all though."
     "Yeah?"
     "The guy left his phone right next to her. Mom called his actual wife, and she came to pick him up. You should have seen the look on his face when she got there! That was when he realized he was out of it. Mom got a good laugh at the situation then. I think she even kept in contact with the wife for a while after that, but it's been years so I doubt they still talk."
     "You should see if she has their information," I suggested, "Have a reunion with your 'daddy' or something."
     "That would be hilarious," Allium laughed along, "Maybe I'll finally get those presents he promised."

I nodded supportively. Allium's smile faded quickly when he realized his fruit was charred thanks to the flames of the fire. He pulled it out and waved it around with a frown. I tried and failed to keep a smug grin off my face, which Allium quickly spotted.

     "Were you distracting me on purpose?" he asked incredulously.
     "It's revenge for putting bugs on us." I explained deviously.
     "You little imp! I remember when you were nice and sweet." Allium teased.
     "It's your own fault, Al," Sunset teased, "You're a bad influence."
     "Eh." Allium shrugged, taking a hesitant bite into his fruit before he decided it was too burnt to be salvageable.

The six of us lazed about after we ate to give ourselves time to digest. When we weren't so burdened by full stomachs, the playing ramped up. Eden and Blaze struggled to get us under control in order to get help with putting up the tents. There were four of them because there were eight of us, so it took a while to get everything done. I had also never constructed a tent so I was no use, and with Eden tripping on a half-built one and knocking it down frustrations ran high for a bit. Eventually, all four structures were completed. Then came something just as important- deciding on the sleeping arraignments. Eden and Blaze were bunking together since they didn't want to share with us kids and us kids didn't want to share with the adults. Frost was the only one out of the boys who didn't care if he shared with one of us girls, because that was going to have to happen. Sunset, Sunflower, and I played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would bunk with him. Sunflower won the first round. Annoyingly, Sunset and I played for almost a minute straight as we kept tying. She was the winner though. I was mildly disappointed. It wasn't that I thought sharing a tent with Frost wouldn't be fun, but I knew I would have more fun if I was with Sunflower instead. Even if it was Frost, he was still a boy after all.

The night grew later and later, although the summer sun stayed up with us. True darkness did not encroach upon the camp for some time. Seven of us preferred the extra light. One of us couldn't wait for the black sky to arrive. A public telescope was situated near the still off-limits fire-pit. Amaranth motioned me over towards him where he was moving the scope about.

     "Hang on...there!" he said as he got it into the position he wanted, "Come see. I've got the telescope in the perfect spot. You just need to come look."

Curious, I moved carefully to look into the eyepiece. It took a second, but I was able to make out the star Amaranth wanted me to see.

     "That's my star." he said proudly.
     "Your star?"
     "Well, it's the star I named."
     "You named a star?!" I asked in amazement, which had Amaranth chuckling.
     "It's actually not a very big deal. There's so many stars out there that it's very cheap to buy a name for one of them. To decide the name for this one was Blaze's birthday present to me when I was four."
     "What did you name it?"
     "Desal."
     "Desal?"
     "I know it's strange, but I thought it would be really clever at the time to name the star after the combined names my parents. I think it was around that time when I first started to truly grasp what had happened to them."
     "So, 'Desire' and 'Coal' became Desal?"
     "Yup."
     "Strange sounding or not, I think that's amazing," I smiled, "And now I want to name my own star too. Maybe I'll convince Eden for Christmas."
     "Nope. Don't do that. I've already got a plan." Amaranth said.
     "Huh?"
     "I don't want you to name a star someone else has found. I want you to name a star I find. That's the idea anyway, for me to find a star for each of you."
     "Ah, that's right. You do want to be an astrologist." I recalled.
     "Uh-huh. I'm going to be the best one ever."

Amaranth's eyes lit up with wonder as he retook his place at the telescope to view his star again. I myself found it hard to turn my attention to the heavens as I found his enthused face more interesting.

I got Amaranth to take a break from the telescope so he could play with the rest of us, but he was glued to the thing once the sky finally darkened completely. I understood his heightened excitement though. It was normally difficult to see much from his place given there was all the light pollution from the city. Now he had an opportunity to explore a much more varied sky. I switched between playing with Allium, Frost, Sunset, and Sunflower and looking at the stars with him. It was when Eden put the fire out that I realized just how late it was. And I was exhausted. As it turned out, there hadn't needed to be that big fuss over sleeping arraignments. I think Sunset and Sunflower were asleep way before Frost and I were, and we were so tired that we pretty much just crawled into our sleeping bags and drifted off.

The outside world was noisy when Button unceremoniously woke me up. The wind was blowing, crickets were chirping, and the trees were creaking, but I had to ignore that as I focused on my dog walking right over me to sneak her way out of the tent. Assuming she simply had to use the bathroom, I grumbled mentally as I got out of my bag to watch her and make sure she didn't wander.

I had no idea what Button would get me into. It was clear from how she as moving about that she didn't need to use the bathroom. Instead, she was sniffing at the air, biting at something above her, and following something invisible with her eyes.

     "Button, what are you doing?" I mumbled wearily, too wiped to want to deal with my dog's weird antics, "Go pee or come lay down. You can play in the morning."
     "Meadow?" Frost mumbled just as wearily as me.

Button and I had woken him up too. He crawled out of his sleeping back to see what was going on.

     "She's just being strange again." I explained.

No sooner did I say that did Button take off, and she took off like a bullet! I was still blinking the sleep out of my eyes when she suddenly darted towards the fence and jumped over it with a grace I didn't know she had.

     "Button!" I cried as I ran after her, adrenaline having me clearing the fence almost as smoothly as my dog did.
     "Meadow, you can't!" Frost called.

I paid him no attention. I knew I should have simply woken Eden and Blaze up, but I was not going to let Button run about by herself. She could get lost, or worse...

I had absolutely no idea what was going on in her head. There was definitely something strange about the whole situation though. Button was running with determination, almost like she was following something. It was if she knew exactly where she was going. It was good I suppose that she had some sort of confidence, because I didn't recognize where we were at all. It even took me a minute to realize that Frost was trailing along behind me. The three of us ended up at the oddest place. A massive pile of boulders blocked the entrance to a rectangular shack that was all by itself with no other buildings around.

     "What is this place?" I wondered.
     "I don't know. I've never heard about it or seen it before." Frost heaved.

I forgot that he wasn't the best runner. I left him to catch his breath while I went to grab Button who was sniffing and pawing at the rocks furiously.

     "I can't believe you." I rebuked her.
     "And I can't believe you two." a male voice echoed me from behind us.

Frost and I turned with a start. My heart jumped thinking a bad person was there, but I was almost just as afraid when I saw that it was Blaze and Allium. Blaze was scowling and looking angry in a way that I rarely saw.

     "Button dashed off. I couldn't just let her go." I explained pitifully.
     "So you thought running off by yourself in the middle of the night to some secluded place where anything could happen instead of getting me or Eden was the better option?" Blaze challenged angrily.
     "Yeah, we had to run so fast just to keep up." Allium yawned.
     "Don't you complain. I told you to stay at camp." Blaze scolded him now.
     "And miss out on an adventure? No way." Allium retorted mischievously.

Blaze gave him a look and then stared at the rocky blockage with interest. His anger quickly dissipating, he pressed his hand against one of the stones and whistled.

     "Wow. Now, I wonder what's up with this."
     "We should see what's behind there!" Allium suggested eagerly.
     "No way! We'd get in trouble!" I pointed out.
     "Nah. I'm the adult, so I'd be the only one getting in trouble. I don't really care though, so I say we have a go." Blaze replied far too nonchalantly for my liking.
     "There's too much rock! And what if there's something dangerous around?" I protested further.

My worries fell upon deaf ears. Blaze and Allium were already discussing the best ways to get rid of the rock. Even Frost began to be swayed to their side. Knowing I would never be able to make it back to camp myself, I reluctantly stood to the side as the boys worked. Blaze found a pickaxe and broke apart the stones into loose clusters. Allium and Frost had the job of moving the rocks out of the way. After half an hour of work, enough had been cleared to allow us access to the unlocked door.

Blaze shoved open the door with his shoulder when it stuck. I followed him, Allium, Frost, and Button in as I would rather be with them than be stuck outside in the dark on my own. Though I had been against going inside, I had to admit that I was as disappointed as the others were when all we found was a strange well.

     "This is anti-climatic." Frost said with a sigh.
     "This is boring! Just a stupid well?" Allium whined.
     "Down." Blaze read the inscription on the plaque on the wall, ignoring them.

I noted that Button continued to act strangely while the three of them were talking. She scratched at the well and whined quietly.

     "What is that supposed to mean?" Allium pouted.
     "You go down." Blaze shrugged, pointing to the water's surface.

He paused for a moment and then took off his shoes.

     "You're not diving into that well!" I half shouted at him, grabbing his arm.
     "You practically forced me along on this little outing. There's no chance I'm not going to not go all the way now."
     "You're an idiot!" I pouted furiously.
     "I know. Eden reminds me of that enough." Blaze smiled and laughed.

I wasn't strong enough to hold him back. Blaze easily slipped out of my grasp and swung himself over the well's edge. Before I could do anything, he took a deep breath and submerged himself below the surface. He disappeared within seconds. I clasped my hands together and prayed. I was already going to be in a world of trouble if Eden found out what happened. If stupid Blaze drowned himself, I don't know what would have happened! The sensation of desperately wanting to cry was welling up within me when Blaze thankfully surfaced with a loud gasp. I had never been happier to see him.

     "You're right you two," he addressed Allium and Frost, "This adventure has been both anti-climatic and boring. The well just ends, and the only thing down there was this stupid thing. I barely even noticed it. It just happened to brush against my nose as I was coming up."

Blaze twiddled a wet feather in his fingers. It looked exactly the same as the one Sunset and I recovered from Button's hole earlier in the day. Snatching it out of Blaze's hand, I held it and let my mouth drop open with awe and shock.

     "Well, at least someone has interest in it," Blaze chuckled as he started getting out of the well, "And, Meadow, you don't have to worry. I know exactly what this place is. This is Mr. Lucky's shed. He owns one of the farms, and I know him relatively well. He actually told me he was looking for someone to clear out the rocks and search inside this old place he discovered on the end of this plot of land he recently bought."
     "You could have said so from the beginning!" I pouted harder.
     "But that would have taken all the fun out of it." Blaze grinned teasingly.

Blaze dried off as best he could before we left the shed. I became ridiculously glad that Blaze had come after us, for I had no idea where we were! It didn't help that clouds came and blocked out the stars and moon, leaving us no light other than the light from Blaze's cell phone to travel by. I was worn out and dead tired by the time the long walk was over when the beautiful sight of the camp came into view. Unfortunately, we would not get away with our adventure that night. Eden was pacing the campground madly, and he had a hard, glaring expression on his face when we approached. Blaze walked over to him cheerfully.

     "Where the hell were you?" Eden demanded to him.
     "Late night ice cream run." Blaze answered back simply without missing a beat.
     "You should have said something to me!"
     "Why? The kids were out with me, we were perfectly safe, and I don't answer to you despite what you like to think sometimes."
     "You're such an idiot!"

At that, Blaze turned to me and gave me a victorious smirk.

     "I'm not talking about them having adult supervision! I'm talking about the fact that seeing all of you suddenly missing with no clue as to where you were had me panicking! It's not like I knew where you were! You wouldn't answer your phone!" Eden continued.
     "Bad reception." Blaze explained.

Almost instantly, his phone began to beep as all the calls and messages Eden sent finally reached his phone. There were a lot of them. Eden fumed silently for several seconds.

     "Just get to bed," he said as he waved a hand towards Allium, Frost, and me before pointing a finger at Blaze, "But not you."

I was content to pretend to ignore Eden and Blaze's quiet bickering as Frost and I slipped back into our tent and they slipped into theirs. I was concerned for a moment because they went on longer than they usually did, but the anger in their voices eventually disappeared. They had at least moved past the issue for the time being. I made sure Button was properly snuggled against me before I fell asleep once more, but she appeared appeased with whatever finding that strange shed accomplished. Having been pushed past my limits, I fell asleep quickly and deeply.

Only to find myself being woken up once more. This time it was the combination of two things- me having to go to the bathroom and a jingling noise that sounded like a bunch of metal striking against itself. That noise stopped so quickly I wondered if I had only imagined it. It seemed to be the case when no other sounds came from outside the tent. I waited a moment to see if anything else was going to happen, but after a minute of silence I decided it had just been a weird creation by my mind coming to consciousness. Getting out of the tent again to use the facilities this time around, I slipped slightly as my foot contacted with something wholly unexpected. There underneath my foot glittering dimly in the starlight was a little pile of gold.

All I could think of was fairy gold. Under rather mysterious circumstances, I had stumbled upon two eerily identical feathers both nearby but both relatively well hidden. It fit too perfectly to be any other explanation.

Then I looked up. There was a woman in front of me frozen like I was frozen. It took only milliseconds after I saw her clothes that I realized what was going on. She was a thief who had stolen some gold coins. She had dropped some by accident, which woke me up. Now there I was a witness to a crime with a dangerous individual mere feet away. I couldn't see a gun or weapon, but that didn't mean there couldn't be one. More tense, fearful silence passed. The truth sunk in fast, but at the same time I was too shocked to believe it. I clutched my hand to my chest as my lungs denied me air due to my paralyzing terror. My breaths turned into panicked gasps as my body instinctively fought for the oxygen I needed.

However, this seemed to make the thief think I was about to scream. After several seconds of reluctant hesitation, she lunged forward to clutch me in her grasp. I think she was trying to drag me away, but she was still too hesitant about the whole thing to do it properly. It didn't help that I was sane enough to fight back. Her leaping at me also got a terrified cry out of me. Button was the first to respond. She was already peeking out of the tent to see what was going on when I was grabbed. In the time span of a blink, Button began growling menacingly. It didn't even take another second before she lunged at the thief herself barking madly with her thick teeth bared. The green and gray woman shrieked, let me go, and peddled backwards...

...right into Blaze. He had flown out of his and Eden's tent and was tackling the the thief to the ground before I could turn around. She put up no struggle and willingly allowed him to pin her face down in the dirt.

Eden had already dashed past him towards me. With him practically whipping me into his arms and me scrambling into them like a monkey, it was a miracle we didn't hurt each other from the sudden contact. If we had, neither of us paid attention to the pain. I was shaking, on the verge of tears. In truth, the event with the thief had taken less than thirty seconds, but it seemed more like I had been in her hold for a lifetime. The terror was too true. It kept me clinging to Eden even though I was finally getting a little too big to be picked up by him like I was. My first real growth spurt had just begun after all. Eden comforted me quietly and stroked my hair after he motioned and whispered to Amaranth, Allium, Frost, Sunset, and Sunflower to keep them inside their tents. They had been nervously and timidly been crawling slightly out of the tents to see the situation. Eden's quiet words of reassurance were the only sounds to fill the air besides the occasionally soft rebuke by Blaze at a still irate Button who really did want to get a bite at the thief.

We found out when the police came that she had broken into the largest coin store in the city and had stolen all of their most expensive items. The store's alarm had tripped off the police, and they had set up a blockade that made an escape to the north impossible. The only other way to get out of Berrybrook was to take a long hike west around the small mountains that ran along the southern border. Going through our campsite was the lone way to reach the one safe path beside the slopes. The thief probably would have slipped past us uneventfully had one of her bags not ripped and dropped all that gold right next to my tent.

None of us got anymore sleep that night. Once the thief was taken away by the police, I switched places with Blaze in the tents. I calmed down considerably being by my brother, but the fear of that brief moment of true uncertainty would takes days to fully disappear. I was more than ready to see the sun by the time it first started to glow on the horizon. It was right after dawn when Frost's, Sunset's, and Sunflower's parents came to pick them up. That left Eden, Blaze, Amaranth, Allium, and me. Eden, Blaze, and Amaranth remained in the back of the camp taking down all of the tents and were gathering up the last of our things while Allium and I waited up front for his mom. Neither of us said anything until Allium asked something that chilled my skin with a different kind of fear.

     "Hey?" he started quietly, almost in a whisper as if he wasn't sure he should be saying anything.
     "Hmm?" I responded softly.

I was still having slight problems breathing.

     "How come Eden called you Ethereal?" Allium went ahead and asked.

Every muscle in my body tightened painfully.

     "H-huh? What do you mean?" I asked back as nonchalantly as I could despite my mind spinning with panic.
     "When he jumped out of his tent when the thief had you, he called out to you. But it was 'Ethereal', not 'Meadow', that he said."
     "Oh, it's just a nickname he has for me." I lied.
     "I've never heard him call you that before." Allium frowned.
     "He doesn't use it that often."
     "Then why on earth did he use it then if it's not a habit?"
     "How should I know?"
     "I dunno, but it just seems really-"
     "Just shut up, Al!" I roared unexpectedly even to me, not being able to stop the words.

Naturally, Allium was rather taken aback and looked considerably stunned if not hurt. Honestly, I think it was the first time I had raised my voice at one of my friends. Tears welling up once more from frustration, guilt, and the lack of air that was making me lightheaded, I hurriedly turned away. I never anticipated Allium wrapping his arm around my shoulder seconds later.

     "S-sorry." I mumbled.
     "No worries," Allium smiled his typical smiled, "You've had quite a night. I should have known better than to press you about something insignificant when you are so shaken up."
     "No, i-it's fine."

Allium didn't respond, but he kept smiling. I blushed a little with embarrassment. I kept forgetting that, when it mattered, Allium instantly dropped his mischievous personality and was as protective as Eden and as supportive as Amaranth.

Needless to say, I was highly disappointed when his mom arrived. It left me feeling strangely empty and lonely. Not wanting to bother Eden, Blaze, or Amaranth and knowing I would be no help with breaking down camp, I walked across the dirt road to stand closer to the steep hill that overlooked the ocean. Button trotted over to me. I ran my hand through her fur. My feelings of loneliness were suddenly engulfed by a harsher emotion I had not felt for a long time- the one of unbreakable confinement. I was realizing at that moment that I was still very much trapped. My walls had expanded almost infinitely, but there was no denying that I remained The Company's prisoner. I was theirs until the truth could be brought out. The thought constricted my heart so tightly that my sadness went beyond tears.

I no longer cared if people only liked me if I was white. 'Meadow' was becoming an enemy to me again. I wanted to be 'Ethereal' more than anything again, and, if I could, I decided I would do whatever I could to bring her back.