Intertwined

by Cooper Eaton

  The fence was hidden from the view of the castle. Looking at it now, the fence loomed like that of a top priority prison explaining why the castle seemed to have so little security. The top was lined with barbed wire and looked as if it were daring onlookers to climb.

  “Here, look here, there’s a hole behind this rock!” Jack whisper excitedly. The hole was small, but we would definitely fit. “Make sure not to touch the sides; this fence might be electric,” Jack whispered as he crawled through.

  I was next followed by Chris. On the other side, we followed what looked like an old game trail. As we progressed, the forest seemed to get thicker and thicker and the light from the moon was gradually blocked out making our surrounding almost impossible to traverse.

  “Guys we can’t wander too far, or we won’t be able to find our way back.” Chris cautioned.

  “Maybe we should turn back,” Jack added.

  And that’s when I saw it! “Look over there! There's a shack, and there’s smoke from the chimney.” I called.

  We beelined for the shack illuminated with the moon's gray beams. After walking around one corner, we came to a window. We looked inside to see a very small man walking back and forth in front an inviting fire. The man looked up, saw us immediately and surprisingly motioned for us to come in. When none of us moved, he walked through the front door.

  “Hello boys, would you like to come in? I know this is seems strange, but you don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve had visitors. Please don’t be scared.”

  We complied and wandered cautiously after the man into the tiny wooden home. The inside was nicer than I’d expected. It was quite pleasant in fact. The floors were all wooden, in fact, everything was. Everything was quite old, including the giant mounted moose! Oh no! Hunting had been outlawed at least 20 years ago! The animals cold dead eyes seemed to stare down making my skin prickle.

  “Please sit, I would love to hear from you. I don’t get out much, and would love to hear how things are going.” When none of us seemed willing to speak, the man decided to forge on.

  “I’ll go first.” He sat and began to speak as if we were old friends. I’m sure you must all be very confused as to who I am and what I’m doing here. My name is irrelevant. However, my life story may interest you. I have lived in this shack for many years, separated from the rest of the world. I’ve lived here for over 50 years, and know this land like the back of my hand. My wife died several years back, and I’ve been alone ever since. Your timing is impeccable, I don’t know how you found me, but it’s quite a pleasant surprise.”

  Feeling a little bit more at ease by the man's abrupt openness I decided to share. “My name’s William, and I’m 16. I’m an only child, my parents are great, and my life has been pretty good so far. I play basketball and compete in debate. I don’t get out a lot either.

  With my lead, the sharing began. Slowly at first, but soon we were sharing things with a stranger that no child should. And so began a very fun night. It turned out that Chris was also an only child, Jack had been obsessed with girls his whole life, and that I loved sports. The man remembered all of our names and all of the little facts about us that we shared and the night actually turned into a very good one.

  We were all dying with laughter over Jack’s misfortune of texting his mom that he wanted to kiss her instead of his girlfriend when sirens began to blare! The man jumped out of his chair suddenly young again, looking to and fro as if someone would burst through his front door any second! “Where are you boys from exactly?” The man shouted with an outburst of anger. His face turned from a scared to crazed in a moment! “You’re from the castle aren’t you? They won’t ever mess with my head again! Get out of here, you fools, you fools, you’ve doomed us all!” The man sank to his knees cursing us.

  I felt cold; icy fear run through my body.

  “Guys lets go, I know the way, Follow me!” Chris shouted as he burst out the door!

  We sprinted hard! Branches whipped me in the face with sharp and painful stings! Adrenaline was running me, but I could feel my legs start to go!

  I didn’t think I was gonna make it, and then it appeared! The giant fence looked very menacing with the red lights on top spinning, revealing the devastatingly sharp barbed wire that slithered beneath!

  I was falling behind now; I couldn’t keep up! What am I going to do!

  “This is it, here’s the hole! William, over here!” Jack was calling to me, but I couldn’t see him. Where is he?

  The fence had disappeared now, and I was running blind through giant bushes when it appeared again! “BOOM!” I slammed face first into the electric monster!

  The shock was life-shattering! A million volts of electricity slammed into me like a supersonic jet on a suicide mission!

  All I remember is blue, green and red swirls. I seemed to float through a galaxy of mystifying colored cords. Every now and then I would hear people and see outlines, and whenever people came, the swirls seemed to be attracted to them. Voices came from different directions, and as they did, the colored swirls flew in all directions!

  At first, it seemed as if the swirls were afraid of the people, but as I watched them more closely, the realization that their behavior was one of want and not fear became apparent. The colors ranged from dark to light and light to dark, but all were either red, green or sometimes blue.

  Then, all at once, whatever spell I seemed to be under ended and the swirls dissipated! As the cords vanished, the real world zoomed back into focus frighteningly fast! A doctor was standing over me as I awoke.

  “Hey, look who decided to end their nap.” The doctor smiled and motioned for someone to come in.

  It was the woman from before, Mrs. Nasdin, who had led us on our tour.

  She walked in, and I noticed for the first time that she wasn’t that old. She was probably in her early 30’s. Her high heels clapped against the floor. She had dark blonde hair done up neatly in a bun and high tech glasses that shimmered in the sunlight.

  “How are you, William? You gave us quite a scare.” She said as she approached and grasped my shoulder. “Are you feeling alright?”

  It’s weird to have those who don’t know you address you by your first name. It gave me an unsettling feeling. “I’m fine, what happened?”

  “Well, it seems as though you and a few of your friends were out exploring when our alarms went off. And it seems that in the heat of the moment you ran into one of our electric fences. Fortunately for you, you managed to survive, and live to tell the tale. You have quite the stash of luck.” She knowingly smiled. “Would you mind telling me what you remember?”

  I don’t know if I can trust this woman. “Well we went out exploring as you said, and we found an old house with a man living inside it. He spotted us and invited us in.

  “Wait, slow down, slow down. What man?” She sputtered.

  “He never told us his name, all he ever said was that he’d been living there for a while and he was a pretty nice guy until the sirens started to go off.” The woman was getting very excited at the mention of the old man.

  “Do you know anything else about him?”

  “No not really..”

  “Tell me everything.” The softness in her tone had vanished and been replace with a sharp, steely edge.

  This isn’t right, why does she want to know about an old man living in the forest?

  Seeing she’d overstepped, she backed up.“I’m sorry, we can talk about this later when you’re feeling better. I know you must be feeling pretty awful right now.” The niceness had returned as she began treating me like I was four again. “I’ll be leaving now, if you remember anything else, please feel free to tell me.”

  “Well actually…” Should I tell her about my weird color dream? Can she be trusted?

  “What, do you remember something else?” She turned frighteningly fast.

  “Oh nothing, I was just gonna say I dreamed about hover racing.” I
finished realizing how stupid I sounded.

  Her eyes told me she knew I was lying and they locked with my own.

  Luckily, the Doctor came to my rescue “Alright Mrs. Nasdrin; we better let young William here get some rest. If you would like to talk to him more, he will be out of this infirmary in a few hours.”

  Without responding she turned and made her way from the room. The doctor turned, “She looks like she’s got something on her mind, and if I know Mrs. Nasdin she’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  I had also seen the look on her face, and it scared me.

  Chapter 5: Pool Party

  “Let's go; we’re gonna be late!” Chris yelled to me from outside my door.

  “You coming, Rasben?” I called into the occupied bathroom.

  “I’ll catch up, you guys go ahead.”¶Chris and Jack were waiting for me outside my door. “I can’t wait for this party.” Chris exuded excitement.

  “What you mean is, that you can’t wait to meet some people.” Jack laughed mischievously.

  “I’m all about meeting new people,” Chris joked.

  “Especially if they so happen to be wearing bikini’s.” I nudged.

  We continued to joke as we practically sprinted down the hallway. Crossing from the inside to out was like entering a whole new world! What was drab changed to bright and colorful in the blink of an eye.

  Girls were giggling and laughing as they ran around and jumped into the pool while the guys stood trying to act cool and show off their imaginary muscles.

  The pool’s blue water sparkled in the sunlight. The high walls of the castle surrounded us, but they didn’t block out the sunlight that was now directly overhead. This is gonna be awesome!

  “Hey, what’s up guys? Over here!” Rebecca, the girl Chris had his eye on, called us over. She was with a group of other girls who were all extremely beautiful. A few of the girls were already stretched out getting tans as other began to arrive with giggles and laughter. Ohh, this is gonna be good!

  “Hey you, what have you been up too.” Jessica’s voice came out of the background. I turned hoping to see her, but to my dismay, she was talking to Matthew. The boy who’d killed Steven! Man, I hate this guy. Not to mention I was extremely jealous. He looked like he’d been chiseled straight from granite. Where he was built, I was not, and to top things off; he was tanned to a golden crisp. But my jealousy didn’t last long when my eyes turned to Jessica. Man could she rock a bikini! Her golden skin shined in the sun, and her luscious blonde hair cascaded gently over her shoulders like that of the small waterfall behind her.

  I was so busy staring I almost forgot to look away, but even once I did, I could help but overhear their conversation.

  “Hey, Jess! How’s it going! You look fabulous!”

  “Thanks. Things are going pretty good. Wanna take a dip?”

  At her mention of swimming, I tried my hardest to tune them out and try to keep my thoughts off of her.

  I began talking to a girl named Alexis. She was pretty and was interesting at first, but she was huge on talking down on others, and so gradually our conversation became dull, and she left. I don’t know where Jack and Chris are, but I wish they were here right now. I feel like I’m gonna explode!

  Matthew and Jessica’s giggling was starting to get under my skin. I get that she doesn’t like me, but she doesn’t have to force me to listen to her with somebody else! I was just about to explode when Jack found me.

  “Hey William, you okay?” Jack patted my knee snapping me out of my angered trance.

  “What? Oh yeah. I’m fine.” I responded shortly.

  He glanced over my shoulder, and from the look on his face, I could tell he knew what I was thinking.

  “You just say the word, and I got your back,” He whispered.

  “You’re already in enough trouble as it is. I’ll keep my emotions in check; you can count on it.

  In an effort to distract myself, I made the rounds. “Hey, what’s up guys?” I nervously asked a group of new people.

  “Nothin’ much man, how ‘bout yourself,” Responded a boy with a girl on his arm. “The name’s Jeb. This is Rafael, Mindy, and Cecilia.”

  “Cool, where are you guys from,” And just like that we struck up a conversation.

  I learned that Jeb played basketball and Cecilia’s brother went to the same school as I had.

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “Oakville,”

  “No way, my brother went to Oakville back in 7th grade. That's crazy.”

  I had almost completely forgotten about Jessica and Matthew until, I heard her voice. “Hey, get your hands off of me!” Jessica pleads with Matthew. “Please take your…” “Wap,” Matthew playfully grabbed her, but Jessica didn’t take this the right way and slapped Matthew hard! “WHAAP!” I knew what that felt like!

  Everyone’s heads turned. Matthew stood up and pushed Jessica backward! She fell and landed on her back. “Ohhh.” Came the crowd's response.

  Matthew realized what he had done as did everyone else! The space was deathly quiet.

  “Step away from her!” I stood up and shouted over to him! “Get back!”

  “Whatever man, why don’t you go mind your own business, or better yet, why don’t you just go sit down and prepare for your next mission as a senior leader.” He joked which got a few forced laughs.

  “You’ve got serious problems. ” I said as I walked over to help Jessica up.

  Out of nowhere, I was blindsided! The fist connected solidly and sent me reeling! My entire world was rocked in an instant! I tried to see which way the attack was coming from, but I could only see spots dancing before my eyes!

  People started chanting, “Fight, fight, fight!” This is about to get ugly. I was considering trying to calm things down when Matthew commented. “Go ahead help the girl that hates you.” At my confusion, he added, “We all heard about the way she slapped you. Why do you even care, she’s clearly out of your league.” He taunted as he approached. “Why don’t you just give up?”

  But I wasn’t listening to him anymore. Green exploded from his head! Out of nowhere swirling cords erupted from his head! I reeled backward as cords began to rush from every direction! They swirled around everyone’s heads rushing around me! I stumbled barely able to stand. What is happening!

  Then, out of the colors erupted Matthew! He grabbed me and began to pull me towards something! I couldn’t see 5ft in front of me anymore! I was in a blizzard of colors! And then the ground vanished from beneath my feet!

  I was falling, falling, falling. “SPLASH!” I felt cool water rush into my open mouth submerging my body! I shut my eyes, now doorways to insane surrounding and resurfaced. Upon surfacing, to my joy, the cords had disappeared!

  However, the testers gathered at the pool party had not. Instead, they were laughing at me. “Hahaha,” “Wow, what a fighter,” “Glad he knows how to swim.” I felt embarrassment rush through me and in that moment I felt smaller than I’d ever felt.

  What am I supposed to do? Luckily, to my surprise and everyone else’s Matthew’s smirk became one of horror as he too was pushed into the pool! Standing there was Jack. The laughing from the crowd became even louder. “Haha!”

  I quickly waded over to the side of the pool, in hopes of escaping my embarrassment, only to look up and see that Jack had vanished and been replaced by Rasben, my small roommate, and Chris. Together the two of them helped me from the pool. They waited around me to make sure I was okay. Everyone began to turn their attention back to what they’d been doing as Matthew got out on the other side and made his exit.

  I stood hunched over trying to collect myself and then I heard her.

  “Mind If I help you?”

  Turning my head, I saw that my visitor was indeed Jessica.

  “I’m fine,” I replied angrily.

  “Men and their macho pride.” She laughed a little as she slipped under my left arm so I co
uld lean on her for support. Chris whisperingly joked in my ear, “Don’t mess this up,” and with that, he slipped away into the crowd.

  We made it halfway to the infirmary when out of nowhere blue colored spirals began to shoot from Jessica! Oh no! It was happening again!

  This time, the spirals weren’t as overwhelming though. There were only a few, and they were all blue. Instead of having the negative effect they’d had before, they seemed oddly relaxing.

  Jessica must have felt me tense up because I felt her arm slip around my waist. Realizing she thought I was hurting, I used this as an opportunity to lean on her a little bit more.

  “We can go slower if you like,” Jessica said up to me as her hand stayed anchored to my waist.

  “No, I can make it.”

  “Alright.”

  I made sure not to over exert her, but I wanted this to take as long as possible. I felt her body supporting me. I’m sure she was more than a little mad that I’d soaked her bikini, but she didn’t say anything. It felt good to be so close to her. I could smell her sweet perfume, and her skin was extremely soft. “Here we are, do you think you can make it the rest of the way?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be alright. Thanks for your help.” ¶“You’re welcome and thank you for what you did for me out there. It was sweet. I hope you recover soon.” She thanked me shyly.

  “You’re welcome,” I whispered to her back as she walked back down the hallway and out of earshot.

  The doctor told me I was fine, but I could stay if I liked. I decided to head back to my room to try and sleep things off. But now, the colors were everywhere. They seemed to have died down in numbers, but blinking them away was no longer an option.

  As I walked back to my room, the greens, reds, and blues streaked everywhere. They were so overwhelming I almost missed seeing the man.