Bloom

Night 3: Hide and Sleep

"It will be just fine, just stick by me and it'll be all ok." Jenny assured. We were entering the forest, it was dark, scary, dangerous, but as long as we have Jen it should supposedly be fine. "Who's counting?" We asked. "Dan is counting, he said that he will count to sixty seconds; we should have around twenty seconds left to hide, twenty seconds until he comes stalking us down.

This was awfully scary: it was so dark, so eerie, so quiet; just some wind would be nice to liven up this place a little bit, just a little bit. The only noises were the whispers of me and Jen, and our footsteps, throwing themselves upon the crunchy, leafy ground. Very occasionally, some birds could be heard, usually just crows squawking pointlessly, or smaller birds tweeting, though that had died down drastically since dusk.

Step by step, leaf by leaf, breath by breath, we wandered further into the forest, surely Dan has unleashed himself upon us by now, so we'd better find a spot, and quick. Despite the looming dread of Dan chasing after us, we took comfort in the fact that we hadn't heard any footsteps yet.

"Oooo~ look! A puddle!" Jen half-whispered, painfully loudly, as we walked past a sad and cold puddle of water on the ground. Next to it lay an unusually shiny disk, incomprehensible amidst the dark: how bizarre. A few moments later, she seemed to have spotted a hiding place in the corner of her eye, because she started moving rapidly towards it. Oh gosh. Oh no. Jen, don't go! Jen! A soft voice breathed in our left ear: "It's okay." She said, angelically. " You may take my hand if you want." She offered, angelically. And so, we took it; her hand felt soft, and her grip was gentle, just like her. We were being pulled along, but gorgeously so.

"We should hide here; it looks out of sight enough." Jen pointed out, addressing a small bush we were close to and entered: it felt out of place like someone had just put the bush there. Why was there a bush here anyway? It feels so weird to us, it should be here. Somewhere else, that's where it should be. How is Daniel not going to find us here?

And so, we were stuck, alone with Jenny, with only a matter of minutes before we are caught, seconds even. Time seems to be going to excruciatingly slow, we can tell by the toy watch on the floor, with still seemed to be functioning; it had cute little ponies on it. They were seconds, the seconds hand moving once per second, most definitely, but it just seems as though the perception of time is slowed down drastically, it all seems, so slow.

"Nice watch!" Complimented Jen, cutely, although meaningless since that watch isn't ours and we collected it from the ground. "Jen... how come you compliment everyone, often especially? It's not like you have to, nor does it get you anything." We asked, contemplating whether we sounded selfish or not asking that. "Well... When you care for someone, you want to make them feel happy, making that someone upset will make you upset also, or well... me at least. And besides, everyone is beautiful and deserve to be complimented!" She explained, in a very whispery voice, and we pondered for a moment, thinking about what she said. "Everyone is beautiful? We asked. How can everyone be beautiful? Wouldn't that just eradicate the concept of beautiful, completely? "Everyone can be beautiful as long as they perceive themselves to be." We aren't beautiful. We never will be.

Why is it that she is unable to see the-

Ssshhhhhhhhhh. You needn't say that. If she wants to view everyone like that, she can, so be it. But we know. "Jen last night, when you went out to go and get Sam and yourself a towel..." We began to talk but then our memory clogged itself. What were we saying? "Hm? What happened last night?" Jen asked, looking intrigued, but with that same smile on her face as always. That damn smile.

There were flowers around our feet, in this bush: small, yellow buttercups, if we weren't mistaken. They would be beautiful, but it's dark, and they aren't beautiful. Perhaps something purple would spark some joy in this dark.