Bloom

Night 5: It's Just a Dream

"Man, I am tired!" Hugo drowsed. "Anyone else need a good long sleep?" Sammy nodded sluggishly, letting out a dazed mumble of agreement. "Man, if only I had brought my cooking stuff, then I could make supper for everyone." Dan rubbed their eyes and decided that they'd had enough social interaction for today – he's always been like that; all his social energy: drained. Suddenly, Sam shot up onto the couch, lit up with life again. "GUYS, GUYS, GUYS! WHAT IF WE ALL SLEPT OVER, HERE!?" We all stared at them, mostly because they were being incredibly loud, too loud for our ears, but also because we just couldn't.

"Sammy," Jen yawned. She looked the most awake, which honestly wasn't really much of a competition as everyone else looked like the walking dead. 'But how do we look? We might look even worse! Then we'd look stupid for thinking that they look stupid! There isn't a mirror around... whatever. "Sammy, it sounds really fun... and stuff... but none of us have our sleeping stuff."

Sam pondered and fell back down to the couch. "Oh. Well, we should do it some other time! Like tomorrow! Or something, maybe." Jen began to tidy the mess of cards, paper and crayons on the coffee table. We were all drawing before. We were drawing a picture of our Froggie friend we saw today! But then we got bored and decided to scribble all over Jenny's drawing of Bobbie and Beamy. It was very funny; she got mad and tried throwing a crayon at me, but it missed and hit Hugo!

"Who wants to walk with me?" Asked Hugo. "Me!" Sammy half-shouted. It was so much nicer now that they were tired and couldn't break the sound barrier with their voice. It's really annoying when they speak all shouty like that. "Alright. Dan, you coming?" Asked Hugo, packing his things into a backpack: A comic, some sort of action-figure, and a water bottle. Dan didn't reply, rather he bore some lifeless expression and was curled up on the couch. Their eyes were following, sure, but he probably just didn't want to interact.

"I have to go the other way back to my house" stated Jen, nestling her book beneath her arm. "Are you coming with me or...?" She was looking at us, when she asked. "I- uh, have to go home a different way." She looked sad. You're not really sad. "Oh, well I best be going then!" She said, and then hugged us, and then she looked into our eyes sort of awkwardly for a moment, then kissed us on the cheek. You're just putting on a show. "Bye-bye everyone!" Then, she left.

"Righty then, let's head off now Sammy. See you two tomorrow, hopefully!" Hugo moved over to the makeshift door and waited for Sam. "Hug!?" They asked – but probably demanded. Ugh go away, please. I don't want you touching me. We looked in another direction, pretending to take great interest in the slither that was the rest of the sun beyond the horizon. To be fair, it was very beautiful, even after it had almost fully submerged itself beneath the dark.

"Hug, Danny?" Dan scowled and hid within their hoodie. We turned our attention back to Sammy, who looked disappointed in their lack of hugs. "..Well- I'll see you guys tomorrow then!" And so Hugo and Sam made their way out the treehouse, Sam went first, as heard by the loud thud of them jumping half the way rather than simply using the ladder. "Will you give me a hug, Hugo? Mr. Huggy Hugster Hugo?" Their voices were hardly indistinguishable from the whistling of the evening's wind. "Ehhhhhh, yeah sure go on then."

"I know how it feels." We told Dan. He didn't move. "Can I have a try of your guitar?" We asked, scanning the room for it. "Did you bring it?" Daniel got up, slowly. It was in the corner, an instrument shaped case, which Dan grabbed and brought over to the couch. "You can have a go." They spoke. They way the spoke was soft, very quiet, but kind of sad too. But it was normal after all, Dan had always been like this.

We took the guitar and tested the strings with a swift stroke – not that it needed testing for anything; we hardly knew how to play. Thus, we began strumming at random, and sang whatever words happened to come out. The words that came out were sort of sad. We didn't get to choose them; they came to us, and we sung them.