Chasing the Stars

The Runners

I woke up with a ringing in my ears, from the battles I fought in my mind, and an echo of voices in the distance. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the night, they sought out another source of light, not that of the stars, not that of the moon, but somewhere just past the edge of the field. My curiosity for the new-found light and chattering noise that streamed into the night increased, forcing the thoughts of why I was even lying in the middle of this meadow, out of my mind, and into a made up dream with the rest of its kind.

As I drew closer, stumbling over my backpack which lay distraughtly on the ground, the chatter became clearer, and the light's flickers became more and more pronounced, and I started to recognize clear figures. I ducked behind a tree to see what they were doing without being caught; only afterwards understanding the ridiculous cliché of my reaction.

Faces started forming as the fire flickered. There seemed to be six people there, seemingly all under 25.

"So where are we going tomorrow?" a young boy, with black hair hanging sloppily over his eyelids, whispered, as if he was scared of attracting unwanted attention even though he was out here in the wild with no one around for miles.

"I was thinking of going deeper into the woods, hopefully finding a cave, and then Psycho can cover up our tracks, and fulfil her weird-" A redhead boy joked, sharply being cut off by a slap on the head from a black haired girl.

"Can someone explain to me why we are not going back? You guys know that humans aren't the makers of all evil, as you guys seem to portray them." A girl said, "You can't blame everyone for your problems. You guys act like such victims." This obviously seemed to set something off in one of the small kids, as he sprung up from the log and ran in my direction. This obviously wasn't a new thing though, as no one seemed to notice at all.

As he saw me he screamed and fell to the ground. Shit! What am I going to do now? Admit to listening to their conversation? Run away? My options were narrowed as the redhead boy also saw me, running towards me and grabbing my wrist while I stood there, frozen.

"Look what we've found; a snail, judging by her reaction speed." he sneered, causing a small snicker to travel around the campfire, "So what business do you have hiding behind this tree like some stupid movie character?" he said, his grip getting harsher and I was sure it was going to leave a mark.

"Umm..." I stuttered, inwardly angry at my hopelessness at getting out of bad situations.

"Did the frog catch your tongue, snail? He teased.

"Leave her alone!" The tall girl that had slapped him on the head earlier, commanded. He let go of my wrist and awkwardly stepped back. I rubbed my now red wrist.

"You," she said, pointing at me, "Come over here." I shuffled over, recognizing from the silence of the group, the authority she possessed. I followed her out of the light of the fire into a darker section of the woods. My foot hit something, and I nearly fell onto my face.

"Be careful of the tents. We wouldn't want you breaking them." Thanks, I thought, you couldn't have told me earlier. She stopped abruptly, causing me to collide into her, before I quickly stepped away again.

"So what's your name?" She asked. For the first time, I really got to see her. She had long black hair with a messily cut fringe, dark makeup and ridiculously pale skin; you could probably mistake her for a vampire. She was dressed in a black dress with black leather jacket, pug socks sticking out of black combat boots, which she surprisingly managed to pull off.

"Rebecca" I stuttered.

"Well, Rebecca, what are you doing out here?"

"Umm, I'm trying to find my family... I think they're in Switzerland. You see-"

"Ok, that's fine. You can stay with us for a while, or go back to travelling alone, but if you do, you have to promise to pretend like you never met us. Understood?

I nodded

"If you want to stay, go to Lizzy over there, the one in the pink shirt, she'll introduce you, otherwise scamper." She walked back to the fireplace and sat down in between a red-haired boy and a brown-haired girl who seemed to have taken a fascination to watching her marshmallow go up into flames.

I shuffled over to the girl named Lizzy, and sat down.

"She," I said, nodding my head towards the girl that spoke to me earlier, seemingly the group leader, "told me to speak to you if I wanted to stay."

"What? Carmilla's allowing you to stay?" She exclaimed loudly, looking over at the girl who spoke to me earlier, who nodded back before swatting the stick out of the girl besides hers hand as the flame had almost engulfed it and she didn't like she was going to drop it anytime soon.

"Well, welcome then. I'm Lizzy. The girl who just spoke to you is Carmilla, she's the leader here, the boy next to her is Evan, don't worry about him, he's a bit aggressive sometimes but he's a big softy on the inside, but don't tell him I said that. The girl next to Carmilla is Susan; she's a bit weird; I was sure that I once heard her talking to herself about murder or something, but Carmilla seems to have a soft spot for her so yeah. Then here-" she said, pointing to the black-haired boy next to her, "is Nico, he's my step-brother and the only reason I'm here. Isn't that right?" She said to him, ruffling his hair. "Oh and the boy who ran at you was Luke, he has ADHD so don't worry too much if he disappears the whole time, he comes back eventually, he's like a cat, no patience, always adventuring but with a heart of gold. So who are you?"

"I'm Rebecca, 19." I answered, overwhelmed by all the information I just received and the careless aura Lizzy seemed to give off when talking. Talking had always been foreign to me. I spoke at home with my family but I never really made friends at school. My parents weren't the most talkative either, except when it came to shouting at each other.

"Cool! Do you have your own tent and stuff, otherwise me and Nico could probably fit you in with us. I promise we don't bite."

"Yeah, I do. I'll go get it"

I stood up, making my way out of the forest, back towards my rucksack that I'd ceremoniously tripped over earlier. Sitting down, I ruffled through my bag, pulling out my sketch book, setting it on the ground. I carefully took my necklace off, pushing down on the top half of the cross to change it into a pen. As my pen touched paper, all my thoughts changed and formed into art, my worries, about trust, and change, and not going straight to my family, flying out of my mind into my fingers to create another visual diary entry.

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