I waved to her Monday. She never batted an eye towards me on Tuesday. Why? She's got a backpack on Wednesday, yet the best I’ve gotten was a good morning on Thursday. On Friday, I try and go to the creek. But the marking stick is slowly drifting down the creek, the sun is burning me up inside my coat. I look past the forest on Saturday clutching in my hands a gun. The first thing I’ve stolen I walked past the creek further in the forest. I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll make you bleed even more.
Days, days upon days upon days. Or was it a week? Does it even matter now? This gun is heavy. I'm tired of holding it. I fix my glasses up again while taking out my last piece of bread. I look for a soft place to sit down, A stone sticking out of the ground but the sun is shining down on it… why specifically this stone.. I walk up to the stone and clean it off of any dirt plopping myself down on the warm rock.
I need her. The master navigator, why did I come out to this forest where I could've stayed home? Why did I do this again? My alone time is interrupted by a shrubbery shaking violently and out comes stumbling an adult. He falls down yelling and screaming as a snake’s got a nip on his ankle. I look down at him before walking up and lightly kicking the snake.
“Bite me instead cmon. Get my leg moving a little, no maybe a lot. Yea help me move my leg some more.” This snake is persistent, even though there's two of us he's not letting up. Something smaller than me. Something more alone than what I feel right now. I stopped kicking and slowly let my hands near it. Its eyes look bloodthirsty, staring down my eyes but I pick it up by the head and lifts its jaw. Still unrelenting, I instead run my hand on its body.
“Cmon let go of this pathetic man.” The thing stares at me then slowly releases its bite and slithers off.
“A-a-a its-are you the lost kid? The missing kid?” missing? Well I guess i could be. I give him a nod as he quickly stands up only to fall back flat on his face. I liked the snake more, I always did like that snake more than people.
He gives me hundreds of questions, and I answer back with a single sentence. “The tree monster.” he looked at me as if I was crazy then again I was only 8 at the time with a gun in my hand along with a single piece of bread. He is carrying a large bag compared to how small he is.
“So what're you doing? Are you looking for me?” I asked him, while being as confident as I could.
“Uh yes your parents had actually sent a party to find you, very nice cash reward too.” I still want to kill the tree monster that had made her leave my side. I will kill it then she can talk to me again. We can then go out and adventure again. Just once more.
“I need to kill it.”
“The tree monster?” I gave a nod to his question. “Oh c'mon now now I know you need to blame your disappearance on something but that's a stretch. Tree monsters don't exist, they are just stories to keep you well behaved. Now let's get on back.”
“That foot isn’t going any-” and he fell... I help apply bandages to his foot and soon we were off. Turning around I really liked that warm rock it felt like her hands.
Back home i'm bombarded with a flurry of questions, no, a storm of questions. They care for me, hugging and crying when they see me but there's still an aching feeling in my heart. A hole sinking further and further down, I get back to my room and just lay there thinking to myself. Alone in my thoughts again as to why she doesn’t like me anymore. Just why… then a quiet three tap knock, on my window. I stand up on my chair to even see above it but she is standing there with a smile. The aching blackhole that sucked all positivity, Its gone, done for, and stricken by a silver bullet. I could see it, see it pierce that ugly void.
I opened the window “w-where have you been?” She gets in without any help, her tall stature now back to being normal as she enters the window. Can she control her height? It's so weird why or how she is getting taller and shorter.
“Listen to me glasses.” she gives a big bright smile. “You and me lets run.” she said to me that awkward smile, the damaged dirty clothes. Along with her smelly messy hair. I look down at her.
“I-wait why? Where would we go we… we don't even know how to make bread.” I don’t want to be out there again, even with the master navigator. Outside there, i smelled I couldn’t eat meat and the water tasted horrible. “No how about you stay here? I don't want to go out there again.”
“Out there?” she asked me puzzlingly. “Were you somewhere?”
“I was going to kill that monster in the forest.” Quietly I whispered as I showed her the gun.
“Wh- why? That's going far way too far.” she has a worried look, I hoped to impress her but she seems scared.
“It hurt you that's why, it hurt you really really badly.” my heart racing no no no no no please understand. “I, i just wanted t-”
“Why a gun?”
“It is strong and can beat it.”
“But you already beat it.”
“I needed to make sure it doesn’t attack anyone else.” A silence fills the room she’s judging me. Why? I was protecting her so why? “ Why didn’t you speak to me when I tried to talk to you then?”
“You were? I didn’t notice, my ears were hurting a lot. And i couldn’t focus then we were also going to move.” In four years I’ve never been so embarrassed in front of her. I tried acting tough to impress her. Everything though was my fault but wait then.
“Why were you not at the creek then?”
“I didn’t feel like it.”
“But you’ve been going to school again.”
“Just so i could see you again. All the teachers picked on me.” My face its on fire, everything is burning hot. I assumed she hated me, I assumed killing the monster would’ve helped, I assumed everything and messed up.
“Can I still kill the tree monster?”
“What tree monster?”
