Fractured Bonds - Part 2

There are only two days left from the camp. Today we went canoeing and I somehow managed to be so irresponsible and forget my paddle at the wooden house. Camie said that she would return with me, but I refused as I saw her lingering looks towards the water. She loves watersports and I would be a terrible friend to rob her joy with my own forgetfulness, that is why I am running alone in the woods. Once I arrive at the camp and manage to catch my breath, I enter our tiny house. I’m about to grab the paddle, but I trip over a carelessly thrown backpack (mine). The only thing I remember is a muffled scream as I hit my head in the bed frame.

I see lots of colorful spots, as if I were flipping through a photo album without actually seeing the photos, it’s all blurry, a mix of memories. A boy with amber eyes and dark hair. Fear of something. A smile. A festivity, my name on a cake; birthday. A black van. We used to celebrate birthdays? A group of masked people in leather jackets. We never have birthdays in Hopkinsville, because nobody ages. The people enter our house, mom and dad are shouting. Nobody ages?! A familiar weight on my shoulder as the boy tells me not to cry. Happy new year! The men take him into the van, my parents try to object but are threatened with a gun. What year did we celebrate? I am forced to the ground, and something is injected in my left arm; so are my parents. The men invade our house, they collect personal objects, clothes, furniture, which are not mine, yet still look like the belongings of a teenager. We never see neither the van, nor the boy again. In fact, we never remember. The memories of the boy even existing slowly fade away. I think…

I wake up. Connor is comforting a crying Camie, a bunch of curious, scared campers are peeking through the door, a camp counselor is putting ice on my head, another one is trying to call my name. My head hurts so much, I must have hit the bed frame really hard. I am told that I have been found by Camie, who forgot her goggles. Poor girl had to run back to the lake and back with the others, she was in shock, although the bleeding stopped and the injury is not serious, I did not suffer concussion, I just need to rest and put ice on it, according to the camp doctor. Later that night, while the rest of the cabin is asleep, I’m telling Camie the images I saw.

“They were so realistic, they couldn’t have been dreams, more like memories.”

“Yes, but whose?”

“Mine! I can’t explain, but I swear I remember the beach we went to every year! There’s a roller coaster on the coast; the hotel’s lobby has red sofas and we bought ice cream from an old Turk! My parents ate classic lemon flavor, and we got the chocolate ones!”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“That’s the thing I cannot put my finger around! He has the same eye color as me and grins like this!”

“You share similar features with him?”

“Yes! Agh, I don’t remember more, and my headache is not helping at all!”

“How about we go to sleep? Tomorrow is the last day; we have a war of numbers to win and in the evening a campfire. After we go home, we can try to figure out who this mysterious boy of yours is.”

“And what happened to him.”

“And that. Just promise me you won’t force your brain tomorrow! Please, Pepsi!”

“Fine, I promise as long as you stop calling me that.”

Camie shoots a sweet smile at me, then turns towards the wall and in five minutes I am the sole one awake. I try to forget the images, but I have the inkling that the boy is somebody I have known for too long before he disappeared.

Balázs-Blénessi-Pataki Kincső, XI. R