Chapter 1: One stormy night
Lightning flashed from a distance off, momentarily lighting up a small cabin room where a boy lay, tossing and turning in a bunk bed. The grey blue covers were twisted and crumpled, and the boy’s dark black hair was untidy, some of it sticking to the pillow from static. He let out a muffled yell and sat bolt upright in bed, his face pale and his breathing rapid. His grey eyes lacked their normal humorous sparkle, one of the reasons he had gained such a positive reputation with the Aphrodite campers.
The boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, pulled off the covers and stepped onto the cool wooden floor of his cabin. The moonlight pouring in from the windows made his skin appear white against the dark wooden floor. He paced around the cabin, pausing at a desk in the corner and picked up a framed photograph of a family of four.
A woman with curly blonde hair and dazzling grey eyes held a baby girl gently in her sun tanned arms. The little girl had bright happy sea green eyes and golden curls glinting in the light. She was enveloped in a cream colored blanket embroidered with sea blue writing spelling the letter ‘E. Next to the young mother was a man with dark black hair and kind sea green eyes. He was tall, lean and impressive looking, like a soldier, and held a little boy in his lap, maybe three years old, with the same black hair as his father and eyes a mire image of his mother’s on the left. They all looked so delighted to be with one another, everyone together and united.
The boy gazed down on the photo wistfully, his eyes resting longingly on the faces of his parents and little sister. He set the frame gently and turned to a door on his left, and pushed it open gently.
Inside was an exact replica of his own room, except for the furniture arrangement. Instead of a bunk bed, there lay a larger bed meant for two, placed in the middle of the room towards the back, while shelves of books surrounded most of the wall space available. These shelves were packed with books written in both English and Ancient Greek, including a fair few about architecture, history, and mathematics, as well as a few used high-school text books with the name ‘Andrew Jackson’ printed neatly in the top right hand corner. A window separated the shelves on the side of the room, with a desk underneath it, illuminated by the moonlight streaming from the window above. Photos were plastered all over the wall above the desk, making use of every inch of exposed wall. Some showed Andrew and his parents, others were photos of his parents when they were younger. A photograph lay against the wall, framed with wood from an olive tree, with the initials A.C. + P.J. carved above, encircled with a heart, which were positioned directly centered above the photograph of a young man, with dark black hair nearly blocking his kind sea green eyes, with his strong arms around a young women in a beautiful white gown, which highlighted her slim athletic figure, and a string of grey pearls, the exact match of her eyes, hanging around her neck except one in the center which seemed to almost glow with milky white light. Her curly blonde hair was up in an elegant bun, and her make-up was perfect. Andrew gazed at the picture, and allowed a sad smile to spread across his face. He turned his gaze to photograph of his mother and two other girls, all arm in arm. One of the other girls was much younger than his mother, a little younger than Andrew himself, a silvery bow strung over her shoulder and sky blue eyes which seemed even brighter when compared to her dark spiky black hair. Andrew’s mother stood in the middle, her grey eyes as dazzling as ever against her long curly blonde hair. Her arm was around another woman about her same age, with chocolate brown hair braided down one side and eyes that looked like a shattered prism, not exactly blue or green or brown or hazel, but instead sparkled with an indistinct color of their very own. Her skin was a dark tan color, and hair, as well as her makeup, were done with an expert hand, no doubt her own.
Andrew lay the photographs down again and looked around the empty room sadly. He checked the little digital clock nestled in a corner of the desk. It was 4:30 am. Andrew headed back out of the room, closing the door softly. He made his bed in a few minutes, smoothing out the ruffled blankets and then snatched a jacket from the bunk bed post, and headed out the door, into the grey misty morning. Lightning flashed from a distance away, illuminating the room in white light, and Andrew was gone, walking north towards the woods looming in the distance.
Tell me what you think!!
