Hello, everyone!
This is dedicated to Rick and Maggie, who gave me the prompt. Thank you so much for the encouragement and the idea.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, I'd probably be rich.
WARNINGS: GIRLXGIRL, LANGUAGE
At thirteen, Meg had never had a crush before, at least not one that occupied her every waking thought.
She had a crush on one boy in fifth grade, but that was... nothing, really; after a week, she'd lost all interest in him.
But now, she had a crush, and she was surprised (but not horrified, not in the slightest) that it was a girl.
Meg waved goodbye to her parents and swung her legs out of the car and onto the pavement before reluctantly trekking across the ground.
She'd always hated camp. It was the same every year. You show up; you make dream catchers; you sleep; you have a camp fire; you swim; and then, you sleep some more. It was the same thing every week; the schedule never changed, and it got boring after the first couple of days.
Meg stopped in her tracks.
A new girl was standing between two cars, staring at the campers in apprehension.
Meg blinked.
The girl was beautiful with brown hair cut at her shoulders, curling every so slightly towards her neck; she was taller than Meg and had a slender figure. Her skin was pale, and her lips were plump and a rosy pink as she pursed them. Her eyelashes were long and curled just right, brushing the skin beneath her eyebrows, which were shaped like tiny birds. And her eyes... her eyes were a pretty chocolate brown, twinkling like stars and melting like ice cream on a hot summer day at the same time.
Meg had never seen a more beautiful girl.
Meg's heart beat faster, thumping wildly inside her chest; a blush rose to her cheeks and neck, painting her skin a soft pink. Her legs shook and her hands trembled; everything around her faded away except for this one girl.
Meg had never felt like this before, but the feeling wasn't entirely unpleasant.
Meg shook herself out of her stupor and climbed the steps onto the bus, wanting to sit next to the girl.
That's why she felt rage and envy envelope her entire being when she saw Amelia (the traitor) beat her to it.
Amelia was not all she appeared to be; she was your friend for a week, and then, she dropped you like a sack of potatoes. Meg hadn't become mean until after Amelia burned that friendship.
And the reason Meg was mean? Why should she be nice when it always came back to bite her?
But... she could make an exception for The Girl.
Meg seated herself across from them, and she kept her mouth shut; she didn't want to make a bad first impression.
She listened in on their conversation, and at some point, she caught The Girl's name:
Lisa.
Meg was ecstatic to discover that she was in the same group as Lisa (what a pretty name for such a beautiful girl); unfortunately, she was also in the same group as Little Miss Sunshine (yeah, right).
As soon as Justine opened the door to the cabin, Meg rushed inside, and her eyes zeroed in on Lisa immediately.
Forgetting manners all together, she rudely shoved Amelia out of her way and collapsed onto the bunk beneath Lisa's.
"Sorry," she stated, snobbishly. "Already taken."
Amelia sighed and placed her bag on the bottom bunk of the bed beside Lisa and Meg's.
Lisa stared at Meg in disappointment with an underlying of disgust.
Damn. So much for first impressions.
Oh, well, she might as well salvage what she had left.
"I'm Meg," she grinned. "You're Lisa, right? I'm so glad we'll be bunk mates."
Amelia frowned. She'd never seen Meg act like this, so kind and friendly... and a word she couldn't describe. Like how Terrance, a mean bully at her school, always acted so horrible around everyone except for Lily Spears, who he had a crush on. He just changed around her. That's what Meg reminded her of...
Oh.
Lisa smiled, trying to forget how rude Meg had been only moments before.
"Me, too," she said.
Meg didn't seem so rude; maybe she was just... defensive. Amelia had mentioned there'd been bad blood between them before. Maybe Meg was really friendly.
The three girls unpacked before Justine announced that they were heading outside to do some arts and crafts.
Amelia yanked Meg into the shadow of the cabin and waited for Lisa to be out of ear shot.
"You like her, don't you?" She demanded.
"What do you mean?" Meg asked.
"Lisa. You like Lisa, don't you?" Amelia clarified.
"Yeah, she's all right. Why?"
"No, you like like her. As in, you have a crush on her."
Meg knew it was true, but she had her pride, and she was just about to deny it when Amelia continued.
"Look, I don't care if you're bi or gay or whatever; I won't judge you for it. Go after any person in this camp except for Lisa," Amelia growled.
Meg was insulted. Who did Amelia think she was to tell Meg who to date and who not to?
"Who do you think you are?" Meg snarled. "I can date whoever I want, and you can't stop me."
"But-"
"Look, let's let Lisa decide. I ask her out today. If she says yes, you stay out of our business. If she says no, I don't ask again. Deal?"
Amelia, confident Lisa would say no, shook Meg's hand.
"Deal."
"First thing, first day, we will be making... these," Justine smiled, blindingly, presenting a Dream Catcher.
"It looks kind of like a spider web," Lisa remarked in wonder.
Meg nearly melted when she heard her wonderful, silky, sweet voice.
Meg shook her head. No. She was not that girly.
But then again, crushes do some weird things to people...
"They're dream catchers," Amelia explained.
"They catch all of your bad dreams, so that when you wake up in the morning, all of your nightmares have disappeared, " Justine told the campers.
Meg wanted to mutter about how lame this all was, but she saw Lisa's eyes light up when she looked at the Dream Catcher, and she kept her mouth shut. If Lisa liked it, she wasn't going to ruin it for her.
"You're going to weave the string around, and then, you'll add the bead," Justine demonstrated. "The bead is, of course, the spider."
Meg rolled her eyes, looking down at the table.
The campers went to work, making their dream catchers, and although having been making the objects for five years (yes, she'd been going to camp since she was eight), Meg still struggled with it.
Lisa held up her Dream Catcher, and Meg was extremely impressed to find that she'd made it, parfectly, on the first try.
"Nice, Lisa," Justine complemented. "Would you mind helping the other girls? You're a natural."
She sure is, Meg thought, hypnotized by Lisa.
...What was going on with her?
Lisa made her way around the table, and when she got to Meg, she helped her weave the string.
Their hands brushed against each other, and both of them froze.
Meg wondered if she'd felt a bolt of electricity arc up her arm, too.
Amelia stared at them; she wasn't glaring, exactly, but she did look angry. Maybe it was because she could tell that Lisa liked Meg, too, even if Lisa herself hadn't realized it yet.
But she would soon...
"Hey, Lisa!" Meg called. "Could I talk to you for a second?"
Lisa nodded. "Sure."
The two girls stood in the shadow of the cabin, where no one was around to witness the conversation.
"So Lisa... I really like you," Meg blurted.
Like ripping off a band aid, she tried to convince herself.
"I was wondering if you'd like to take a walk by the lake after dinner," Meg said.
Lisa looked surprised for a moment, and although it broke her heart, Meg steeled herself for rejection.
It didn't come.
"Sure."
Meg's eyes widened; despite her hopes, she hadn't actually expected Lisa to say yes.
"All right. Uh, meet me behind the Mess Hall after dinner," Meg told her.
Lisa smiled and nodded.
"Yeah. Let's do that."
Neither noticed Amelia, who was around the corner, sigh in defeat. She was a woman of her world, after all.
After dinner, Lisa felt her stomach roll with nerves. She'd tried to act confident in front of Meg, like she got asked out all the time, but the truth was... Lisa had never been on a date before.
She'd started having crushes around age eleven; she'd discovered that she was a lesbian around that time, but she'd never actually been asked out, nor had she had the courage to ask anyone else out.
And yet, here she was, going on a date with a fellow camper.
Lisa tapped her foot against the green, trodden on grass behind the Mess Hall, and she forced a smile onto her anxious face when she noticed Meg appear around the corner.
"Hi," she greeted.
"Hey," Meg responded. "Ready?"
Lisa nodded. "Ready."
The two walked along the lake, and Lisa was shocked at how... casual it was. With her anxiety, she'd expected the entire thing to be awkward, but it wasn't. They talked about camp and their home lives and everything.
Finally, Lisa asked a question about camp she'd been dying to ask since she'd overheard two girls talking about it earlier.
"Hey, Meg," Lisa said. "I heard two girls talking about the Legend of the Dream Catcher. What did they mean?"
Meg smiled. "Oh, it's an old legend, a scary legend.
"20 years ago, there was a tragedy here at Pine Mountain. One of the campers died in her sleep."
Lisa frowned. "Did she... sleep walk into the lake or something?"
"The story goes... she had nightmares. Like wake up, sweating, screaming kind of nightmares. She said she saw some kind of boogeyman that she called the... Dream Catcher. She said he took away all her good dreams, and whenever she closed her eyes, he was there, waiting... to grab her. She kept saying he was real, but of course, no one believed her... until it happened."
"What?" Lisa questioned, gulping.
"She stopped sleeping all together, but that makes you go crazy, so she went out of her mind, wandered around like a zombie. She started seeing things that were just so... awful."
"Like the boogeyman?" Lisa guessed.
Meg nodded, slowly. "And eventually, she just couldn't stay up any longer, and she fell into a deep, deep, deep sleep. But the next morning, they found her, just lying in her bunk, glassy eyed, staring straight up at nothing. A look of absolute terror on her face. Dead."
Lisa gulped.
Meg smiled, comfortingly. "It's just a legend. And besides, even if it was real, it was twenty years ago. If she was telling the truth, the boogeyman probably would've killed again, and our parents never would've sent us here."
Lisa blinked and nodded, although she didn't look entirely convinced.
Meg smiled again and slipped her hand into Lisa's.
Lisa instantly felt better.
Hiss!
Lisa sat up and looked around, finding the surrounding bunks empty.
"Justine?" She called, her voice shaking. "Amelia? Meg?"
Nothing.
Hiss!
Lisa sat up, slowly, and climbed down the ladder, looking at the bunk beneath her's, wishing Meg were there to hold her hand like she did by the lake.
Lisa opened the door and walked outside, strolling across the grass covered earth to the main house.
Inside, she found the councilors sitting around a table, smiling and talking about the camp.
"Justine?" Lisa asked, her voice catching.
Justine turned, and Lisa gasped, stumbling back.
Justine looked like a corpse. Her eyes were sunken in and surrounded by dark circles; her face was unnaturally pale, and her hair was stringy and dirty.
"What's wrong, Lisa?" She asked, almost mockingly.
The other councilors began laughing, hysterically, and Justine soon joined them.
Lisa turned on her heel and ran, but before she could get very far, sharp claws grabbed her around her midsection and yanked her through a doorway.
Lisa screamed.
Hiss!
She only saw a glimpse of the face, but it would forever be burned into her mind.
A hideous white face gazed at her with razor sharp teeth, and its lips were painted black; its eyes were a pale gray, almost like a blind person's, and its body resembled that of a spider.
Lisa gasped as she awoke, and she nearly konked heads with Meg.
"Lisa, are you all right?" She asked in concern. "Did you have bad dream?"
Lisa nodded. "Yeah."
"The Dream Catcher?" Meg whispered.
Lisa nodded. "Yeah. The Dream Catcher."
Meg looked down at Lisa's sheets before her eyes suddenly widened, and she snatched up Lisa's wrist.
Lisa's eyes widened, as well.
Three deep (but thankfully, narrow) gashes were scratched across her wrist, almost like something had clawed her.
Meg motioned for her to stay there, and she left for a few moments before returning with a first aid kit.
Meg was surprisingly good with first aid; she cleaned the scratches and bandaged them, wonderfully.
"How are you so good at first aid?" Lisa wondered.
Meg shrugged. "I used to play soft ball, and since my parents were so busy working, I had to learn to bandage my injuries myself."
Lisa didn't say anything, sensing Meg didn't want to talk about it, but she grabbed her hand to show Meg that she was there.
Lisa trekked through the woods between Meg and Amelia, not speaking very much as they passed trees and shrubs and nature, but she barely noticed it. Amelia seemed detached, as well, and Meg was too focused on making sure Lisa was okay to notice the world around them.
Amelia suddenly froze, and when Lisa pulled to a stop, Meg followed her example, despite wanting nothing more than to get away from Little Miss Sunshine.
"What's wrong, Amelia?" Lisa asked, seemingly dreading the answer.
"This place was in my nightmare," she murmured, looking so frightened, Meg could almost feel her apprehension.
She almost felt bad for her. Almost.
"Ooh, scary," Meg mocked. Neither girl looked at her.
"I was in that cave," Amelia continued, staring at the nearby cave opening, one Meg recognized. "I couldn't move. I felt something brush against my face, so I looked up. He was hideous. His breath was foul, and he moved like a giant spider."
When she said the last part, Amelia forced herself to tear her eyes away from the cave and focused on Lisa.
"Hello?" Meg exclaimed. "We walk by this cave every summer. Remember, one summer, we hid from the councilor in there?"
The girls turned to her, Lisa glaring in disappointment, and while Meg didn't feel apologetic, she tried to put on a mask of regret. For Lisa. Not for Little Miss Sunshine.
"Sorry, just stating a fact," she added.
The tension in the atmosphere was palpable as Lisa turned back to Amelia and spoke.
"Amelia, did he make a... hissing noise?" Lisa asked.
Amelia stared at her in shock and dawning realization. "Well... yeah."
"Amelia... the same thing happened in my nightmare. There was this giant spider guy..." Lisa trailed off as all three girls turned towards the cave.
Meg grabbed Lisa's hand and gently tugged her along, Amelia following; the sooner they got away from that cave, the better.
Even Meg was starting to feel a cold dread pooling in her stomach...
After brushing her teeth, Meg walked into the cabin to find Lisa and Amelia sitting side by side on Amelia's bunk.
"What's up?" She asked Lisa.
"Our dream catchers are broken," Lisa explained.
Amelia watched Meg sit down, not even caring.
"You cut them," she accused.
"No, I didn't," Meg told her. "Why would I cut my own?"
Meg held up her own Dream Catcher, which was missing its bead. She'd taken the bead out a few times to fiddle with, but she'd replaced it before Justine could see and go on about how she 'broke the tradition'. Now, though, the bead was completely and utterly gone.
Amelia shrugged, as though saying good point.
The cabin door opened, and Justine stepped inside.
"Justine!" Lisa called. "Someone cut our dream catchers. Meg's, too."
She sighed. "Someone does this almost every year. I promise, once I find out who did it, they'll be punished. But hey, your dream catchers are still very pretty."
She walked back out, deeming the problem as insignificant.
"Yeah," Lisa muttered. "Just won't work."
Later that night, Meg listened to Lisa toss and turn in the bunk above her's, unable to sleep. She wanted to comfort Lisa, but she wasn't exactly sure how.
Finally, Lisa leaned over the edge of the bunk.
"Amelia, are you awake?" She hissed.
Amelia sat up. "Yeah,. You okay?"
"I'm too afraid to sleep," Lisa confessed.
"Me, too."
"What if... He comes back?"
Lisa sounded so terrified, Meg couldn't help herself.
Meg sighed. "Come down here," she told Lisa before standing and going to sit on Amelia's bed.
Lisa descended the ladder and joined the two girls on Amelia's bunk.
"I don't believe in the Dream Catcher legend, but I can see that you do," she said, looking at Lisa and ignoring Amelia entirely. "According to the legend, the Dream Catcher can only get you when you're asleep. Besides, my parents never let me stay up all night."
Lisa smiled. "Mine don't, either."
A grin spread across Amelia's face, as well.
By the time morning came, Meg, Lisa, and Amelia were exhausted.
"We can't go without sleeping forever," Meg reminded them. "We'll need to figure out a compromise."
Lisa nodded, her face buried in Meg's shoulder, yawning.
The cabin door burst open, and Justine hopped in, practically bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in excitement.
"Big day today!" She cheered. "Twenty mile canoe trip!"
Lisa and Amelia groaned, and Meg cursed in her head.
"Up you get!" Justine shouted. "Let's get some breakfast and get started!"
Meg sighed and handed Amelia and Lisa a can of soda from the stash she kept under her bed, taking one for herself, too.
Today was going to be fun.
Not.
Justine strummed her guitar, finishing their fifth camp fire song.
"Just one more?" A girl with pigtails (it was either Maggie or Abby; Meg could never remember) begged.
Meg inwardly groaned and leaned her head on Lisa's shoulder, too tired to keep it up straight.
Justine grinned. "All right. I know... there was an old lady who swallowed a spider!"
Oh, come on, any song but this, Meg thought.
She felt Lisa relax against her and frowned. What the-
"No," Lisa whispered. "No."
"Lisa?" Meg said, sitting up.
Lisa had fallen asleep sitting up.
"Lisa?"
"No!" She said a bit louder. Any louder and the others would realize what was going on.
Meg shook her shoulders, and she watched as Lisa's eyes opened, slowly. Sweat poured down Lisa's face, and her eyes were wide with fear.
"Lisa, you fell asleep," Meg explained, but Lisa barely reacted.
"Justine!" Meg called. "Would it be okay if we called it a night? That canoe trip really did me in."
She smiled. "Of course. We'll have another camp fire tomorrow."
Lisa looked at Meg, gratefully, as the couple and Amelia headed back to the cabin.
Meg's hand slipped into Lisa's to show that she was here.
Suddenly, Meg stopped, and she held up their locked hands, staring at the underside of Lisa's wrist.
Three new gashes.
Meg held her closer and walked back to the cabin.
"We can't go to sleep," Lisa said.
Meg couldn't believe she was saying this, but she agreed.
Amelia threw a bunch of chocolate on the bed that she'd gotten from her bag, and Meg handed each of them a mountain dew (almost every kid in the camp smuggled in food and soda, so you could get almost any kind).
The trio chugged their sodas and ate chocolate like there was no tomorrow, but it still wasn't enough. Meg felt herself drifting off.
"I'm going to go use the bathroom," she murmured before handing Lisa her watch. "I set an alarm, just in case."
Lisa nodded, and Meg stood and walked away.
She didn't remember the walk taking so long, and when she arrived at the bathroom, she didn't remember it being so creepy.
The lights flickered above her head, and shadows danced across the walls as Meg washed her hands in the frigid water of the sink.
Hiss!
Meg turned and screamed.
She'd never seen the Dream Catcher before, and she wished that she wasn't seeing it now.
He was uglier than anything she'd ever seen with a white face and pitch black lips and even darker eyes. He had the body of a gigantic spider, and he walked unevenly and loudly, which only seemed to make this all scarier.
Meg turned and ran like hell.
When she burst into the cabin, she found Lisa standing there, drenched in sweat, obviously having awoken from her own nightmare.
Meg wrapped her arms around her, rubbing her hands over Lisa's back and arms, needing to feel something. Lisa was her anchor, the reason she wasn't going mad with fear.
Meg kissed Lisa's forehead, feeling the tears on Lisa's cheeks stick to her own face.
"Amelia," Lisa suddenly mumbled. "Amelia, she's-she's trapped... in the dream."
Okay, Meg hated Amelia, but she wouldn't wish that monster on the Devil himself. Or maybe that monster was the Devil. Who knows?
"We have to save her," Lisa whispered, her voice shaking at the mere thought of facing that beast.
Meg nodded and handed her a flashlight.
"We need to stop by the Badgers cabin first," she told Lisa.
Lisa frowned. "Why?"
"Johnny Barmen smokes. He has lighters; that could be useful. Go to the Mess Hall and in the back room, there's a bottle of kerosene. We use it for camp fires when we run out of lighter fluid. Grab it and meet me outside Badger cabin," Meg instructed, grabbing her backpack.
Not wanting to be alone for too long, the girls rushed to gather the objects and met outside Badger cabin without any mishaps.
Meg grabbed Lisa's hand and led her through the dense woods, her eyes darting left and right as shadows embraced them in the oddly chilly summer night.
"Help!"
Both girls jumped.
"Amelia?" Lisa called.
"Help me, Lisa!"
"Lia, keep yelling!" Meg cried, trying to follow the sound of her voice.
"Lia?" Lisa asked.
"When Amelia and I were friends, we had nicknames. Her's was Lia, as in Amelia. Mine was-"
"Ann! Ann, help!"
"Ann, as in Megan," Meg finished.
Lisa forced a smile. "I like it."
"You can be Isa," Meg said, trying to comfort her and distract them from the situation at hand.
Lisa smiled wider. "I love it."
Meg grinned, sadly. "I'm glad."
"Anne! Lisa!"
"There!" Meg exclaimed, pointing to the cavern, where Amelia's voice resonated from.
Lisa's grip tightened on Meg's hand, and on trembling legs, Meg led her friend (no, girlfriend) into the cave.
Spider webs surrounded them, silky and woven, expertly. They were sticky, too, as Meg found out when she stepped on one.
Sticky enough to trap someone.
"Be careful. The web's a trap," Meg mumbled to Lisa as they trekked further into darkness.
A shaky breath made Meg whirl around and point her flashlight at...
Amelia, looking so pathetic curled into a protective ball, but Meg didn't feel like teasing her.
"Come on!" Meg called, leaving no room for arguement.
Amelia gasped and leapt to her feet; the three girls raced through the maze of spider webs.
Hiss!
Hiss!
Hiss!
"Wait!" Lisa cried. "Where is he?"
Hiss!
Hiss!
Hiss!
"Keep moving!" Meg commanded.
"I can't!" Amelia suddenly said. "I'm stuck."
Of course, Miss Sunshine here is the one to get us all killed! Meg thought before trying to yank Amelia's boots free.
Lisa fell into the spider web and couldn't break free.
Meg tried to help her, but she, too, tumbled into the trap.
"Meg!" Lisa screamed, and her hand unstuck just enough to latch onto Meg's.
It crept closer, its spider legs clacking. Its gray eyes bored into its victims as it grinned, menacingly.
Meg sprayed kerosene all over it, and she tossed the lighter on the beast, watching as it burned; still, it continued, screeching in pain, but not seeing deterred in any way by the flames licking its body.
The trio screeched, and Meg cried, waiting for death.
Bee-doop! Bee-doop!
"The alarm!" Lisa cried.
Meg sighed in relief.
Meg jolted awake to find herself in Lisa's arms, safe and sound.
Meg surprised even herself when she spun around and kissed Lisa, passionately.
Even if the Dream Catcher was still out there, they were at peace for the time being.
God knows they deserved this one moment.
"I love you," Lisa murmured against Meg's lips.
"I love you, too, " Meg agreed.
Meg didn't say that often, not even to her parents, but for the first time in a long time, she said it and meant it.
"I love you, Lisa," she repeated.
How was it? Good? Bad? I wrote this while I was sick and bedridden, so I hope I still did a good job.
Thanks for reading!
Bye bye!