A/N: Ok, I know thunderstorms are such a cliché… but I tried to put my own spin on it…
Alright, let me just start off by saying that thunderstorms make me uneasy. I'm not one of those people that, like, hyperventilates or anything, they just aren't my favourite thing to sit through.
Let me put it this way: I'd rather go to a week of hour-long detentions where all I can do is stare at the wall than sit through a thunderstorm. But the actual thunderstorm, 'flash-boom-crash' part isn't what I really hate about them. It's the power outages that get me. Don't take that the wrong way, I'm not afraid of the dark. I just don't like that helpless feeling you get when the power goes out suddenly and darkness is pressing in at you from every angle and you can't see where anybody is and you don't know if it was really the thunderstorm or if some maniac on a killing spree cut the power lines and is coming to kill you… Alright, so the whole maniac thing is a little far-fetched, but it happens in the horror movies, and the whole power outage during a thunder storm is just too much like the set-up of one of those horror movies for me. Don't take that the wrong way either, I'm not deathly afraid of horror movies. I actually kind of like scaring the shit out of myself. It gives me a rush.
But anyways, back to the whole power outage thing. I hate the feeling of being in a room that's lit up one second, and you can see everything, and then it's pitch black the next and you can't see where people are and what they're doing and if they all left, or if they're coming up behind you or whatever else they might do. I know that now you're thinking, how do I sleep at night in a pitch black room? No, I don't use a nightlight. I feel perfectly safe burrowing down in my covers, my back to the door. That way, I can't see the room, and the room can't see me. Perfect strategy. My window also allows moonlight to come in, as well as my alarm clock giving off light, so my room isn't all that dark.
But anyways, back to the topic: Power Outages And Why They Make Mitchie Torres Uneasy. I just hate the feeling of being trapped in the darkness. It feels as though I'm cornered, and there's no way out. There's also that whole thing of, I can't see anybody, so I have no clue if anybody's there or not, and if not, then I'm alone, in the dark, and vulnerable. And no matter how hard I try, I can never see anything.
So imagine how I felt when the power went out in the Mess Hall after dinner. There had been a raging storm pretty much from the time we sat down. Our camp was separated, as some campers were stuck in their cabins, Brown having told them to stay where they were over the loudspeaker before the power outage. Naturally, some didn't hear him, and arrived in the Mess Hall soaking wet and cold. Luckily, Mom had some towels in the storage room for them. Our group had already been in the Hall before it started raining, so we were dry and comfortable. We took our seats at the table, and imagine my discomfort when Shane and I just happened to sit down next to each other. We may be getting along better, but that still didn't mean I was comfortable sitting so closely next to him. During practices we kept a careful distance between us at all times. Anna sat on Shane's other side, Jason being forced to sit next to Nate and Caitlyn, who were too absorbed in the 'honeymoon' phase of their relationship to actually acknowledge any of us. Nate had finally asked Caitlyn to be his girlfriend, and they'd been inseparable ever since. I rolled my eyes at their cheesiness. I wondered if Shane and I were ever that bad…
We'd already filled our plates, and were about to eat when the first crash of thunder sounded. I saw Shane shoot me a worried glance as I hesitated for a split second, before continuing to eat. Yes, Shane has been with me during a thunderstorm in which there was a power outage. We were in his apartment, to be exact.
I ignored the look, and continued eating. After I had disposed of my dishes and reclaimed my seat, the lights flickered. I tensed for a split second, and I felt Shane's hand brush against my leg. He pretended it was an accident, but we both knew it wasn't. What made me angry though, was not that he did it, but that it actually made me feel a bit more relaxed.
We all finished eating and were sitting around, being bored. Brown had closed the doors and we were trapped inside the hall until the storm blew over. I tried not to show my boredom at Jason, Shane, Anna and I just sitting and watching Nate and Caitlyn being absorbed with themselves.
After about five minutes of this, I got fed up and spoke, "Hey, you guys? Are you going to come back to reality anytime soon?"
They both looked around as if just seeing us for the first time.
Anna frowned, "What did you do that for Mitch?"
"What?" I asked defensively, "Like you all weren't thinking it."
There was a heavy silence, before Caitlyn spoke, attempting to lighten the mood, "So, how about that weather? Pretty nice, huh?"
Unfortunately she hadn't noticed it was raining.
We had now been inside for about an hour. The lights had flickered twice, but nothing serious had happened. The storm was still raging on outside, and Brown had taken a head count, noting that about twenty campers were unaccounted for. We hoped they were safely in their cabins. As I surveyed the people in the room, I noticed something.
"Hey, guys, have any of you seen Tess?" I asked, craning my neck to look.
Caitlyn glanced from side to side, before saying, "Nope. Oh well. Hope she found a nice little shack to hide in."
"Cait, come on. Seriously. She told me she was coming."
"You talked to her? Why?"
"Because she talked to me first."
"She talked to you first? Seriously?" Anna asked, disbelieving.
"Yes," I snapped, fed up with their doubts.
Nate spoke up, "When did she say that she was coming?"
"She just had to go back to change her shoes. Something about not wanting to wear the same pair to all three meals," I rolled my eyes despite my growing concern.
"Well, how long would it take her to do that?" Anna asked, biting her lip, I could tell I'd hooked her into feeling a bit concerned as well.
"It should only take her about ten minutes tops. She should have been here before Brown told everyone to stay where they were."
"Mitchie, relax, nothing bad is going to happen to her. Even if lightning did try to strike her, she'd glare at it and it'd back off," Caitlyn said bitterly.
"Caitlyn, would you lay off the bitterness for like, a second?" I snapped. Man, I was snapping a lot suddenly. Caitlyn looked taken aback by my irritability, but shut up.
Shane caught his uncle's eye and waved him over, "Hey, Uncle Brown, have you seen Tess?"
"No, can't say I have," Brown answered after a moment's consideration.
"She said she was going back to our cabin to grab some new shoes, she should be here by now," I cut in.
"Well now, that won't do. I'll see if I can't ask around and find out what people know."
Brown sidled away, and Caitlyn said, "There, happy? Can we just forget about her now?"
"Cait, bitter isn't a good look for you."
"Mitchie, what is your problem?"
"What is my problem? My problem is that Tess could be out there and you don't care!"
"Why should I care? After everything she did to me? Why should I care what happens to her?"
"Because she's human! She's just like you or me!"
"Oh, no! I am nothing like Tess Tyler!"
We hadn't realized it, but we were so caught up in our argument that we were standing, leaning over the table, glaring at each other. We also didn't realize that everyone in the Mess Hall was staring at us. I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me back down just as Nate grabbed Caitlyn.
"Guys, enough! Just drop it!" Shane commanded irritably, and I discovered that the hand on my arm belonged to him. He didn't move it as he spoke though.
"Fine," I muttered, snatching my arm from his grasp.
"Whatever," Caitlyn mumbled, though she didn't pull her arm away from Nate.
Brown had been asking around about Tess, though no one seemed to know her whereabouts. I never thought it would happen, but I was actually worried about her.
I spotted one of Tess's new lackeys, I hadn't bothered with a name, and wondered if she'd know where the blonde diva was. I noticed that she was looking around nervously. She appeared as if she knew something more than she was letting on. I waited until she left the table she was sitting at to go to the washroom in the back of the kitchen before rising.
"I…uh… excuse me," I stuttered lamely, before following her. I could feel Shane's eyes watching me as I made a beeline for the bathroom.
I waited until she emerged, before I grabbed her arm, pulling her back out of the view of everyone.
"What do you know about Tess?" I asked immediately. I was actually very surprised at my demeanour. Normally I wouldn't be so forward and confrontational, but for some reason, I felt like I needed to know that Tess was alright, even though she was a total witch most times.
"N-Nothing," She stuttered, avoiding my gaze.
"You're lying. Why won't you tell anyone?"
"Because… Because it was my fault she was going there."
"Going where?"
"She was looking for her silver Jimmy Choo flip-flops and I was there, and I remembered that she left them in my cabin, and she was going to give up and wear something else, but I told her that I knew where they were, so she told me to go get them but I said no and walked away. I'm pretty sure she went to my cabin to get them. If I would have just gone…"
"So she went to your cabin?"
"I thought she was…"
I turned on my heel and hurried back into the larger room, past my mom, who was questioning what I had been doing back there. I located Brown almost immediately, notifying him of Tess's supposed whereabouts. He thanked me and then left to talk to Dee, as well as contact the rest of the camp's faculty which they were communicating with via walkie-talkie. I turned around to see Jason behind me.
"What was that? Did you find Tess?" He asked.
"One of her lackeys thinks that she's in cabin 3. She was getting her designer flip-flops."
"Oh. That's good." We walked side by side back to the table in silence, where Anna, Nate and Shane looked up at us for an explanation. Even Caitlyn looked a smidge worried now.
"Possibly in Cabin 3 getting designer flip-flops," I stated, sitting back down in my original seat beside Shane once more.
That seemed to ease everyone's minds, and we went back to idle chit-chat. I looked over at Caitlyn. We hadn't looked at each other since our little fight about twenty minutes ago. During a lull in conversation, we both made eye contact, and at the exact same time cried, "I'm sorry!" We jumped up and hurried around the table and hugged each other. Anna rolled her eyes, while Jason jumped up, yelling 'GROUP HUG!' and swarming in to pull his arms around both of us.
"Aw. I love it when everyone's happy," Jason cooed before we all sat back down. Nate wrapped an arm around Caitlyn's waist, and she leaned into his side, smiling brightly.
An odd silence seemed to settle over the Mess Hall before a particularly loud crack of thunder broke it. A few people screamed, others laughed. I jumped slightly. Shane shot me another worried glance out of the corner of his eye, almost as though he was waiting for me to jump down to the floor and curl up into the fetal position.
I looked to Caitlyn, who had jolted ever so slightly. Nate was smiling at her while her cheeks were tinted a delicate shade of pink. Caitlyn had always said she didn't get scared easily.
Tired of sitting, we all simultaneously stood up. We hadn't decided to get up as a group, we just all did it at the same time. We shared a laugh when we realized this. We rearranged ourselves so that Nate and Caitlyn were now sitting on the table, their feet on the bench, his arm around her waist as it seemed to always be, with Jason, Anna, Shane and I standing so that we formed a semi circle in front of the table. I found myself in-between Nate and Shane. Shane was on my right, Nate on my left. Caitlyn was to Nate's left, obviously, and then Jason and Anna brought us back to start the circle over again with Shane. We talked about a whole lot of nothing for awhile. And then it happened. The power finally crashed. The lights went out and we were all plunged into complete darkness. I heard myself gasp. Lots of people screamed. Brown and Dee were trying to calm everyone down, but I wasn't listening. I was too caught up in that horrible feeling of being trapped alone in the darkness again. My right hand reached out to grasp something, anything. I wasn't sure what I was searching for until I found it: Shane's hand. I wasn't sure exactly why I did it, but I grabbed hold of his hand tightly. I felt his arm tense in surprise, before it relaxed. He gently squeezed my hand as our fingers naturally intertwined. I felt the small jolt of panic that had gripped me dull at the physical contact as Shane just stood there, letting me drain his hand of all blood circulating through it. There was a scrambling around before lanterns were lit and flashlights were turned on.
Brown hollered to get our attention, "Guys! Settle down! Please, don't panic. We seem to have had a small problem with the power. We will try to see what's wrong once the weather decides to cooperate. Again, don't panic!"
After the initial chaos subsided, everyone began talking once more. Nobody seemed to notice that I was still gripping Shane's hand.
He waited for a minute or so before he leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Uh… Mitch? I can't feel my fingers…"
I blushed a deep pink as I looked down, noticing that our hands were indeed joined. I almost hadn't realized I was doing it. I pulled my hand away from his, "Right. Sorry."
I barely caught his 'don't be' before Jason started telling some joke that he'd heard three days ago.
A/N: So i wrote this whole chapter before i even started writing the story... haha! what did you think of it? i know it doesn't really fit with how i've been writing the rest of the chapters, but i loved it too much to change it...
