Day Twenty Three

The world (as everyone knew it), was on fire. The trees were lit in furious orange flames, bark crackling and strengthening the escalating pyre, leaves consumed and curling as they died and became nothing but sprinkled, dried and ashen bits upon the earth's blazing land. Obsidian, large tuffs of smoke fleeted up into the air, blacking the once clear blue sky from her longing, doe eyed gaze. Outlandishly enough, something that baffled her more than anything, was the candid fact that no one was even bothering to react to what was occurring, or the fact that right before their eyes, the woodland combusted into spontaneous incandescence. Voices spoke in unknown tongue, invading her once innocent ears and sending chills and Goosebumps to corrupt creamy skin, yet, she could not bring herself to move, and she wanted to run away from the danger.

It was like she couldn't.

And Cat, frozen in her place with a flat pointed garden fork clutched within a searing red palm, sore from working every hour of the day, hastily tore her gaze away from the burning forest and clenched her eyes shut. She could hear she was being shouted at but the words were telescopic and distant to her and she could have sworn on her grandmother's grave (if she wasn't so religious) that she would have screamed at the top of her lungs for it all to stop – it reminded her too much of her mother and her stepfather and she could feel the heat searing into her skin, engulfing it regardless if the fire was near her or if it wasn't. Her hand grasped the tool tighter as she kept her eyes squeezed shut, plagued with thoughts of everything she had wanted to do before she died and if her other friends, preferably Brent and Jade, who were out in that incinerating thicket, were alright and well.

"Hey, dimples! What'd I say? No breaks when you're working, get to it!" A raspy voice, fairing in an octave that hurt her ringing ears, yelled implicitly at her and almost immediately, her eyelids fluttered open in surprise. She almost gasped at the sight she had seen, unable to believe her very own, deceiving brown irises.

Luckily enough, though much to her utter disbelief and bewilderment, the island was in fact, not burning at all. The sky was clear of pretty white clouds and emerald erupted about her; the heat in which she had felt from her skin was surely coming from the scorching sun overhead, in which usually slowed down the working process. Albeit she nodded at the man, who had, to her luck, walked away from her presence, she remained rooted where she was reclined; her bare kneecaps digging into the soil and scraping against the gravel and her eyes wandering about her – what she had seen just moments before was so surreal she had a difficult time describing it, even to herself, without making much sense at all.

Maybe, she contemplated as she set back to work reluctantly, her breathing ample as she pursued to collect herself, I'm not getting enough sleep. Yeah, that's it.

As though it had been a normal occurrence, which in some ways, it has been, Cat hesitantly returned to her work in which she was mandatory for her to finish if she had at least hoped to gain the privilege of a shower and to shave her legs and underarms later that night, and dug her cramping fingers into the depleted undergrowth, tomato and herbal seeds within the small woven white bag hanging from her denim shorts belt. She couldn't, under any circumstance, get her overwhelming worry control her mind for so long – or the inevitable things happen, involuntarily and unwanted of course. But there was no denying that she was fretful; afraid for Beck, whom she hadn't seen since brutal, unforgiving brawl the day before hand (leaving her alone and frightened in her confinement), afraid for Brent and Jade, her own safety here, her hunger and her dehydration and her sanity, which admittedly, was leaving her rather baffled and wondrous.

No one had trouble admitting the fact that there was indeed something rather off about her, and she had come to learn this the hard way. She too knew it, how could she not?, but this had not stopped the cruel students at Hollywood Arts and her Middle School she had attended precedent to the beginning of her frosh year from making it rather clear and not only behind her back, but to her face – she was glad that she had Jade by her side, someone who acted as if though a friend, a motherly, protective figure, or else she didn't suppose she'd make it quite far. There was so many things wrong with her, psychologically speaking, but those bullies, the people of their school and everyone beside Tori and Jade didn't know the entire jest of it: Bipolarity, ADHD, post traumatic stress disorder, emotional and behavioral disorder, and finally, dyscalculia and dyslexia – which is really, one in the same thing, two sides of the same coin (and also the reason she was failing mathematics. Again).

She was just, to put it unpretentiously, screwed up.

The amount of her psychological matter of contention was almost abnormal, and her (18) retired therapists would not bother and deny this fact. And maybe the doctors at the hospital too, when she was put in the Mental Ward only a clear month ago until her mother was called to inform her of Cat's situation – however, it ended up being Jade who had come to her rescue (in which evidently led to the car crash on their way to the Gothic girls home and back to the hospital).

Only when two small items clunked upon her lap so abruptly it was enough for her heart to leap from her chest, especially in her state of paranoia, did she stop working. The fork dropped from her rigid, scratched hands and she snapped her gaze over her shoulder…to find herself staring directly at the boy from the woods, the very same boy that had led them into the topiary in which ultimately landed them in this predicament. She should have been angrier upon taking glance at his nonchalant, handsome expression but she was not one to bottle up so much fury like her best friend was, and besides, his brute morphed face had caught her upmost attention, and she could not bring herself to think other thoughts beside he doesn't look like Mouse at all.

Instead, his features were sunken with a narrow chin and perfectly sloped nose, his deep brunette hair hanging in elegant curls around his forehead and dropping into light brown eyes the color of milk chocolate. The boy's skin was near albino despite the searing sun brutally beating down upon them all, with dark purple circles underneath his bottom eyelids that made him materialize to be, perhaps, an apparition or a ghost. He looked rather frightening upon first glance, but, as she had come to realize, his facial presentation displayed nothing but a crooked grin. But, he vaguely reminded her of what the people had looked like in that one movie Jade made her watch, Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

That movie gave her nightmares.

"Um…can I help you?" She asked quietly, lips barely moving and irises flickering over to the men patrolling the plantations, with their rifles hitched on their shoulders and grasped tightly within their hands.

"Seemed to have dropped something. Mind picking it up, dimples?" He asked her, his voice was edgy and loud and hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken in weeks, months even. With suave moves he extended and arm and pointed his index finger toward her lap, and acting on impulse, she followed it, more curious than she had been beforehand. In her lap, the two items that had apparently been somehow dropped directly above her, was a small pack of Camels and a full lighter – her stomach lurched. She hadn't had a drag in so long, and the simple sight of them made her want to smoke as many as she could and savor them until they were completely gone. And, she feared, she would have if they were hers. Intently wrapping her fingers around the packs, the lighter and the cigarettes, and she reluctantly handed them over.

"Hmm, hesitation." He shrugged his eyebrows at her smugly, before waving her hands away from him, "Just kidding, you can have them. Heard around the street that you liked those kind of things."

"Where did you possibly hear that from?" Cat blinked, guising confused as she pulled the packs back into her lap. A small surge of relief flooded over her, but when reality came into play, she quickly pushed it from her and replaced it cleverly with her acting skills, and naïve curiosity.

"Just know these things, see." He drawled on, kneeling down beside her and picking at the weeds in front. "Figured I should sit down, you might look weird if they see you talking to mid air over your shoulder, holding a random pack of cigs. Might want to hide those from them, by the way."

Now Cat was beyond confused and beyond baffled. "What do you mean talking to midair? Are you not real or something?" She asked the boy hesitantly, unsure of her words and sounding absolutely absurd as she said it.

"Yep, Ms. Crazy Dimples."

"What's that supposed to mean!"

"You're schizophrenic, you're course you're going to see things that aren't real." The boy said with a sinister smirk that rivaled Jade's; it was eerily similar, just like the resemblance he had toward she and her older brother, but she had thought nothing more of it.

"I'm not schizophrenic!" Cat nearly shouted, as the usual, easily offended. The tone of voice she had used sounding as if she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to perceive him – and, she decided, she wasn't denying that either.

"Well, than that just leaves insane. That tends to happen when crazies see and talk to people who aren't real."

Then, just like that, he was gone. And in his place, a furious guard with his hand pulled back, ready to slap her across the face – she made sure, before he had done so, the cigarettes and the lighter were tucked neatly into her back pocket, away from his sight. She would, she decided, take a break when they put her back into her reformatory. She fingered the small white box as she reeled away from the man, attempting to keep her thoughts in control, in check, so she wouldn't get too frightened like she usually was when things like this happened.

Man, had she missed these things.

"(In which evidently led to the car crash on their way to the Gothic girls home and back to the hospital)" is a reference from my one story, Milky Way, if you haven't read it already. I wrote it before I even thought about this story, but I guess you can say it's just kind of an add on. So, if you want to read it, feel free! But it's not really necessary. If you want me to include it in a flashback so it goes along with it more, than just let me know and I will!

Anyway. Hope you enjoyed the chapter even though it may have been a bit vague...Think Cat's mentality is finally cracking? Maybe it always has been…hmm.

Preview:

He held up his wrist and displayed the torn tissue as if he was showing her a trophy, the skin pulsing red and dripping blood. "D," he began as he glanced at it, expression collected, "for disobedient."

"We're like dogs to them" She whimpered.

"Did you expect anything more?"

Review! (: