Unanimous Beliefs

• Destinee Prime, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

Sometimes, people get so lost in deep-thought and self-assurance they go chasing legends based on pagan beliefs. I had a friend once, and together, we did this. We ran around finding clues to a made up world. It started to get out of hand. I told her to stop. She wouldn't. And one day, she just… left. It was as if she disappeared. Turned into… nothing. And I swore never to believe again.
“Hurry!” Glen hastily ushers me into the forest.
I hear muffled footsteps behind me as I adjust the bag of pilfered goods on my back. I would blame him for my misfortune, but the decision to steal today was unanimous. As usual, a growing feeling of guilt wells up inside of me. I know I shouldn't be doing this, but then again, I knew I shouldn't have started in the first place. I just needed something to distract me from… Pushing this aside, I notice that Glen has gone.
As I head deeper into the tangle of foliage, I come upon a beautiful glade with thriving nature and a cascading waterfall. Unexpectedly, I feel a tingling down my spine. As it spreads throughout my body, I feel the tingling recede to be replaced with euphoric drowsiness. Suddenly everything around me bursts into colour, the animals frolic placidly, the tree’s sing of their joy and for the first time in years I feel truly at peace. I can feel the bliss overwhelming me, and the harmonic voices of children serenading me to sleep. They express happy times, like when they first rode their bike, or when they caught their first ball. “Catch the ball!” A voice laughs. This pulls me up short. “You did it Emma!” The tranquility is eradicated. Emma. That’s me. And that voice… it was… hers. I fall to the ground. I never left, but it felt like it. The weight of my body forces me to collapse, and the emotions come flooding back. “Why?” I yell bitterly at the ground. I repeat this over and over again until my body’s nothing but a heaping pile of unanswered sobs.
How long has it been? The sobs have gone and I just sit here, bathing in my grief. Glen bursts angrily into the clearing with his fist raised at me. “You lost it! You lost it all!” I realize that I left the bag somewhere and I do nothing to protect myself from his wrath. Just as his blow is about to land, he’s jerked backwards by an unknown force and I stand in confusion. In the distance, holding a rope attached to Glen, is Tara. It’s her. She’s alive. In utter confusion I run to her and throw myself into her arms. She hugs me tight and we sit in the growing happiness this glade provides to us, not saying a word.
Maybe this glade is magical. Maybe it’s a legend. Maybe one day, people will believe.
I know I do.