Cammie's World

• Nurul Izzah Zulkernain, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2017

The school bell sounded for the start of lunch and students were rushing out trying to secure the best tables for their break. Cammie, a bright, usually cheery student came out of her favourite class, art sulking and moody. She was a mature student and was always optimistic about everything. Nobody had ever seen her this sad and pessimistic.
Cammie was particularly unhappy because of Jaxon, the school bully. Of course, nobody would have ever thought that Jaxon would ever dare to bully a high-profile student like Cammie Morris. Cammie walked with her head to the ground, avoiding contact with anybody and sat at the far end of the soccer field, the always empty field. Cammie drifted off into her whirling thoughts of unhappiness because of the encounters she’s been having with Jaxon. She took a few deep breaths and her mind was filled with fog that was dissipating and turning into Cammie’s perfect world. She stood on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall into her life of happiness. Nothing could stop her in this world, nothing. Cammie Morris was experiencing the time of her life. Cammie Morris ran head on and jumped off a cliff, without thinking twice. Cheerful birds caught her mid-flight and congratulated her on overcoming her supposed fear of heights.
Cammie now believed that she was capable of overcoming anything in her path. She wanted to return to the real world with this feeling of invincibleness in her, but there was something blocking her, her mind. The wishes of her brain were translated into all of the creatures in her perfect world speaking against her and putting her down. “You won’t survive out there!” “What makes you think you have the courage to stand up to Jaxon?” These were some of the things that people in her ‘real world’ would tell her.
Cammie tried to ignore their comments and climb up what looked like an endless ditch. Through this time, back at the school, the end of lunch bell had sounded long ago and Cammie’s teachers have begun to get worried. They had searched all over the school to finally have found her still ‘sleeping’. They tried to wake her up but nothing worked, they needed to then bring her up to the nurse, all were worried.
Back inside Cammie’s brain, Cammie is still fighting to climb out of the ditch but the creatures are still pulling her back. They have no intentions of letting her leave their definition of ‘Cammie’s perfect world’. Cammie’s mind desires the feeling of invincibleness and doesn’t believe that it is possible to achieve that feeling in the real world. No matter how much she climbs, this world is still able to contain her within their grasps.
Cammie fights and fights but ultimately loses the battle with her mind. She can’t see a way out and the creatures just tighten their hold of her. Cammie is, as a result, trapped within her brain, never seeing the real world again.