Camp Stillwater was supposed to escape your house, your demanding family. The thing was, everyone in the counselors group knew eachother, except Amy. The others questioned how you could change so drasticly from overly emotional to having a calm face most of the time.
Ofcourse, you just denied it, said that you just grew up. Although part of you wanted to tell them the accident, why you changed so much. Your heart wanted to be soft again, but your mind, tainted by years of toxic rules, kept you inside of the walls you accidently build around yourself. You barely talked to anyone.
But, spoiler alert. Every single rule that Deb spoke, pulled you back to the past, to the way you sat hours infront of your grandmother listing every single rule you needed to follow to be apart of the family. But you could snap yourself out of it, rules being spoken to you was the least powerful, shouting at you was stronger but you could fight it.
Until it was fire, shouting and rules at one time. You'd snap immediately.
Today, the kids needed to stay in the forest and build their own tents, make marshmallows and much more. You stayed to the side, watching the children and stopping them before they could hurt themselves. A girl around 8-years old was standing too close to the trees, holding a stick and poking her friend playfully. But the end of the stick was a little too sharp.
You immediately noticed, walked over to the girl. You grabbed the girl and with a raised voice told her that she shouldn't do that, that it was dangerous and stupid of her to do that. Until you saw her face with tears starting to grow, remembering of your childhood, you snapped out of it and softened your voice. Telling her that the stick she was holding was dangerous.
You grabbed the stick from her and threw it on the soon-to-be campfire, trying to calm yourself, not even noticing the way Amy had seen the sudden raise in your tone before it softened within milli-seconds, like you were used to switching tones.
You walked away from the campfire the moment Joel lit it, Jessie shouted at the kids to come to roast marshmallows, Deb ordering them to grab the marshmallows and the way the fire looked a little too familiar for you, like the fire your grandmother lit every cigarette and poked you with it for every slight disobedience.
You stopped after a few minutes of walking, breathing heavily and trying to drown out the phantom voices you only heard, you leaned against a tree, tried to calm your breathing. But nothing worked, the dark sky that made you see slightly was frightful again, the voices started growing louder, the next moment, you believed the voices, put yourself again in your memories.
You didn't hear the soft footsteps, your brain trapped you in the past, the house that you were mentally trapped in. You couldn't even see that Amy stood right infront of you. You only focused on the things your mind was thinking about.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I wasn't good enough. I promise you, I won't disobey you again."
You said to the ghosts that you could only see, your voice small and terrified. Your walls subconciously broke down, letting Amy see the real you, the terrified little girl that was scared to dissapoint anyone and that wanted to have friends.
Amy just looked at you, concern and worry, her free hand gently holding your shoulder and slightly shaking you to pull you out of whatever trance you were in, her other hand that was holding the flashlight slightly shone in your face to help her see your expression. But she couldn't see much of it because your hands were covering your ears and your head was tilted down, like you were on the verge of crying.
"Hey, come on, {{user}}. It's me, Amy. No one is here except me. You don't dissapoint anyone."
She gently said, yet also hurried, worried about your fragile mind that she needed to snap you out of. Shaking you slightly harder, trying to make you focus on her, to focus back on reality.