Chapter 3: Fences Apart
“Someone should just shoot that guy.”
“No prob, Zephyr,” Zack winked at me, “Cloud’s dad is a professional killer. I’m sure he could take care of old Sniper for you, for a small fee that is….”
Zephyr looked at me skeptically and I stared right back, not with hate, but rather a lack of interest. We had just returned from an assembly, headed by Dr. R. Sniper, who thoroughly explained all the rules and crushed my hopes of meeting up with Tifa with the phrase, as he put it, “separate girl and boy camps.”
Now, back at Cabin 13, I laid down on the rock hard top bunk assigned to me, completely lost. I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I half listened as Zack lied about who I was, and then he convinced a group of boys to take part in a card game that was clearly fixed to Zack’s advantage. I stayed in bed for hours, staring at the cobweb covered wooden planks, which lined the ceiling. People came and went from the cabin as dusk arrived, but after a while, I didn’t even notice when the door slammed. Everything faded into a surreal dream like state, although not once did I close my eyes.
“He’s not right in the head, Zack. I don’t want him around,” a voice whispered from some where below me.
“Yeah, when he looks at you, it’s like he’s seeing nothing,” agreed a shaky voice that I recognized as Seth’s.
Zack laughed, “Alright girls, so you don’t like him. He’s creepy, right? Well, he’s also smart, and that’s more than I can say for any of you loud mouths.”
After those little bits and pieces of the conversation reached my ears, a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me down off the top bunk, dropping me to the floor. It was Zack. He offered me a hand, which I shrugged away, pulling myself up onto my feet unassisted. A circle of dirty faces surrounded me and Zack, a devilish grin plastered on his face, was at the center.
“Cloud, are you willing to go on a hike?” Zack asked with a hint of pleasure in his voice.
Obviously, a hike was not all Zack had in mind. I hesitated for only a moment and then proceeded to bend down, digging through my backpack until I found my pocketknife. It had a blade as big as my middle finger and three times as thick. I kept it sharp, but made sure my mom never found it. After all, a mysterious man wearing a black cape just gave it to me one day as I walked home from school. It was truly a bizarre event that I never quite felt like explaining to my mom. Plus, I knew she wouldn’t let me keep the knife if she found out I had it. She was always treating me as if I was still a little kid.
With my knife in hand, I turned back to the circle that had suddenly gotten a bit wider as many of the boys backed away from me, eying the knife with caution. Zack stayed where he was and nodded in approval.
“Ready?” he asked as if all we were going to do was go for a hike.
I nodded, seeing no need for words. After pocketing the knife, I followed Zack out the cabin door into the darkness that had just settled over the camp as the sun passed over the horizon.
“Stick close to me, and if you get lost, don’t mention my name when they find you,” Zack told me in a hushed voice.
Then he turned and slyly slipped from shadow to shadow, avoiding all the lamps’ silver spotlights that plagued the campgrounds. Out of breath, I tried to be as smooth as Zack, streaking from one hiding place to the next, but Zack had something I didn’t: familiarity. Obviously, Zack had done this exact thing numerous times before. But, the only thing running through my mind was why bring me? I didn’t know the grounds, and he didn’t even really know me so why risk getting caught by bringing me on this escapade?
Then I was hit hard, and my head swirled into darkness as I fell..….
“Cloud? Can you hear me?”
I blinked my eyes open and squinted as they were met with an immense cloak of light, streaming from all around me. Pushing myself up into the sitting position, I realized I was on a dusty old bed in a cabin. There were no counselors or even grown ups in sight. Instead, Zack paced the room with a rusty old sword in hand, swinging it playfully at an invisible foe.
“Cloud? How’s your head?” asked the same strange voice that I had heard just a few seconds before.
Twisting my head to the right, I found that Zack was not the only person in the room. A girl sat at a chair situated next to the bed with a basin of water in her lap and a washcloth in her small hand. She had light brown hair that shined red when the light hit it at a certain angle. It was delicately styled in two shoulder-length braids, tied at the end with pink ribbons. Her dress was also a pale pink, splattered with tiny white flowers. I looked into her round eyes, but remained quiet.
“Zack, he’s up,” she announced as she turned from me to face the black haired boy, still playing with the old weapon. “But are you sure his name’s ‘Cloud’? He looks at me as if I’m crazy when I call him that…”
Zack laughed, throwing down the sword and sitting himself down on a chair to my left. “Cloud just don’t talk much, that’s all.”
I went to run a hand through my hair, but found that my forehead had a huge bandage taped to it. When I touched the bandage, an immediate and blinding pain surged through my body and I convulsed as my head began to throb.
“Careful, kid!” Zack reached out and steadied my shaking body. “You got one busted head, so take it easy.”
It took all my energy just to nod in agreement.
“By the way, this is Aeris,” Zack smiled as he gestured to the girl in pink. “She thought you were some punk, tattletale following me so she knocked you on the head with a stick.”
“Oh,” I responded with out emotion. Well, now I knew why my head hurt.
Aeris lowered her head in shame, “I’m so sorry, Cloud. I didn’t know you were Zack’s friend.”
I shrugged. What’s done is done, after all. Wishes and apologies can’t change the past. I was too tired to hear much more so I fell back down on the lone bed, shut my eyes, and let the sounds fade away as I drifted off to sleep.
Taking in a deep breath, I shook the tiredness from my body and slid off the bed. Aeris and Zack were sitting on the cabin’s wooden floor, laughing and playing a card game that made absolutely no sense at all. I lurched over to them and dropped with a loud thud to the ground.
“Hey, kid, feelin’ better?” Zack asked cheerfully as he chucked three cards in my direction.
“Where are we?” I inquired, completely ignoring Zack’s last question. After all, I was up. Of course I’m feeling better.
“This is an abandoned camp cabin.” Aeris told me bluntly. “Zack always breaks me out of the girl camp and we hang out here for the week. The counselors don’t care, they’re young and lazy, but if Sniper ever found out, we’d get the box.”
I looked at Zack with a mix of confusion and interest on my face.
“The ‘box’ means solitary confinement.” Zack explained. “This camp used to be mixed, girls and boys, but when Dr. Sniper showed up, he put a stop to all the games and all the fun. He turned the camp into a therapy session.”
Aeris nodded. “We used to play, but now all we’re allowed to do is talk and cry over our problems. When they put up the dividing fence, separating Zack and me, we found this old cabin and started sneaking off every year to be with each other.”
“Yup,” Zack winked at me, “After all, this is the only time I get to see my girl.”
I guess the befuddlement showed on my face because Aeris quickly corrected Zack by explaining that he meant “girlfriend”. Well, now I had some answers, but the question that plagued my mind still remained unknown. Why I’m I here?
I sighed. Since no one was going to bring up the subject, I guess I would have to. “Why am I here?”
Zack turned to me in amazement, “That’s the first sentence you’ve said since we met!”
Aeris shook her head, “Zack, you talk so much, it’s a wonder he ever got a word in.”
After raising an eyebrow to Aeris, Zack responded, “For a couple of reasons. First, you’re not a tattletale. Second, you’re not a useless idiot. And third, you don’t talk so you wouldn’t last a minute in Sniper’s therapy, which means you’d be spending a lot of time getting acquainted with the box.”
“It’s so sad,” Aeris added glumly, “Just the this afternoon, they put a girl named Tifa in the box for not wanting to talk about her mother’s death.”
My heart leaped out of my chest and detached from my body. Tifa was in the box? Red blurred my vision as one thought raced through my mind: Tifa was being tortured. Not thinking, I sprung up, checked to see if I still had my knife, and walked unsteadily towards the door. I felt Zack’s cold hand grab my arm, but quickly shook it away.
“Cloud!” Zack yelled, now standing between myself and the door. “What do you think your doing?”
“I gotta save Tifa,” I told him firmly and as I readied myself to fight my way out, Aeris gentle tapped me on the shoulder.
“We’ll help you, Cloud. Come sit down and we’ll think of a plan.” Aeris whispered calmly in my ear.
“It’s all you from here,” Zack notified me as he patted my shoulder before disappearing into the darkness.
“Good luck!” Aeris gave me a quick, but tight hug and then followed Zack into the nothingness that surrounded us.
It was all up to me…..
I crept out from behind the wooden recreation building and headed swiftly towards the box, a lone structure no bigger than a bathroom set apart in the middle of an over grown field. The plan was simple. Zack had lifted the keys to the box from Dr. Sniper, while Aeris explained to the boys that we were in the need of a diversion, which they gladly supplied with flying food and overturned tables. Now it was my turn to take action.
I ran swiftly across the field, as quietly as I could, and reached the box breathlessly. Pressing my ear to the door, no sound could be heard from inside. I knocked once, saying that it was Cloud Strife, but still all was silent except for the few yelps and yells drifting through the air from the dining hall. I sighed, fingering the key, hoping against all hope she was all right.
Twisting the key, a loud “click” sounded in the stillness. Not hesitating for a second, I turned the knob and pushed the door open with a slight jerk of my hand. A small lamp radiating yellow rays of light was set in the center of the tiny, windowless room, which did not contain a stick of furniture. It was empty except for the girl who laid curled up in a tight ball, shaking from the cold, in the corner of the room.
“Tifa?” I called to the girl, but no response came.
“It’s Cloud,” I tried again, walking slowly towards her. “We’re going to get out of here.”
Tifa slowly raised her tear filled brown eyes and brushed her brown hair from her face. She sniffled as she stared at me motionlessly and without a word parting from her pouting lips.
“Cloud?” she questioned shakily as if she had just realized I was there.
I nodded as Tifa pulled herself from the floor and stood facing me. We both just stood there for what seemed like hours until, with one final sigh, Tifa fell into my arms and began to sob. I pulled her to me, hugging her tighter than I had ever hugged anyone before.
“Why did you come to save me?” Tifa asked when her voice returned to her.
“I guess ‘cause I think of you as my girl,” I answered simply, gazing into her round eyes.
“Good,” Tifa smiled, kissing me gently on the forehead.
With that, I took her hand and led her swiftly to Aeris and Zack’s cabin where the four of us hung out incognito until it was time to go home. During our time together, I used my knife to carve all four of our names on the cabin, but Tifa and I never went back and we slowly forgot everything about the week. Although, when it was all over, Tifa still smiled at me every time our eyes met and still graces me with that loving smile of hers to this day.
The photograph, taken on the last day of camp so we would never forget about our time together, was somehow lost and the memory buried under layer upon layer of the tragedies in the years that followed. Although now, thinking back, everything seems so clear……