Just Like the Stars

"Another glow stick game." She murmured, "Well, it can't make anything worse I suppose."

She had whispered to herself hundreds of times that she wanted to go home. This camp made her felt awful, but most of all, it made her felt lonelier than she ever had.

The rule of the game was pretty simple, steal other team’s glow sticks, try not to let other teams steal yours, and if you get caught you go to the “prison”. Understanding the instructions easily, she sat down, leaning her back on the wall and slightly closed her eyes, trying to shut out all the stupid questions other people asked the leader.

Finally, after minutes and minutes of Q&A’s, they finally headed out for the game. Each team was given different colors of glow stick to represent their team. Her team was yellow.

She wrapped one glow stick around her ankle with a connector, it represented that she was part of the team. But was she?

The crowd started swarming out to the field, everyone was excited, maybe, except her.

The gamed field was bushy, filled with dry branches, and covered with countless small dumps of hills. Also, the area was huge; it felt as large as six football fields combined. She looked around; she could only see glow sticks scattered on all over the field, glow sticks that people carry, and some shadows that could be either tree or a bush. All she could see was people bouncing up and down with glow sticks on their neck, wrist, ankle, or all of them. While she could easily recognize the people even in the dark, no one recognized her and no one ran away from her. For the first time in her life, she actually enjoyed the darkness around her.

She looked above; the dark navy sky looked like it was filled with pixie dusts—something people can never see in the cities. 

I wish my time here was as lovely as the stars up there, but it’s not. She stared at the ground and gaze toward the dark field.

But right now it’s just as dark as this field.

Suddenly, a loud siren sound thrust through the field, the game has started. The team members quickly divided up each member into defense and attack, and as always, she was the defense.

Some people rolled in the bushes trying to prevent from being caught, running for their lives. Of course, she knew she could never outrun those crazy boys and leaders. Wait, they don’t know who I am, she thought. If they don’t know who I am, they don’t know I can’t outrun them; I could at least scare them off a bit.

So she stood right at the edge of the boundaries of her team. Whenever the other team came near, all she needed to do was block their way, and then they’ll either run off or try to go around to the other side.

However, there are always those crazy boys who add drama to everything. She spotted a guy running into her team’s territory and stealing several glow sticks at one time. But no one tried to stop him.

She rolled her eyes, where are the other defense?

She turned around but barely saw any of her team members, as always, alone, but this time she didn’t care. Standing right at the edge of the boundaries, she successfully blocked anyone who wanted to either enter or leave her territory from her side.

She dashed through the field, chasing the guy and avoiding the small hills and pits; finally, she stood right in front of the guy. He was thin and fairly tall.

“Ok, okay, I’ll leave.” He dropped the glow sticks and turned around as if he was going to leave with empty hands.

Suddenly, he turned back and grabbed the glow sticks, running for his life. In less than few seconds, all she could see was the green glow stick he had on his wrist hopping through the field.

“You jerk!” she yelled, what could she do? He was already out of the boundaries.   

Dismayed, she came back to where she was at in the first place.

She stood there as she observed the people running around. It was actually amusing to watch the people running through the fields with glow sticks in the darkness. Some looked like a stick man without the stick to connect various parts of the body, some looked like small loops rolling in the air, and some looked like they were holding a handful of shooting stars.

In the hazy field, she noticed a little spark of light dashing through into her territory, she ran as fast as she could trying to catch the person. Trying to get away from her, the person ran right into the bushes, but he stumbled.

Well, this made my work easy.

She tapped his shoulders, “I got you.”

He was one of the youth leaders. Instead of getting up he sat there and breathed heavily.

“Are you ok? Do you need some help?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He replied, still panting.

“Ok then…” She dusted her hands, he got up, and as he took the first step he tripped and fell to the ground. “You sure you’re fine?”

“Yeah I am, I just think I have a branch that got stuck in my shoe. Can you help me pull it out?”

I don’t see why not. She thought. He sat back down and she grabbed the branch that nearly pierced his shoe and pulled it out with all her might.

“Thanks.” He stood up limping forward to the center of the field. “I’ll go to the prison myself.”

She watched him went to assure he did what he said, as she saw him walking toward the direction of the prison, she relaxed and paced back to the boundaries, spying for her next prey.

The annoying shriek siren sound spread through the dark air. The game has ended.

People stopped what they were doing at the moment and headed back to the main room, where the desserts were waiting. She ambled back, behind the group. Back to being invisible, how exciting.

She leaned on the wall right beside the porch waiting for the crowd to leave so she could get herself something without tugging around in the crowd. Leaning there she observed people like a cat; everyone had a pal or even a group to stay with, except her who was like a cat. 

Grabbing a brownie she sat alone on the stage stairs nibbling it. She glimpse around the room. As always, her roommates were gone nowhere. Well…I’m alone again. She murmured.

After she finished her brownie, she dusted her pants and paced to the door, carrying her plate in one hand and her phone and bible in another. 

While she was just about to throw the plate into the garbage bag, she heard a familiar voice, “Hey, that’s the girl who saved my life, she pulled a twig out of my shoe.”

Chuckling, she turned around; it was the youth leader from the game standing on the porch with few other peoples.

She walked past him giving him a grin. Well, she didn’t know what to respond, she was never good at conversations anyway.

She went out from the room and gazed at the sky above, maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would be full of beautiful memories just like the stars in the dark sky.