Sarah Scott Journalist

Flaws

We all have flaws. Some people believe that beauty comes with no flaws but that’s not true. Beauty is being able to identify your flaws and learn to live with them. Once you have realised your flaws, no one can use them against you. They make you who you are. They make you real. I have tried to accept that I am beautifully imperfect in the fact that my flaws are now my strengths. A beautiful disaster.

“We’re a mess,” I tell Luke as we stroll round the outskirts of our camp. I smile at that because we it means we’re in it together.

“Yes, pretty much. How the hell did all this happen? Do you feel like the last week has passed in a blur?”

I chuckle a little. “It’s weird. I feel like I’m going to wake up tomorrow in my bed at home and realise it has all been a nightmare.”

There is silence for a while as we both reflect on the past week. My stomach still turns when I think about our time in The Core. My head still hurts when I try to process the fact that everyone here has the ability to control the elements of the earth – all except me.

Luke stops to look up at the sky then lies down on the ground. When I look to him confused, he says, “The stars out here are so bright without the city lights. Come join me.”

I feel a little uneasy lying down so close to him, but I do it anyway.

“So, stars? You like them?” I ask.

“Yeah, who doesn’t? They’re beautiful,” he says. I remain quiet until he asks, “Wait do you not like them or something?” I still remain silent. “Come on! Look at them.”

I do as he says and look at them. “It’s not about looks. They’re a piece of a dying sun millions of miles away. I find them sad. When you see a star, no matter which star, it is dead.”

“And even when they’re dying they still manage to shine as bright as they can so the light can reach us here. Surely you see beauty there?”

“You really like them don’t you?” I say relaxing into the ground and his presence.

“How can I not? They’re flawless,” he states.

“Being flawless doesn’t make something beautiful.”

He takes a minute to think about what I just said. “You’re right, I’m sorry. If something beautiful has flaws then what are yours?” he asks. I feel myself blushing.

“I have too many flaws to list,” I answer him.

“Well, it’s a good thing I have all night.”

He turns his head to face me and for a moment I can feel his warm breath on my neck. I’m suddenly very aware of myself. I can feel every inch of skin that his eyes have laid upon. I have never been this close to a boy before. I turn my head to face his and our eyes lock.

He holds his stare with me and I can see his eyes shift to look at my lips. Before I have time to react to what’s about to happen, his lips are already on mine.

A million thoughts rush through my mind. I go through shock, longing and then back to shock again. He tastes like a cool breeze feels on the back of your neck on a hot day.

I begin to panic. I don’t want to ruin my friendship with Luke. I desperately need him right now. He’s just doing this in the heat of the moment. Attraction makes things too complicated.

I push him off me and before he can utter a word, I get up and run. I hear him call after me, but I don’t stop.

Why did he have to do that? Things were great up until then.

I can still feel his lips on mine, and I find myself wiping my lips to remove any remnants. I can’t like Luke in that way.

I need to clear my mind. I find myself running towards the lake. I go the longer way to avoid the tree where Luke could still be. On the way, I grab my bikini and towel so I can go for a swim.

I need to cool down and I know that the water of the lake will help me do that. It resets the body and mind.

The lake at this time of night is breath taking. I let the water wrap itself around my body and the shock of the cold wakes up every sense inside me.

My head rises above the surface, and I take in a deep breath. I rest my arms on the side of the lake taking in my surroundings. The sunset has the most amazing colours in – a mix of orange, reds and yellows, – all colours I love seeing again. The city buildings would block out most sunsets.

It’s so quiet here. Most people are settling down to eat at camp which is why it’s a great time of night to swim. I have the place to myself. I haven’t had this silent buzz since I left my little room on the pod. It has been pretty frantic since then, but things have settled now everyone has got used to each other and got their heads around what has happened.

Since our time in captivation, I have gradually grown used to water. I still get the odd moment of panic, but it passes when I realise that I’m safe here with people that look out for me.

“Hey,” a voice says behind me making me jump round from my comfortable position. I let out a noise that’s not quite a scream. “Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” the voice says. I let out a chuckle when I see its Anna, or the wedding dress girl as I know her.

“Its fine, I didn’t hear you walk up,” I say to her. I turn back round hoping to restore the silent buzz. Sadly, she slips in the water and appears next to me wanting to make conversation.

She begins asking questions about Alex. She wants to know about his job, his friends, and our family. She even brings up the car accident, wanting to know what happened. I forget most people will have heard me when I screamed at Alex about the accident. My answers are blunt and brief and I grow more and more suspicious of her intentions. Eventually I lose my temper and say, “Why are you asking me all these questions? Do you fancy my brother, is that it?”

She gives me a look of horror like I’ve just accused her of murder. I know it’s childish to say that, but I really want her to go away. I have never really spoken to her before, only through conversations with Luke. She has never had the interest in speaking to me until now and it’s about my brother.

“No,” she says. “I’m just curious. It would be nice to know something about the person who’s supposedly running all this.”

“Well, you won’t hear it from me. Sorry to disappoint.” I don’t mean to be rude, but she is getting on my nerves. She sighs but it sounds like more of a grunt. There is silence for a while, but not the silent buzz I was hoping for. She has agitated me so all I can hear is my heavy breathing and her sighs, trying to get my attention.

“So,” she continues. “Your brother was a painter did you say?”

“What about it?”

“My husband used to be very interested in painting,” she says. I stay silent; as much as I dislike her, she has suffered immensely and lost her husband on their wedding day. “He was murdered by The Core did you know?” This catches me off guard. I know she may still be in shock, but she said that with no sympathy or care in her voice.

I turn round by impulse, but I don’t know why. What do you say to that? All I manage to get out is a few mumbled and stuttered words which sound like a I’m sorry.

“I want to make everyone pay that was involved in the murder of my husband,” she starts to well up but holds her tears back, “Which starts with your brother,” she says.

“What?” comes out of my mouth before that has even registered. My brother? He saved us all, why would she blame him for her husband’s murder?

“Your brother the painter is not all he says his is,” she says. I don’t like where this is going “My husband. My dead husband was a cleaner for The Core. One day he stumbled upon some information about The Core.” The look in her eyes has changed from saddened widow to deranged psychopath.

“He came home one night telling me he had proof that would bring The Core down. He had been drinking but it scared me. The next morning, he told me we should set a date for our wedding as soon as we could. I just thought he was excited, but he really knew they were going to kill him.” She’s crying now but I still don’t understand what this has to do with Alex.

“Anna that’s terrible but what does this have to do with my brother?” I ask. The mention of his name turns something inside of her like I’ve just pressed a button.

“Your brother was part of the team that arranged his death and organised for us to be tortured. Your brother let my husband die in my arms on my wedding day. Your brother, after all that, still decided to take me away and let them inject me with poisons to see how I would react.”

“Anna, I think you’re mistaken. Alex helped us, remember?” She is getting more and more agitated. She’s wrong. Alex saved us. Before she replies she pulls a silver, metal object from the water that I hadn’t seen when she appeared next to me.

“He took someone I love,” she says. “So, I’ll do the same to him.” She presses a button making a small but sharp blade rush out the top. This is not going to end well.

“Anna, stop!” I lurch back making my body hit the side of the lake. “Talk to Alex and you’ll see you’ve got this all wrong. He rescued us. He had nothing to do with your husband’s death, I promise.” I don’t want to stand here bargaining for my life, I just want to run back to camp, have Alex wrap his arms round me and comfort me and tell me how she’s completely wrong and he has no idea what she’s talking about.

“How do you think he knew where we were? He worked there Alleyah, he knows the ins and outs of The Core,” she says. My heart is racing now. I’m surprised there aren’t little ripples around my chest, projecting my fear straight into the icy lake. She pulls back her arm ready to kill me with her blade. “He’s just pretending to be a hero for you.”

She lurches towards me aiming for my chest but misses and skims my arm instead. She tries again this time getting her blade stuck in the side of the lake. I’m not waiting around. I start swimming towards the other side of the lake in the direction of camp. I’m not an extremely confident swimmer but I keep a good pace going which hopefully leaves her behind. I can see my towel in the direction where I’m heading, if I can grab that I can stop the bleeding on my arm.

I can hear splashing around behind. She’s trying to catch me up. I haul my body onto the side. If I can just run faster than her, I will find Luke at camp and he can talk her down from this insane outburst.

I am barely out of the water when she jumps on me, knocking me to the ground. She’s quick. She screams in frustration. She pins my shoulders to the ground so I can’t move. She pulls the blade out, so I punch her side, catching her off guard.

She’s not giving up though. She kicks my body, so I fall down again. We’re on the water’s edge now. She kicks me again, making me go back into the lake. As my skin touches the water, my head hits the side of the lake with such a force it knocks me out a little. I open my eyes but only see black and tiny dots. My head stings, I think it’s bleeding.

Where’s Anna? Does she think I’m dead because I haven’t splashed about? The black is fading along with my head rush, but I can see Anna in the corner of my eye. My body isn’t doing what my head wants it to do. I want it to move out the way, so Anna’s blade won’t find its way inside me. I’m too late though. The blade doesn’t find my chest but my stomach area. The water must have made her lose accuracy. She pulls the blade out which was stopping the blood from coming out. If I don’t die from drowning, I will die from blood loss.

My body curls up and my hands unsuccessfully try to comfort my abdomen. I’ve been close to death before but drowning still scares me, now more than ever since being tortured. Nobody is here to save me now. Luke is a mile away, oblivious to all of this. Anna will return to camp acting like nothing ever happened here. She’ll probably cosy up to Luke to make her victory taste even sweeter.

What will Alex do? He will probably come looking for me eventually but won’t find my body if I sink to the bottom of the lake. He will only find me if he dives down. If they don’t find my body, they may think I’ve run away. What if Luke thinks I ran away from him? I don’t want him to think it was because of the kiss. He will know nothing about what Anna has done. No one knows what she is capable of. Her tent is just across from Luke’s.

Luke has saved me so many times: from myself when I was going to get in a fight with the girl at school; from torture of the red-hot stick that he took instead of me; from drowning; and from my father. He has saved me so many times, I owe it to him to warn him about Anna. She can’t be trusted not to hurt someone else.

Luke. I focus on his name and somehow it gives me strength. I am near to the edge of the lake – all I need to do is stretch my arm back to touch the side of it. I haven’t gone too deep, so I only need a slight push from the side to help me to the top. I feel around for something to help me float up. I can’t physically pull myself out yet. I need to focus on what’s important and that’s getting air into my lungs. Nobody is here to restart my heart, this time it’s up to me.

My face breaks the water and oxygen rushes into my lungs. My vision has gone black around the edges because my heads main focus is getting oxygen around my body. I don’t know how long I was under the water but the agonising feeling in my chest is unbearable; it makes my stomach wound feel like a scratch.

It would be so easy to give up now, but I can’t. I have to warn Luke and Alex. You’re going to die here if you don’t hurry up, I tell myself. Find some strength.

Luke. I find some strength again and force my arms onto the muddy ground next to the lake.

Luke. Using my stomach muscles, which scream for me to stop, I haul my body onto the side. Sadly, my strength can only go so far. I don’t manage to get my entire body out the water, just from my hips up. I cry out in agony as my stab wound meets the muddy soil.

Luke. I kick my feet so that they touch the side of the lake. Luckily, they make contact with it, so I am able to push myself out. I turn my body over so it’s my back touching the soil instead of my stomach.

I’m still gasping for air, but it doesn’t matter anymore, my job is done. By dying here instead of in the lake shows something happened and that I didn’t just run away. It also shows that there’s someone in camp not to be trusted and if what Anna said was true then Alex will know exactly who murdered me.

I wonder who will discover my body. Not many people know about the lake, most can’t be bothered to walk a mile to come here. Alex will check here when he realises that I’m missing. That is if he notices I’m gone.

I want to tell Luke that I’m glad he kissed me and that I’m sorry that I’m so afraid of emotions that I pushed him away. I want to tell him I’m not angry and that I wish we had more chances for us to kiss. There is no way I can drag my body a mile to talk to him. I just want Luke to be here with me right now, not to save my life but to just be here and sit with me, so I won’t be all alone when it happens. I want him to sit next to me and talk more about stars that he is so fascinated about. I want him to change my mind about them; to make me believe there is beauty to them after all. I’m dying but not as eloquently as the stars. I’m not shining my brightest.

I close my eyes and picture that kiss again. I think I smile, or at least I do in my mind. I feel every muscle in my body relax and I don’t feel the pain anymore.

People say that death is like a nap you never wake up from. I’d be okay with that. Sleeping is peaceful. Being awake and facing the world is harder. This world, as beautiful as it is, is cruel. I don’t mind leaving it to join my mother.

I can hear the wind picking up around me, like the night I went wandering on my own. Is this me making the trees move? I don’t have the energy to open my eyes. I can hear the trees creaking and the lake sounds like waves on a beach. This could all be from the wind, but the more likely thing is that my elements are working together.

Maybe my body is deciding which element I have. All a little too late.

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Find Chapter 8 here next week.