My Last Year

Home Again

Hey guys and gals, I'm really sorry for not updating sooner, I was very stressed with an English Composition class I was taking through PSEO, andd that consumed a lot of my time. Again, I'm sorry, I will attempt to update faster.

xoxo-- dacerfreak

I blinked and found myself standing in a forest blanketed with snow. My breath puffed out in clouds in front of me, and the cold nipped at my skin. A silent snowfall descended upon me and the forest. In front of me, a frozen pond lay. It’s water seemingly solid.

Then, out from the trees to my right, I saw the buck. The one with the white spot on his ribcage. His antlers were still growing, just hardly nubs on his head. He anxiously pawed the ground before stepping out onto the ice. My heart pounded in my ears. I remember this. This was not a dream or real life: this was a memory.

I opened my mouth to call to the deer to stop him from going too far onto the ice, but not a sound left my lips.

The young stag slowly moved out onto the frozen pond, unaware of the danger it was heading into. I stood stone still as I heard the sickening crack of the ice, holding my breath. Déjà vu happened all over again as I watched the deer’s legs stiffen as the ice beneath him gave way and he struggled to escape the freezing water.

But this time, as the deer fled the cold trap, he did not turn to look at me, but raced back across the still frozen part of the pond and stopped four feet away from me, puffing out his hot breath. His fur was wet and would have glistened in moonlight, had it not been snowing; instead, the flakes stuck to the fur, giving the stag a wintery gray look.

I was able to move now. I slowly raised my hand up in front of me to meet his forehead. His brown eyes sparkled as he stepped into the palm of my hand. The flatness of his head created a strange growth of fur on his forehead, making a swirling effect that felt like a peculiar texture.

I rubbed the swirl with the tips of my fingers, and then trailed them up to the nubs at the top of his head that were to be antlers shortly. He huffed out a breath and stamped his hoof as he shied away from the attention.

“I’m sorry!” I said quickly. I didn’t want him to go away yet.

The stag looked up at me with his brown eyes. His soft nose touched my arm then and he turned away. I followed close behind my friend, trying to look past him, but only seeing the forest and snow. It was a while before he stopped walking. We were very far away from the pond, a good two miles or so, and I was out of breath.

The stag turned then and revealed a clearing just ahead of us. In the middle of the clearing I could just make out a patch of green grass surrounded by the new snowfall. How was that possible? I took a step towards the grass and—

Woke up. It was a dream.

I sat up in my bed. It was the morning after getting back from Haiti. I glanced at my clocked to find that it was just after two a.m. I sighed and rolled back over in my bed, hugging my blankets tightly around my frail and dying body. I was shivering from the chill in my bedroom so much that I made the hasty decision to get up, skimper to the door and open it to allow some of the heat from the rest of the house to enter my room.

As the door creaked open, I saw a figure in the hallway. My heart skipped and I let out a small “eep!” before realizing it was my brother.

“Peter?!” I hissed. He looked at me half asleep, his hair tousled in a way that looked like a professional had styled it for a movie bed scene.

“Huh?”

“What are you doing up this early?” I whisper-yelled.

“Peeing. What are you doing?” he murmured back, sauntering over to my door to see me clearly.