Obscurity

I. of losing and finding

It was the fourth time that Xander had slipped on a root, and quite frankly, he was starting to get frustrated.

"You okay, man?" Cameron's voice echoed across the empty field swooping through the long distance that separated them, and although Xander loved his best friend, he was getting annoyed at the fact that he was down on all fours while he stood there watching.

With a grunt as his answer, he clenched his fists and grabbed the old oak tree's trunk for support, hoisting himself up.  The hundred year old wood scraped his palm, a sharp edge jabbing it, forming a cut the size of his pointer finger.

Just my luck. He thought bitterly.  He took his worn out hankerchief from his pocket and wiped it, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.  

"Woah, you're bleeding!" Cameron said alarmingly, finally managing to get to where Xander was.  "We need to get you to the hospital right now!" 

Xander rolled his eyes.  Leave it to his best friend to make things a hundred times more dramatic than it actually was.  "I'm fine."  He said, pressing the cloth harder against his palm. He sighed and ran a frustrated hand over his hair.  "I can't find it." 

Cameron clucked his tongue, "Did you try looking by the roots?" 

Xander feigned mock surprise.  "Oh, that's right Cam! Because I just didn't think to look there after an hour of searching this goddamn tree!" 

"What's gotten your panties in a twist?" Cameron said sheepishly, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his Amerian Apparel hoodie.

Xander stood up, brushing the stray leaves from his jeans, his handkerchief still wrapped around his hand.  "Look, if you want to go home, the go. My mom's going to kill me if she finds out that I lost a fifty year old compass that held the 'Twill legacy'."  He mimicked his mother's harsh tone when he said 'Twill legacy'.

He thought it was complete shit.  How was a compass supposed to hold the family's pride and honor?

Cameron shrugged, "Fine. I'll see you tomorrow, I guess."  He turned around,  and Xander watched his retreating back as he mentally cursed himself for losing that compass in the first place.

Cameron thought that it would be fun when a bunch of kids from school invited them to 'hang out' by the said tree.  He thought that it was a great idea too--until he realized that 'haning out' meant drinking a couple of beers that they had snuck into the school.

Cameron thought that it was bad-ass and fun.

Well he wasn't having fun now. 

He mentally cursed himself again.

He wandered around the giant tree, looking around to see if  he had missed a spot.  The sun was going down, and it was getting darker by the second.  The crickets' buzzing hummed in his ears as he maneuvered his way to the center of the oak tree--and stopped when he saw something that he hadn't noticed before.

A hole.

The small opening on the tree was about the size of an average human hand, and he wondered why he hadn't noticed it before.  It could be in there, he thought hopefully.  He took a deep breath and slipped his fingers in, hoping to feel something round and metallic.

Instead, he found something damp and folded.

Xander quirked his eyebrow as he pulled out his find--a crisp sheet of paper that was folded twice, it's edges torn.  Cautiously, he unfolded the paper, revealing the flowery print that rounded the borders, encasing the handwritten words that looked hastily written in black ink.

He didn't know if he should return it or not; it could be meant for someobdy else, because it clearly wasn't meant for him, but curiosity got the best of him, and his eyes flitted to the top left corner of the paper; the date showed that it had only been written a day ago, and with a deep breath, his eyes scanned the letter.

to no one in particular,

      hello, i guess.  i don't actually know how to greet somebody who i've never met before, so i hope that a simple 'hello' will suffice.

       so if you're reading this, i guess that means that you found my letter, so yay. congratulations to you. and if you're still reading, you're probably wondering what this is, or maybe you were expecting to find an old love letter from world war 2 or something, or an old passed down note that had gossip on it, or even a confession that I'd killed someone.  

    well i'm sorry to burst your bubble, but this isn't anything like that.  truth be told, i don't even know why I'm writing this, but i guess it has something to do with the fact that i'm an obscurity.   and if you don't know what that means, i did the hard work and googled it for you.

      ob-scu-ri-ty /noun/  - the state of being unknown, inconspicuous, or unimportant.

     so i guess that seems pretty accurate. 

     unknown.  inconspicuous.  unimportant.  that's exactly how i feel--or what i am.  i don't know.  maybe you think that i'm just looking for attention, but that's not why i'm doing this.  not really.  i guess that i figured that this was the best way for me to be heard; even if you're the only one who can hear me.  and if you're one of the popular kids, and you're reading this, and you don't understand how a person can go so unnoticed that writing letters to strangers is the only way that she'll get noticed, then i hope that this makes you more aware.  that there are people who want to speak but are too afraid to.  that there are people who want to scream but are too scared that nobody will hear them.  

     that obscurities are everywhere, slipping into the silence and melting into crowds, and that they exist.

     and most importantly, that they matter.

    so yeah, i guess that's all i have to say.  i won't tell you my name, because to be honest, I don't think it'll even matter--you probably don't even know me.

   and don't try to look for me either, because the only thing that you're getting from me are these crappy words on my grandmother's old stationery. so if you want to read more, then i'll be leaving these in the same spot. you know where to find it.

until the next, i guess,

An obscurity

"Hey! You boy! What are you doing there?" The croaking voice of the janitor boomed through the field, his flashlight shining directly at Xander.  He slipped his phone--which he was using for light--back into his pocket, and he stashed the letter into his backpack.  

"Er--nothing.  I was just leaving."  He yelled back at him.  He walked across the field, the words echoing in his head.  He didn't know what he was getting into when he pulled out that letter from the tree, but he knew that this wasn't going to be the end of it.

Because for some odd reason, he understood how the obscurity felt.

And quite frankly, that scared him.

_

First chapter ayyyy :> Tell me what you guys think pls :) 

Dedicated to my bby @argentile bc she's the most supportive dumpling in the world. Ily gurlie <3