Paradise Lost

Chapter 11

Apologies in advance if you discover all the Hamilton references in here...

12th March 1917- Private 2 Dylan Alvarez's point of view

We thought Danny was doing well after reliving some trauma on the exercise last week. Well, it turns out that we all thought wrong as he woke up screaming in terror about ten minutes ago. He then started crying and has yet to stop the painful sobs. It is worrying both Jorel and I as well as Jordon and Matthew because we cannot get him to calm down. "I think it is time to get Rigo. We need him or Danny is not going to calm down any time soon," Jorel says. You know it is bad when Rigo is needed. "Okay I will go and get him," I reply. Jorel tries his best to comfort Danny. Everyone else is awake but no one can comfort him it seems. It is awful to be watching on knowing that Danny is sobbing his heart out and you cannot do anything to help him.

I knock on Rigo's door and he opens it straight away which made me feel a bit better. "We cannot calm Danny down," I tell him. That was all he need to hear as he walked over to Danny and picked up his younger brother to hold him as tightly as he dared. It must be hard when you are constantly dealing with 17 year old trauma over and over again. "Shh Dan, it is okay it was just a bad dream," Rigo says, as Danny has a death grip on his brother's shirt. It breaks my heart to see my Danny like this. Whatever it was about was definitely very upsetting. I just want my boyfriend to be okay. Rigo keeps saying soothing things in Danny's ear. I can imagine this being a reoccurring thing that would have been done after that night in 1901 when that bastard of a man made his poor youngest child go through hell with nothing nice to comfort him.

You just do not do that to any 5 year old let alone your own son. After a while Danny starts showing signs that he is finally calming down. Jordon and Matthew have gone back to sleep and we know George is asleep in his room. Rigo managed to get Danny to stop sobbing which is a huge relief to everyone involved. He is not going to be in the mood or wanting to go back to sleep, but we will try and help him in whatever way we can. "I am sorry," Danny says, and Jorel and I just join Rigo in hugging Danny as comfortingly as possible. He should not have to feel like he needs to say sorry. He has not done anything wrong. Nobody else in this whole camp has been through the hell that Rigo and Danny as well as Kyle have had to endure. It is understandable that nightmares will happen as part of the recovery process. Not all of them end up in screams of terror though.

"Do not be sorry Danny. Nightmares happen and we are here for you no matter what," Jorel tells him. Then Danny hugs both Jorel and I in turn. We hug him back and then let him go back to hugging Rigo. "We are still proud of you Danny. You have done really well considering what you have been going through," I tell him. It makes him smile a little bit. He looks like he is feeling happier now which is good. Now to find out how much longer we have before it is breakfast time. That will give us a good idea on if we can all have some more sleep which if I am being honest Danny definitely needs more of. It will be a challenge to actually get him back to sleep but so worth it in the end. Rigo knows the schedule better than we do which will help.

One of the reasons is because he is afraid of being on his own. We all noticed that he glues himself to a person and stays as close to them as possible without annoying them. Rigo explained that their so called father would do the worst punishments when they were alone which would have obviously cemented a fear of being on your own in a young child's brain. He even admitted he was the same as Danny to begin with but with a lot of help from George he has been able to overcome it. He also has ten years more experience of life than Danny. As soon as Rigo turned 18 he made the difficult decision to leave his brothers behind and join the army. He never completely abandoned them because he was home every chance he got. He didn't want it to be seen as abandoning his two baby brothers and sister at their time of need but when the time came they all understood how amazing the break was.