Best Friends At A Camp

Characters - Amelia (friend) Mia (protagonist) Aarna (Amelia’s friend for playing) 

Setting - Republic of Condonoya. (Warlike situation) Earth. 

“I remember feeling so frightened, we heard gunshots and some screaming, mother told us to run and as soon as I did...the house blew up,” Amelia said with a shaken expression as she recalled everything that happened, I looked up at her, then tightened the grip on her hand to provide comfort. Sometime later, she drifted to sleep clinging at my jacket - I couldn’t blame her for wanting to hold onto things after she’d lost everything in the war, that too so young.

The next morning I woke up restless as images of the war flashed through my mind, breathless and somewhat terrified I unzipped the tent and everything was still normal. The children hopped between the rows of tents and the others dined for breakfast where the pots, pans and giant spoons were kept. Amelia followed me outstretching her arms, I gestured her to go play while I collected our food.

Amelia continued playing after breakfast and I finished some work for the guidance programme for the older children at camp. I was jolted out of my deep thoughts on the programme by Amelia’s image really up close, she giggled as I told her off for disturbing me when once again she sat down really close. “You know what happened Mia ?”

“No” I replied coldly trying to make it appear as if I wasn’t interested in conversing. 

“A man was following me and Aarna when we were playing werewolf” 

“Then?” I asked, turning my head towards her dramatically.

“Then he disappeared again haha it was fun, he looked creepy” She giggled with an innocent face, I got a bit concerned at this, we did just escape an attack but I didn’t want to scare her - she did just get her smile back. 

The next morning we held hands in the kitchen then back singing to ‘driver's license’. Later, I was dyeing my nails with rose petals. I called out to Amelia to show her the pretty colours. I heard no response, no giggling, so I called out again. Not a voice, in fact, it was unusually silent around our canopy. I called out one last time before getting up and taking a peek outside. When I didn’t see her skipping I walked over to Aarna’s roof - she hadn’t seen her either. Even though I was the one ‘taking care of her, she was all I had after the war, all I knew after I was robbed of a teenager’s life. 

I ran across to the end of the camps and stood before the high commissioner. By the time I met him a fear of losing Amelia had taken over me, it was the fear I had when bullets rained down on our house during the attack. I was now crying. I choked on my tears as I said “A-Amelia, she’s gone, I can’t find her and she-she had said someone was falling her yesterday” He told me to wait there then he and two people left the area. I hung my head down walking back to the tent. As I let my tears fall I heard someone snort while snickering, I walked over to the back of the tent and I saw Amelia, I threw myself on her hugging her so tight. She looked at me confused but before I could say anything a fennec fox hiding in her lap jumped up at me. He was bleeding in the foot so Amelia was holding him close. The commissioner walked over to us, then as Amelia explained he took hold of the fox in a rather peculiar manner but handed it to the doctors.

There was another man who came from behind the doctor, Amelia immediately pulled herself back. "He's the one who was following me and Aarna while playing with his giant eyes" 

The commissioner then let a small chuckle escape then said "he's from the un, photographing our conditions here" I widened my eyes and started to laugh a bit, He then turned to me, glared at me and warned me to never cause such panic again, then Amelia and I walked to our tent again. Amelia and I have lost all family had been living like two refugees assigned the same canopy but for the first time in a long, long year no matter how much older I was it felt like we were best friends.