Secrets

            So there we were, sitting around the campfire.  I’d say it was just a normal night, just like any other night, but how many nights do you spend by a campfire? It’s pretty rare for me, I’m just sayin’.  Anyway, so we were sitting there, like I said.  She and I had these sticks with marshmallows on them, and we kept pulling the marshmallows in and out of the fire, not really looking at what we were doing, or each other.  The marshmallows had been in and out of the fire for at least half an hour at this point. They were burnt beyond use, but we didn’t really care, much less notice.  The trees were just so damned beautiful at night, you have no idea.  It was so peaceful that night, I guess neither of us could really find the right words to put to it, so we didn’t say anything.

            That breeze smelled like those tacky tree-shaped air fresheners you see in people’s cars, but who brings those things into the woods?  We hadn’t, I know that much.  We hadn’t exactly chosen a popular camping site, either, so I don’t think anyone else was around.  Just something weird I noticed, you know?  She eventually murmured something about her hand feeling hot, and I realized mine felt the same.  I thought it was some odd-ass cosmic coincidence, but then I realized that our sticks had both caught fire, and were slowly bringing the flame towards our hands.  The marshmallows we had aimed to slightly melt had been reduced to crispy bits of blackness on the already blackish ground.  Useless, just as they had been ten minutes before, so had we really lost anything in that?  We didn’t need those crispy bits of blackness, for we were practically engulfed in the blackness of the world at the time.  New moon nights had that effect, sometimes.  It took me that long to realize that I couldn’t even see the moon, and that it was a new one.  My mind was focused elsewhere.

            I looked away from those captivating trees for a minute, and playfully poked her knee with what remained of my stick.  She turned to me.  I couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were slightly luminescent.  They had a glow to them, and not the kind of glow you say that a pregnant lady has.

            We still hadn’t said a word since sunset.  We wouldn’t for the rest of the night.  We just stood up, slunk into our tent, and never woke up again.