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Don’t Cry For Me
By: Lauren Hartford (flamegirl8 cool
Why do you cry?
Is it for the dead child?
Do not fret the child she lives
She ran away to find a life of adventure
She will return
In greater danger than you know
Danger will seek you at every corner
Every turn you take will be risky,
But for the one you love
you will take the risk
Just to see her smiling face again
In the end you will know,
that she loves you
You will be hers forever more
at the end of your adventure
Prologue:
Military school was not where eighteen-year-old James Taylor wanted to be. He longed to be free ever since his parents had stuck him there three years before. They believed him to be a reckless and worthless teenager because he spent most of his time snowboarding and hanging out with his girlfriend who had been killed in a car crash. However, that same car crash, which his father caused, paralyzed his right arm, which was his dominant arm causing him to go through re-habilitation so that he could learn to use his left hand.
This accident left James physically and emotionally scarred, for it had not only killed his girlfriend, but also his mother. Since that accident, he had had little contact with his father who was unharmed by the ordeal.
Fortunately, because he was now eighteen, he could leave, but there was one thing keeping him from leaving other than the guards who made it almost impossible to do so. Jenkins, his commandant, who had been like a father since his arrival at the small military school was the one keeping him from leaving for he did not like cadets running off in the night.
Though his right arm was paralyzed, Jenkins taught him how to do things with his left hand that he never thought were possible. Such things included: driving, using a gun, perfecting his writing with this hand and cooking without burning everything in sight, as he once nearly did.
Though leaving bothered him, James was ready to go; he had been planning this escape for over a year. He knew of others who had attempted before, but no one had ever been able to escape. This time would be different; he had planned his escape so well that no one would be able to figure out how he had done it.
The truth was that he had asked Jenkins if he could leave, but Jenkins had told him that after an hour of being out beyond the wall he would want to return. James thought that the idea was stupid, but he thought that nothing was impossible.
As the clock struck midnight, he walked out of his room with only the shirt on his back.
As James walked down the hallway the doors on either side of him began to open slowly, heads poked out to watch as another attempted an escape. No one said anything fearing they would wake Jenkins.
When James left the building, they all shut their doors and ran quickly to the windows to watch as he walked straight for the gate. They were astonished to see that the guard willingly let James out.
After an hour, Jenkins awoke and looked out the window.
The students found themselves baffled when he returned an hour later carrying a small bundle chased by a giant demon with blood red eyes.
As the demon stepped towards the wall, the electric fence severally shocked it, causing the power from the school to be drained. The demon was able to quickly shake off the shock and run back into the mountains from where it came.
Power was quickly restored to the school and everyone was rushed to an impromptu meeting where within ten minutes Commandant Jenkins had explained the situation.
He then called James out onto the platform, he was still carrying the small bundle, and everyone soon knew why. In his arms was a baby whom he had saved from the demon now known as Red Eyes.
For nearly a year, Jenkins made the students work tirelessly on one of two tasks: chopping down the forest and trying to find the baby girls’ family. They eventually finished chopping down the forest.
All they knew about the girl, Darien’s family, was that her parents were named Hilda and Joshua Rasta. They also found pictures, in one of the many envelopes in the bag she was carried in, the pictures were of Darien her parents and Jaden Bolero, but there had been no sign of the girl who seemed to be a few years older than Darien herself. James and Jenkins figured that she was a child that the family had been sponsoring in some other country though the pictures showed no apparent signs of poverty.
However, even with as much paperwork and information they had the two were never were able to find any more of Darien’s family so James made it his job to care for the little girl. As soon as he could he adopted Darien and took her in as his own child.
Jenkins saw James sudden responsibility for the girl as if it were his girlfriend or mother, he knew that if they had not been killed he would have cared for them more than he would have cared for his father. However, Jenkins knew that two years before James’ father had been killed in a drunk driving accident and killed a small baby in the process. He decided it would be best if he did not tell James. After all he could not tell him that he had been paying for James’ education, which his father was supposed to be paying for. It was as if James were taking care of the child whom his father had killed, yet he was unaware of it.
James himself loved the little girl as if she were his own and he knew the other cadets loved having a baby around to brighten up the dull routines of the school days and nights. She rarely cried so taking care of her was a delight for the other cadets who knew all they had to do was play with her to keep her happy.
There were certain cadets who would sit and watch movies with her when she could not sleep at night either due to storms or nightmares. Those cadets saw it to their advantage to do so, because they would be rewarded with either a day off or choosing one exam to be exempt from, but that only applied if their grade was at least an A in the class they wanted to exempt.
When she turned two, which was on May 26, the cadets bought her random toys, but her favorite seemed to be a small brown stuffed bear, which she dragged all over the school as she followed the cadets to their classes. Jenkins found it odd that she would follow them, and sit in on their classes listening intently though she did not yet understand what was being said. Indeed Darien was an odd child for at three she started copying the words, which she saw, on the boards and reading them aloud to her teddy bear conveniently named Teddy.
James would smile as he listened in, for he knew that she was indeed reading the notes correctly. Though he did notice that she did not understand what numbers were. He pleaded with the math teacher to begin teaching her math so that she would be able to read the numbers. The teacher, a man by the name of Commandant Hilo, agreed and began to teach her math whenever he had no classes and when Darien was not attending other classes, which she was only just beginning to understand, such as History, Science, English, and even Band where she was taught to play the saxophone. She only decided upon the saxophone because she liked the sound it made.
She eventually got the hang of math and after two years of studying it on her own level she went and joined other math classes, which included algebra, trigonometry, statistics, college algebra, geometry, and calculus. Darien took all these classes by the time she was nine.
James was proud of her for by the time she was nine she had finished all of the core classes and all of the electives, which were possible. Though he worried because Jenkins allowed her to carry a rifle and shoot beer cans out of the cadet’s hands when no one was looking. Jenkins had personally taught her how to use it and though she rarely used it James feared that it could go off at any time.
Jenkins told him that worrying would only give him a headache and not to worry about it, though he kept rules in place for when she was inside and out with it. When inside she had to place her rifle near the door, which was always left open for her safety, in case Red Eyes were to appear and someone needed to rush her to the bomb shelter. When she went outside she had to place it in the hands of the guards. She was also not allowed to take it to class.
Though James still worried, and one summer he worried himself sick.
 Flamegirl88 · Thu Mar 01, 2007 @ 01:24am · 0 Comments |
