Nightmare in the Dells

If this is a nightmare, than it’s the worst one I’ve ever had. I did nothing to be put through this unbearable torture. I’m eighteen, it’s my senior year in high school, and somehow I’m stuck on this idiotic vacation with my family to a place where I’ve always had fun, but not this year. This year everything is gloomy and almost every day it’s raining, Wisconsin Dells I can’t believe it, Wisconsin Dells Christmas break without a tree, decorations, or Hue. As I sit at the café counter drinking the bitter black coffee, I feel a tap on my shoulder as I turn ready to argue because someone has ruined my moment of peace and quiet, I realize it’s only my little sister Amy.
“Hey Vince! Mom wants to know if you’re going to the water park with us because we’re leave now.” Amy always seemed to be so happy these days but it wasn’t always that way, ever since this summer ended we’ve switch personalities completely, almost like someone took us and transformed us into our opposites, like we were their lab rats, there to experiment on whenever they wanted to. But despite our differences we have forever been “super-glued” to each other, as some say, nothing could ever come between us or break us apart. So although I was not in my best mood I decided to answer her awaiting question joyfully.
“Ummm… nope, no, I think I’ll walk around town for a while, just to get some fresh air.”
“Are you sure?” she whined.
“ Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Do you want me to stay and talk with you?”
“No, you don’t want to stay and listen to me talk, you’ll just get bored.” I said joking around. “Besides it’s Christmas break you need to enjoy it while you can, so go to the water park and I’ll meet up with you at the pizza place for lunch. Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll see ya later then!” she said with a smile that never touch her eyes. Amy hated seeing me like this all the time, but I could not help it, for my life has no meaning to it anymore. Ever since this past summer August 1st, on my eighteenth birthday. When my cousin Hue was on his way back from my house, I was with him in the car telling him that we should turn around now before the rain got any worse. Just then the car spun out of control and as we collided with the semi truck I got one last glimpse of him as he slipped away from me and life.
Quickly I try to shake the dreadful image from my head, grab my coat and rush for the exit. As I jerk back the tears threatening to spill over, I look around outside and the flashback appears in my head once more.
~He left me. Leaving me there to bear the pain by myself. Leaving me there to sit in that hospital bed thinking to myself why? Why was I the only survivor of that car crash? Why was it his life that was taken and not mine? At that point in my life I felt like dying right then, right there, somehow I made it through the harsh mourning but my personality has yet to fully recover. ~
Outside I start in a direction towards an alley that was dark but light enough to be safe, where a bum lay asleep with one boot on and the other kicked across the sidewalk. I felt sorry for him but he most likely did this to himself, he probably had a life before he was a bum, and by looking at him I could tell that this one was a drunk. Once he was in the middle of his senior year he left home and headed out into the real world thinking he was living the life of a star, until he had no money and was wasted, and now he just doesn’t know where to start or how to get his life back on track.
It was then that I realized that the bum sleeping with one boot on was me, me all alone, me searching for a shoulder to cry on, me with a messed up past, me stuck in the middle of a big mess which is exactly what this city was. No it was exactly what this world was, nothing but a mess.
Finally I get it, even though Hue is gone I shouldn’t let that push me into the shadows, because that bum has it way worst than me obviously, his life actually is a nightmare, and I have so much to live for. I’m definitely not trapped in a horror world, no, I’ve just put myself in an everlasting daydream that I can easily break free from.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a twenty, placed it in the bums hand, turned and walked into the sunlight heading towards the water park to spend the day with my family. On my way there I figured that if I was really living in a nightmare than where’s my tragic ending? If this is truly a nightmare, then bring on the bad guys, and if this is really a nightmare than show me the monster because that’s the only thing holding me back, so show me the monster.