Chapter Text
The girl stumbled through the woods, not caring as her light pink skirt was caught by twigs and thorns. She cared even less when said thorns tore at her bare arms, leaving thin scratches. In fact, she wanted that. When her heels started stinging with blisters, she simply kept walking. She desperately wanted to feel the scars, to have something to remind her that she was alive. She didn’t want to die, per se. Just wanted release from the cage she was currently in. As she approached a rushing stream, a fallen tree stretching the vast expanse from bank to bank, she felt the urge to do something more. Scrapes and pokes weren’t enough. She wanted to feel herself falling, but never touching the ground, to be swept away in the rushing water, to knock her head on a rock and forget everything about her past. Her eyesight blurring with hot tears, she gingerly took a step on the log, holding her arms out like a tightrope walker. With one foot in front of the other, she walked to the middle of the log and sat, staring down at the rushing water.
Unbeknownst to the girl, there was another lost soul wandering under the thick tree cover. The chameleon always came out here when he was struggling. He had been spending more time here recently. The thin streaks of light carving shapes into the shadows of the leaves comforted him. The chirping birds made him feel a little less alone. The fresh air reminded him of his childhood days, running and climbing with his prima Mirabel and a long- lost friend. And sometimes, he would come across a puddle or a still portion of the creek and sit for hours, examining himself and remembering who he was. Today, however, he could tell there was something different. The birds’ song was paused, as if they were holding their breath. As if they were waiting for a girl to jump into a river. Camilo strolled through the woods, a small smile appearing on his face even with the strange atmosphere. Today had been harder than usual. He spent more time as other people than himself. Camilo loved to make people happy, he truly did, but it was too much sometimes. He was 19 already, but still had a hazy future. Even his tío Bruno couldn’t get a grasp on it; the glowing green tablets that appeared when he tried to get a reading came out fuzzy and blurred.
“I’m sorry, kid.” Bruno had said earlier that day when Camilo had begged for his future to be told. “Look on the bright side! This just means that you get to decide!” Camilo had smiled and patted the older man on the back, plodding back to his room with a dejected look on his face. His room, usually a comfortable space that shifted to reflect Camilo’s mood, seemed fuzzy too. A thick layer of fog engulfed it, and Camilo bumped into at least five unidentified objects before deciding to just go outside. And that’s how he made it there, meandering along the same path he’d walked many times before.
Camilo was broken out of his meditative state when he saw her. Seated on a log, leaning precariously over the side, was the girl. She seemed vaguely familiar to him, a figure in a dream he once held dear but now was long- forgotten. As he crept closer, Camilo realized he did, in fact, recognize her. This was the girl he had romped around with in his childhood, making trouble for the adults and giggling until they couldn’t breathe. He smiled at the memory, wishing he was back there with her and Mirabel, in the days when he didn’t have a care in the world but seeing his best friend smile. He frowned as he came even closer, finally getting close enough to see the tears that were pouring down the girl’s cheeks. She leaned forward even more, getting dangerously close to tumbling off the side of the slick log and getting swept away in the current.
“Y/n!” Camilo called out, his breath catching in his throat. The girl turned rapidly, but as she did, the log gave way from under her and she slipped. The girl saw her life flash before her eyes. Camilo gasped and lunged forward, quickly shifting into someone with much longer legs and arms. He grabbed onto her wrists and held on, searching for a way to get her safely to the bank.
“Just let me go. Please.” Camilo looked down in shock. The girl’s eyes were filled with tears, but strangely calm. “I've accepted my fate. Just go. Forget you ever saw me.” Camilo shook his head. He hadn’t talked to this girl in so long, but he knew he could never live with himself if he let her drop now. Setting his jaw, he planted his feet and pulled.