Hillworth didn't help. Not really. It had only been for one year, but all those punishments he had gotten had taught him to try his best to stay out of trouble. He tried. There were still some skirmishes here and there, though less than usual, and that was why his mother said one year was enough and he was in SHP now.
He still continued doing track. He was a decent runner after all, and the SHP coach was decent and all; he knew when to be hard on them and push them, and he also knew when to encourage them and be a fatherly figure. Still, he thought about going into basketball again, but doubted. He doubted that the team would take him in after hearing that he had beaten up a player from the opposing team (That idiot, Gregory Acker), doubted that anyone would trust him again, doubted that his mother stopped being skeptical enough to agree to let him join the team.
************
He was in the desert.
There was sand everywhere, mounds of sand, some bigger than the others, some taller than him, sand that stretched on for miles as the sun beat down on them all yet he felt no discomfort. There was no squinting he had to do, his eyes felt at ease, and he could clearly stare into the distance. Perhaps it was because his eyes were shielded by the shade of his cap. The wide brimmed hat cast shade upon his face, he felt nothing, no gyrations even as he bounced up and down on the brown horse he was riding. He looked sideways and there were others riding with him, but he noticed that they were always a few paces behind him, and some of them respectfully tilted their heads towards him as they noticed his gaze upon them.
"Ho!" Someone cried by his side, and they all reined in their horses and stopped, including him. He could not see the face of this man clearly, but the man was addressing him now. "Tiger Lily is abroad that pirate ship." The man pointed, and everyone looked in the direction of his outstretched index finger; there was sand no more and they were on a grassy path, near the sea, which was so blue and clear that it sparkled up at them.
"Our rescue mission begins, men." He spoke out and they all lifted their guns in the air with agreement.
*Scene shift*
They were aboard the ship now, although he couldn't remember exactly how they had gotten here. All that mattered was that they were on the vessel that contained the person they needed to save, and they were fighting with the pirates, now using cutlasses instead of guns, the weapons the pirates too used. There were clangs of metal in the air and shouting as they fought, and he slashed at one bearded pirate after another, until one of his allies shouted. "There!"
He chanced a glance upwards as he stabbed his current opponent to spot the maiden they were to rescue, clad in her usual brown Indian dress with that fringe, although her skin was pale and her hair had a dark blue shade to it. He immediately recognized her; it was his sister, but what was she doing in that role...
There was a yell from behind him and he pulled his sword out of the man he had stabbed to hack at the next pirate heading his way. More and more pirates poured out of the decks and although he was still alive and unhurt, he felt as though there were more fighting him, ganging up on him, and as he snuck a peek behind, he realized that it was also because his allies were being captured one by one, and yet he valiantly fought, until he was the last of them to be still fending off the attacks from the pirates.
"Leave him!" A shout came and the pirates stopped their onslaught and drew back, although they still surrounded him with a leer. A man shoved his way through the crowd and before he could even see his face, his feet somehow lifted himself up into the air above all their heads and he said. "You."
"Me." The man with the hook for a hand and a large black hat with a red feather in it said, and then the girl suddenly disappeared from where she had been tied to the mast and reappeared by his side. The hook was on her neck, and Damon stiffened, his sword still pointing directly at the Captain of the ship. "But what can you do?"
"I do what you don't."
"Really?" The hooked-hand man said and now he was in the air too, opposite him, and Damon gritted his teeth. "Such tenacity. I'm ever so surprised." The voice was strangely familiar and Damon drew closer in the air, sword pointing at the other's throat.
"You're not a kid anymore." The Captain said, and the others below him laughed, although his allies in the cowboy hats stared morosely up at him. The girl looked bored, her mouth set in a grim line. "You've grown up. You're not the hero everyone thought you were."
And then Damon suddenly plummeted down and landed hard on his back on the deck of the ship and the Captain landed down gracefully on his feet. "You're not the hero you thought you were."
"This is how it's like to grow up." The Captain said, leaning down to hiss in his ear, and he removed his cap, and Damon could only stare up at his own face in horror as the Captain laughed, Delphine laughed, everyone laughed, and he was surrounded by all this laughter that eerily sounded like how he had always imagined what people thought when they looked at him after that incident...
And then there was blackness and then there was nothing, and he couldn't remember the words his doppleganger had said to him, though his skin still tingled when he was awake and tried to recall it.
It still scared him, even though everything was hazy, besides looking at his own face as a pirate (which looked like him and yet did not look like him), and hearing all those laughter around him...
