Memories of a Forgotten Time.

The voices outside faded beneath the rhythm of the falling rain and the spontaneous claps of thunder that followed the bright flashes of lightning. Madison’s eyes grew heavier and heavier as she listened to the storm until she could no longer perceive what was real and what wasn’t. Noises she wasn’t originally aware of could be heard in the distance, noises she’d never heard before. They sent chills down her spine as she listened to them echo through the forest around her. Images began to appear in front of her eyes, stimulated by the unknown noises she could hear. The walls of the tent began to change colours as they moved erratically, bending like strings of spaghetti. Faces began to take shape in the air around Madison, spinning around her head like a marry-go-round.
Words she didn’t recognize were whispered into her ears as the faces continued to circle her head when suddenly the faces joined together, but the end result wasn’t that of another face. A pair of large glowing eyes hovered just in front of Madison. The eyes bore a strange resemblance to a lighthouse, however instead of light shinning out from them, the mysterious glow seemed to shine into the shadows, almost like Madison was on the inside looking out, which she soon realized was the case. The eyes didn’t move to follow her as she tried to get away from them; instead the mysterious glow from the eyes changed to reveal something.
A voice broke through the silence, ringing in Madison’s ears; she recognized the voice, but she hadn’t heard it in a very long time: it was her voice. The light from the hovering eyes was blocked briefly by an object passing in front of them. Suddenly intrigued, Madison moved toward the hovering eyes and used them like a pair of binoculars as she looked onto a very old memory from her childhood.

“Happy birthday, Madison!” chimed a voice from somewhere unseen, but Madison knew that voice all too well. “Say cheese,” said Madison’s mother as she stepped in front of the binoculars and took a picture with a bright smile on her face. Madison quickly discovered that she was reliving her seventh birthday through her own eyes. “Make a wish!” her mother said. Seven year old Madison looked down at the big cake sitting on the table in front of her and then everything went black for a brief moment. When the lights came back on, the candles on the cake were out and everyone around the table suddenly became very loud as they talked to one another.
“What did you wish for?” asked a girl that Madison didn’t recognize. She had long blonde hair and was wearing a lot of pink. It looked an awful lot like Cindi, but that couldn’t be.
“It won’t come true if I tell you,” Madison said with a giggle. A large red box had replaced the cake when Madison turned her attention back to the table. A green box came next followed by a yellow one and others until all the presents but one had been opened. The last box placed on the table was far smaller than the others and wrapped in starry black paper. Madison looked up from the present to see an old man smiling at her. Quickly tearing apart the wrapping paper, Madison gazed upon a bright silver necklace with a blue stone on the end.
“Where’d you get that, Dad?” asked Madison’s mother, turning her attention from the necklace in the box to the old man standing next to her.
“Your Mother and I found the stone on one of our recent vacations,” Madison’s grandfather answered with a smile on his face as he watched the amazement on Madison’s.
“It’s beautiful,” Madison’s mother said, watching her daughter put on the necklace.

Suddenly everything went black and Madison found herself back inside her tent, sprawled across her mattress. What was that all about? The walls were no longer bending and changing colours, she could no longer hear voices whispering unfamiliar words, the glowing pair of eyes had disappeared as well, and leading her to believe everything had been a dream. Had it been a dream? She didn’t believe she could remember her 7th birthday so vividly. It had to have been something else.
According to her iPod, it had only been half an hour since she last checked the time, might as well get up now. Using the backlight of her iPod, she scanned the floor of her tent for her bag of clothes. Once she was dressed in clean clothes, that looked the same as the ones she had worn the day before, she climbed out of her tent. The rain had stopped for the time being, but thunder still roared in the sky every so often, letting everyone know that the storm was still there. Cindi sat alone in the circle of chairs around the campfire. “Where’s everyone else?” Madison asked, pouring herself a cup of tea.
“They went for a Nature Walk,” Cindi responded, air quoting nature walk. “Mr. Cartell wanted to wait until you and Ben got up, but with the rain on halt, the group figured they could go and come back before you two woke up and before the rain started again.”
“Did they say where they say where they were going hiking?” Madison asked before taking a sip of her tea.
“I’m assuming Nature Walk,” air quoted, “meant they were taking a hike through the forest to look at interesting nature things,” Cindi responded sarcastically. She had spun herself in her seat to look at Madison who was standing under the tarp. “You look like hell!” she exclaimed. Before Madison could respond, Cindi skipped across the campsite, forced her to sit at the picnic table, and began playing with her hair.
“Cindi, can I ask you something?” Madison asked with an uneasy tone to her voice.
“Sure thing, sweetheart, what is it?”
There was a brief moment of silence while Madison thought about what she was going to ask. “Do you recognize this necklace?” Madison asked, pulling the silver necklace with the bright blue stone from under her shirt.
Cindi looked over Madison’s shoulder while running her fingers like a comb through Madison’s hair. “I’ve seen it before, but, I don’t remember where or when,” she responded. “Where did you get it?” she asked.
“My Grandfather gave it to me on my seventh birthday,” Madison answered. Maybe it was Cindi I saw in my dream.
“I wish my Grandfather gave me something like that for my birthday,” Cindi stated with one of her usual huffs. There was another brief moment of silence while she continued to comb her fingers through Madison’s hair before she spoke again. “Why do you ask?”
“I had a dream this morning about when I got this necklace, and there was a girl at my party that looked unmistakably like you,” Madison answered.
“Could’ve been me,” Cindi responded. “Actually…” she trailed off, pulling her cell phone from her pocket, “I’ve got all my class photos up on my Facebook, maybe we were in the same class!” she exclaimed. “Do you see yourself in any of these?” she asked, holding her phone in front of Madison. According to the pictures Cindi had on her Facebook, the girl from Madison’s dream had been Cindi and they had been good friends when they were seven. “That’s crazy!” Cindi exclaimed with a cheery laugh, “to think we were best friends before High School and don’t even recognize each other anymore.” Madison didn’t respond. “What happened to us?” Cindi asked.
“I don’t really know about you, but my parents got divorced and I moved away with my Mom for a few years. I kind of stopped talking with all of my friends after that. I was too afraid that if I went to visit one of them I would need to stop in and see my Father as well and I didn’t want to see him,” Madison responded, closing her eyes and trying to remember her past.
“What happened?” Cindi asked softly, taking a seat next to Madison and wrapping an arm around her old friend.

This is, part 1 of 2. The passage that I wanted to put up seemed pretty long so I figured I'd break it into two parts mainly because I'm not completely finished with the 2nd half. What I was planning on doing with this part, or the entire Chapter for that matter, was give the readers a small detailed look at the two main Characters: Madison and Cindi. I've cleverly titled Chapter 2: Flashbacks, even though I know flashbacks aren't always the most interesting. The entire Chapter won't be flashbacks, but there will be several small ones throughout the Chapter.
And as usual, any and all feedback is appreciated.
Also, on a completely unrelated note: For anyone out there that has a Facebook account and wouldn't mind having another person on their friends list, feel free to add me. Search my email address: andrewkunz90@hotmail.com and I should, hopefully, be the only result you receive =D.