The shadows of looming trees kiss your skin as the grass you lay on weakly embraces your body. The cool afternoon hangs in the air, hovering above you and dancing in the wind. The world is green and blue, and smells like water and grass. Inhaling, you feel the scent of dying honeysuckle rush into you, hazing up your brain and making everything sweet. The soft grass flattens around you, a few lonely blades sticking up and tickling your skin. You stretch your legs, feeling your muscles burn, allowing them to fall onto the ground with a thump. You hear a faint buzzing noise, quiet but slowly rushing towards your ear as you lazily lift up a pale arm from of your chest, clad in your favorite green tee-shirt, to swat at the source of the noise. Gnats thickly knitted together and swarm around your ears.
Your eyelids crack open, black fades to white as light filtered through the tree tops flies into your pupils. You wrinkle your nose, look up at the blue sky lacking puffy white, and shift your gaze towards the sound of soft breathing to your left. Your hazy eyes begin to focus on the sitting body belonging to a boy much taller than you, you think he could be one of the trees. His dark hair falls in his face, shadowing glares he was shooting out of his eyes. You focus intently on his face crinkled in frustration. The ends of his mouth turn down and press into a thin line. An irritated sigh pries open his lips and escapes into the air.

“I can’t believe I have to bring you here” he spits while checking a glowing lightin his pocket as his fingers moved with nimble agility across the smooth surface of the device. His unhappy face seems to shout into the forest, destroying the quiet that you both used to love.

You open your mouth to respond, leaving it agape for a moment before quickly snapping it shut again. You can’t muster a response to your angry brother, not with his nose crinkled in annoyance, his voice sounding like a villain in a movie, and his eyes glazed over with indignation. His twisted mouth makes your voice shy away, hiding itself in the depths of your throat, refusing to come out. So, you look up at him and flicker your vision between his old looking features and the trees around you.

“You should get rid of those stupid things too,” he tells you, growling impatiently. You stare down at the items that held his gaze, your water guns. The bright blue plastic is sweaty from the tight grip your hand had coiled around them. You don’t think you should stop bringing them around with you. You can shoot and kill anything dangerous with your water guns, because you’re seven years old, a world renown hunter, and to you, they’re real.

You hear him sigh and focus your attention back to him. “I shouldn’t be babysitting you,” he mutters then pauses as his mouth pinches into a thin line. “I’m tired of this. Do whatever you want.” Pine needles crunch drily as his slow footstep become softer as and his tall figure shrinks into the distance. Alone, the trees don’t look as friendly and the flowers don’t smell as sweet. The orange, setting sun slides like melting wax over the tree tops as the cool afternoon fades slowly into night. You sit alone in the ticklish grass in your bright blue shorts, covered with patches and grass stains. It’s just you, the stream, and the fading smell of honeysuckle.