The Abandoned Observatory { { O P E N } }

Barr wandered into the building, curious as to where he had been. He had never seen the place before, despite living at camp for almost a year at that point.

All in all, he found it quite creepy. Still, he had nothing to do; he had finished training that day and didn't want to go back to his cabin. There was nothing to do in his cabin, either. So he had settled on going exploring, because he knew there was a lot he hadn't seen yet.

"Where am I?" he mused aloud as he looked around him. It was obviously an observatory, but it didn't look like anyone had been there in a long time. There was a thick layer of dust upon everything, and the equipment looked old and rusty.

He didn't know why he asked the question aloud, anyways. He wasn't expecting an answer, and he knew that he'd probably end up running out if he got one. It was a relief when nobody answered.

To say Barr was startled when he felt something nudge his leg would be an understatement. It was probably the most frigthening thing to happen to Barr, even more frightening than the time when one of his friends from school convinced him it would be fun to watch a horror movie.

Basically, Barr ended up jumping back and letting out an embarrassingly girly yelp, his heart racing. He frantically scanned the area until his eyes fell on what appeared to be a dog, although he couldn't tell due to the dim lighting. "Good dog," he said, his voice barely audible. His heart was thumping so hard he was sure that the animal could hear it.

He vaguely remembered something about animals being able to sense fear and attempted to calm himself down. Barr found himself wishing he had brought Audra with him. The wind spirit had an odd ability to calm him down when he found himself frightened, and that was something he found himself in need of.

Sadly, he had no way of communicating with the wind spirit. She was in the stables while Barr was in an abandoned observatory, all alone with some animal that he was half convinced was a monster. His hand started making it's way to his bow, but hesitantly. He didn't want to hurt anyone, if possible.

Out of the corner of his eye, Barr saw something move. His heart was pounding so hard that he was afraid it might leap out of his chest by now. He was expecting another animal, so he was obviously shocked when he saw a boy step out of the shadows.

Then the boy's eyes started flashing, and Barr immediately felt the sensation of falling. It appeared to him that he was drifting farther and farther away from the Earth, farther and farther away from home.

A part of him knew that he was still there, still in the observatory. It should have been obvious from the way that his knees were shaking, but Barr was blind to the fact. All he could pay attention to was the blue planet that contained everything he knew shrinking until it was just a slight speck, and then it was gone.

With that, Barr could feel his legs starting to give out beneath him. He just had time to utter a surprised "Aaah!" before he crumpled to the ground, passed out from fear.

A few moments later, Barr felt himself regaining consciousness. For all he knew, it could have been hours since he passed out; he was left with that dry-mouth feeling of waking up after hours, although the morning mouth taste was missing. His eyes were awfully heavy, although he didn't feel all that comfortable. He had a pounding headache, but that wasn't all of it. He was in a very uncomfortable position, and his bow and quiver were pressing very uncomfortably into his back.

At that thought, Barr's eyes shot open. he never slept with his bow and quiver still on him, because he had once made that mistake with his first bow and it broke.

When his eyes opened, he was greeted with the sight of the boy from earlier. He wasn't exactly sure, but he had a feeling that the boy had something to do with the falling sensation from earlier, the visions of falling away from the Earth.

Almost immediately, Barr scrambled backwards. It was times like this when he really wished he wasn't so easily scared. He wished he were able to stand his ground to people who he found threatening.

Still, Barr could see some kind of odd softness to the boy's face that wasn't there before, which he assumed was a look of regret. Barr couldn't be sure, for it was difficult for him to see in the low light. Still, he could tell it was an unusual emotion on this boy's face; it didn't suit him at all, looking like it would fit better on someone else's face.

Barr started to feel bad about moving back so suddenly. The boy seemed like he wasn't used to company, and, if he spent a lot of his time in the observatory, he had to be lonely. Barr couldn't imagine spending more than ten minutes in the abandoned observatory, once he had figured out what it was. It was all to frightening and empty, giving it the feel of a dead child's room, empty and unused, longing for someone to turn the light on and use the objects that were lying around, still left on the floor.

Barr could feel himself start to warm to Xenon, despite having passed out by a hallucination caused by him only moments before. "I'm Barr," he said, his eyes wide and innocent. He knew he was a fool for trusting this boy so easily, but he couldn't help it; it was simply his nature, as it was his mother's.

"My dad's Boreas. Who's your parent?" Barr asked, despite it being pretty obvious after Xenon's display of his power. Still, he found himself wanting to know for sure, not just with a single inkling of a thought. He hated being stuck with the thought that he might have something wrong about someone, because he never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings by getting their name wrong or something.

On some level, he knew that he shouldn't be worried about hurting Xenon's feelings, especially after what had just happened, but he still thought that Xenon seemed kind of lonely. There was something about him that made him seem like he didn't have many friends, a kind of air or something. It was just something in his posture, the way he acted, the way he spoke, that made it obvious to Barr that Xenon didn't have many friends, if any at all, and he hated the thought that someone might be left alone. It was something that had grown to be second nature by now, worrying about people who appeared to be lonely or sad.

Barr nodded solemnly, not exactly having much of a response. He understood that people sometimes just needed to talk, and sometimes responses were annoying. So he simply nodded, not saying anything.

Barr had never really had that feeling of a pressing urge to tell someone something; he was always open to everyone, not having any filter on his thoughts. He would think freely, and he'd say whatever came to his mind. Still, he understood that sometimes you just needed to get things out. Plenty of people had confessed things to him, although Barr wasn't so sure why. He didn't seem like he was anything special, not in his eyes, at least. He was just a teenage boy who acted somewhat more childish than most.

He guessed that there was something about that that just made people find him trustworthy. Kids tend to not have anyone to tell secrets to, so people just kind of...let things go around him, he guessed. He wasn't exactly sure. All that Barr knew is that he didn't think a kid would be a very trustworthy person to talk to, yet people still talked to him. It confused him, overall. He'd much rather think about simple things, such as when he'd be able to visit his mum again.

"My mum was a one-hit-wonder," he said. "She only had one really big song, and then she went home and that was the end of it. She had a lot of money, but she gave it away to charity."

Barr paused for a moment, realizing just how sheltered he had really been. Here he was, sitting next to a boy who's mum was in prison, and Barr had a mother who would stop at the drop of a hat to help someone. It was pretty absurd, if Barr were to be honest. He would always end up talking to people who's lives were so messed up, and there he was, living his innocent, sheltered life.

"We ended up having some financial troubles and decided it would be easiest if I stayed at camp instead of taking a flight to America to Ireland and vice versa each summer." Barr shrugged as he finished, not exactly having much to say about his mum. She was, well, his mum, and that was all there was to it. He didn't have any interesting stories to tell, anything funny to share, just the normal, boring stuff. It made him feel a bit out of place, but he put the feeling aside; he didn't have time to waste on stupid emotions like that.

Barr frowned slightly. "Nobody deserves to be lonely, though," Barr said, "no matter what they did." There was a very childlike quality to his voice that even Barr could hear, so he ducked his head down and ran a hand through his hair.

If he had to choose one thing he would much rather do without, it would be that childlike quality his voice took up sometimes. He hated it, because it made him feel so much younger than everyone around him. Barr knew that the fact that he looked older than he sounded would help make sure nobody mistook him for a ten year old as opposed to a seventeen year old, as he truly was. Nonetheless, it was annoying.

"I don't think anyone else knows of this place; I just found it by chance while exploring. It doesn't look like anyone's been here in a while."

Barr glanced at Xenon out of the corner of his eye, unsure if his new friend wanted the company. "I'm fine with it. Um, I mean, are you?" he said, looking at Xenon full on. He didn't want to do anything that made Xenon uncomfortable or something like that. He hated it when people were uncomfortable.

Besides, the boy looked kind enough. Despite the fact that he was far taller than Barr and he had black eyes, Barr found him to look nice enough. Then again, Barr thought everyone looked like a good person, so he probably wasn't the best to assume things like that.