Alistair's temper was still at its climax. His hatred for the world right now was nothing compared to the vibes the Winehouse forest was expressing.

It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday, middle of spring. Allistair harshly crushed the dried up leaves scattered across the patch of grass, still there from autumn, until he sat down against a large 'Quercus Velutina' tree. He flicked out his pocket-lighter and stared at the glistening, sad, flames. The reflection of the flames made reality look uncomfortably hot and matched how he was feeling in that moment.

Allistair looked just pass the pocket-lighter to a kind patch of grass, where there were no dead leaves. The thought of kindness from the world mysteriously hurt Allistair further. Alistair guessed it was life just sucking up to him, asking for forgiveness. Or maybe nature was giving a fake apology. He blamed nature.

He screwed up his face and stabbed the side of the tree, behind him, and dragged the blade down, still keeping it in there. Stabbing the tree did nothing for his emotions.

Eventually, Allistair gave up with being angry. His emotions reached a low. He scooched himself to the middle of the grass patch, exposing a clear sky. He stretched out his body and laid down on the grass facing up. Although he feared insects and the yellow grass itched, he was too distracted by his thoughts to notice. As he stared upwards, his mind was telling him he could see the cold. He would say it didn't look like wind or normal cold weather, it was white, not ice or snow.

Allistair closed his heavy eyes and drifted off to sleep for, what seemed, about 5 minutes. He then, all of a sudden, felt a light brush of fur tickle the side of his flushed face.
Alistair forced his right hand to brush away the annoying sensation on his left cheek and instead flicked something furry and living. A large wave of adrenaline rushed through his body, forcing him up, whipping away the same hand right behind the back of his body, shooting up from the ground.

His eyes landed on a large racoon. It turned its head turned sideways towards Allistair curiously.

Allistair got another fright and sprung himself backwards. The dark rings around the racoon's eyes were larger than the dark sleep bags around Allistair's eyes. He was too tired to tell if he was hallucinating or not. This wasn't right! There legally isn't meant to be any racoons at all in New Zealand, let alone in the Winewood forest.

Allistar stopped thinking and watched it out of pure fascination. Its eyes shone amongst the black pits, still watching Allistair with, what seemed like, confidence. He wanted to approach it, pat it but was too afraid during that moment. So he just sat from a distance and watched it gobble insects from the yellow patch with its greedy hands.

About two minutes later, Allistair heard footsteps, squishing the grass below them. Judging by the pace of the footsteps, Allistair guessed it was one of the Winewood members. He felt a wave of fear, not because of the Racoon anymore but because of the safety of the racoon. What is he supposed to do if someone finds out he's been hanging out with an illegal animal? It could be in danger if someone else saw it! Allistair got to his feet fast. Then before he thought it through, he dove towards the direction of the racoon, forcing his dark hair to flick backwards as he landed, staining his greek, pale skin with the colour of fresh grass under on his elbows and knees. He looked up slowly and saw Dax Winewood's dark shadow shine under the trees watching in amusement. The racoon had disappeared.

Dax started walking towards Allistair with a disappointed look in his eyes now, "Mate, what are you doing?"

He reached Allistair, who was still on the ground and held out a hand to pull him up. Allistair felt foolish but clung onto Dax's hand and got up. He immediately dove into a hug from Allistair and cried, letting the last of the emotions go as he floated back down to reality. 

Dax wrapped his arms around him, like had done so many times before and held the crying boy amongst his long arms quietly, resting his chin on top of his greasy dark hair,

"come on bro, let's go back to the house. Forget about her, she wasn't worth it."

And so the two walked back to the historic household of the Winewoods. 

Note from the Author:

The picture above is roughly what I picture the edge of the forest to look like where Allistair was.  Happy reading :)