Prompt

Oliver walked briskly through the crowd, until he reached the sidewalk. Once out of the chaos, he was able to catch his breath and slow his pace. He adjusted the straps of his backpack and patted his pockets, obsessively making sure his wallet was still in its place. Ever since he lost his last wallet last week, which contained his food money and ID cards, he had been extra careful about keeping this one in his sight at all times.

As he turned the corner and moved further and further away from the crowd, his pace became slower and slower, and his posture became more relaxed. He walked until the sky turned from a bright blue to a light purple. When he reached the view of the lake, he stopped moving for a moment, took in a large breath of fresh air, and walked around to sit on a park bench facing the picturesque scenery. He pulled his backpack around onto his lap, pulled out his iPod, and set music to the landscape, watching as the waves and the trees seemed to dance to his music.

Natalie ran through the park, laughing loudly. Her hair was flying behind her, pushed back by the wind. She looked back towards the forest and noticed that no one was following her, but she could hear their laughter. She looked around quickly and saw a park bench facing the lake. She turned around again quickly just in time to see her friends coming out of the woods. She quickly turned around and jetted behind the park bench, looking for safety. She didn’t notice until then that the bench was occupied. The boy there looked startled as her briskness and laughter awoke him.

He shot her a confused look as she crouched by his legs. She put her finger to her lips, hoping to keep him quiet. He looked at her again and turned around just as three other girls sprinted by the bench, laughing. As they passed the bench, the girl let out a huge sigh and sat on the bench next to the boy.

“Thanks,” she said, gratefully.

He didn’t reply. He was too tired and lax to process what was occurring. Natalie stood up and sat on the bench next to the boy. He hadn’t put back in his headphones, and she wasn’t sure if he was going to talk to her or not. For what felt like an eternity, she sat on the opposite side of the bench, looking across to the lake.

Oliver sat in silence for a moment, formulating words in his head.

“So, uh, what were you doing?” he asked the girl after a few seconds.

She laughed at him without taking her eyes off of the scenery in front of her. “I’m a member of this group where we play extreme games. They’re basically just games we all played when we were kids, but we play without boundaries. This week it has been extreme tag!”

He honestly didn’t know how to reply. He had never heard of anything so ridiculous, but spontaneous in his life. “That sounds… interesting.”

“Oh, it is! One week we did extreme hide-and-seek, and I think my favorite so far has been extreme Ping-Pong.”

He could help but chuckle. “Extreme Ping-Pong?”

She laughed with him. “It’s great! It just like regular Ping-Pong except you’re allowed to hit it off the floor and walls and stuff. It’s actually quite a work out!”

Oliver just laughed. When he looked over at her, she was still looking ahead at the lake, giggling to herself.

“I’m Oliver, by the way,” he said.

She turned her head and her eyes met his. “Hello Oliver, I’m Natalie.” She stuck out her hand, and he took it in his, shaking it.

I don't know if this is finished. Or if I will ever finish it. But it was inspired by this, so here you go :)

p.s. I copied this from a Word document and it won't let me fix the formatting so it doesn't look very attractive...