Amber tries her best to comfort Luke while struggling to make sense of his panicked sobs.   Whatever frightened him had been so intense, that it sent him running hysterically to his room, where he sat trembling for hours. Luke is not able to verbalize what he had seen. And despite her efforts to downplay its significance, the event has somehow changed him. Thinking back to her own childhood, she remembers the feeling all too well. There was no way for her to “turn off” the flow of stimulus to her heightened senses. It was overwhelming at times. Lacking both direction and wisdom, she … Continue reading Chapter 8.4 – Supervision

Luke crawls out of his tent, and is greeted abruptly by a blast of cold morning air.   As usual, his mom already has breakfast prepared. He’s not entirely sure how she can make pancakes taste so good, cooking them on a portable camp stove.   A second helping of pancakes later, he finally registers that his mother had asked him how he slept last night. She has that cat who swallowed the canary look on her face again. It takes him a moment to figure out what she is really getting at.   And when it finally hits him, it does so … Continue reading Chapter 8.3 – Ambush

When Luke heard about a the field trip his class was taking to the cemetery, he though it was a pretty strange place to take a bunch of kids.   Seeing all the nervous faces in class that morning, he can tell he’s not the only sim who thinks so. The classroom clock has a weird way of playing tricks. When you want time to go by fast so you can get to do something you want, each second takes an eternity. But when there’s something you don’t want to do, the day just whips by in a blur.   For Luke, … Continue reading Chapter 8.2 – Tired

Hope had been the only Barimen heir to really boast any kind of popularity at school.   While there may never be another sim quite like her, Luke has managed to develop a following of his own. He is the “every kid” who fits right into any clique or group with seemingly no effort. He mostly ignores the particular quirks and traits that divide them into their own little social circles. The honest truth, is that Luke does a pretty good job of avoiding all of the social drama that comes with being a kid, simply by avoiding the pitfalls of being a follower.   Luke has … Continue reading Chapter 8.1 – Intuition