The moon was out, but the tall grass around me prevented its light from helping as I navigated my way through the darkness. I ran around the corner of a path in the tall snake grass and ducked into the reeds as the beam of a flashlight passed over my head. It was hard enough to be quiet in the rattling weed without having to duck, crawl, and otherwise avoid the lights of the other team’s sentries. I was deep in enemy territory, without any support, but I knew I was close to the target. It was lying in a clear area about five feet ahead, wrapped in a white trash bag to hide its glow from sight. I smiled; it was amusing that they thought a Safeway bag was enough to hide it from me.

The single guard turned to investigate a sound from the other side of the clearing. I took my chance and dashed from my hiding spot, snatched up the flag, and dove back into the wall of grass before he could catch me. I crawled for a few feet and then took off running in a different direction entirely, hoping to confuse my pursuer. I grinned as I neared the boundary between our territories and looked over my shoulder to make sure I was still safe. There was no one behind me. I wanted to shout with joy that I had scored, but as I turned forward I ran straight into a brick wall. One of the older scouts on the other team was standing in front of me and grabbed me a short two feet from the home stretch. He eagerly took his flag back from me and escorted me off to spend another night waiting for my teammates in the opponents’ jail.

We had been playing ‘Capture the Flag’ for two nights straight now, but I was new and was not likely to be missed. I had spent two hours in ‘jail’ the night before when I finally gave up and went back to my campsite. Tonight was probably not going to end much differently, and there was no reason to sit in the box when I could go back to my tent and play cards. Read the rest of this story »