Chapter one- The arrangement

A Chapter by Abbie

My eyes stung while surfacing from the murky waters surrounding Camp Phoenix, noticing that the lake remained unoccupied besides myself. The clouds rolled in on the sea like sky and the moon soon rose, a ship on the horizon of a small ocean. My hands clawed at the ground, hoisting my body from the lake as my lungs inflated with air at last, chest rapidly rising and falling. The hard dirt hurt my back when I collapsed in the lonesome night, inescapable darkness sat on top of my abdomen, no longer feeling the lightness provided from swimming. I was simultaneously relieved and mortified from the previous events all occurring within the last 6 hours. Head pounding, I bend my knees, desperately hoping that my legs would support my dead weight with the need to escape the abandoned shore. The scent produced from fire found its way to my nose, to my surprise the campers were still awake and very much so as yelling erupted from the area smoke flowed up from. I mentally examine my options for personal safety and the details of blending in as a plan was unappealing though perhaps my best shot as a lost, broke adolescent. I stumble over erosion-shaped rocks, staggering towards the blurry lights in the distance, distorted by my temporarily warped vision. As I wobble, following my other senses to the site, the kids’ screams increased in volume and my sight improved as continued on. The next trial approached me when I came upon a hill, the top was illuminated gold as though it was a prize and in a way, it was. The land was steep and made my attempt to casually walk up and seem as I belonged among the campers, coming back from a late night swim seem more difficult. I was never a particularly timid person but I didn’t really enjoy small talk with others, so while I did dread trying to fit in with conversation, it wasn’t the most difficult task of the initiation. I strolled over to a girl that wasn’t currently in a conversation, I thought talking to one person at a time would be starting out easy though it could possibly make me an outsider in the eyes of the other teenagers. I plastered a sickly sweet smile, replacing my serious face, and turned my head to the side as I had studied the girls in parks or on tv. “Hey, I’m Violet but my friends call me Vi, I think I’ve seen you around camp and I’ve been meaning to say ‘hi’.” I coo to the teen sitting in front of me as she raised her head so she could look me over. I sat down next to her, making myself as comfortable as possible on the log that she had been lounging on, for what I could assume, hours. “I’m Katherine” Her voice came out rough and uninviting but not necessarily rude. Her tone told me she wasn’t the easiest to win over as my ‘friend’, although if she discovered my plan, the possibility she would alert someone was thrown out the window with her noticeable apathetic personality. The difficulty of gaining her friendship was outweighed by basic human determination to survive, in this certain case, fitting in was the goal. Katherine leaned forward, pushing her scarf down slightly as her shoulders brushed against it and her deep brown hair. The chilly breeze tousling her chocolate locks justified the scarf wrapped loosely around her neck but I still questioned why she would bring it to a summer camp in the warm state of California. She didn’t speak, instead the crackling of the fire and others’ voices filled the silence. Suddenly, I noticed her gaze towards another camper, a girl with hair dyed by flames and emerald eyes. Katherine’s stare softened upon spotted the redhead, socializing with her friends and immediately my way in was clear. A simple crush was motivating enough for even the strongest of teens to do something stupid or impulsive. “Do you like that girl?” I say softly as one preferably does when dealing with matters of the heart, or so I have heard. She exhaled slowly through her nose with a deep sigh, shielding her face. “Why don’t you talk to her?” A classic line found in every high school movie, making this conversation more personal and setting my scheme into action. She mumbled out a sentence explaining the difficulty of the task was being underestimated. In response, I offered my help, claiming my expertise in the field of romance that was not entirely false. I had been classically trained in all social situations and came with a thousand predetermined responses like my own dictionary. In reality, her crush sparked no feeling within me but I would not let my true apathetic attitude seep through my facade in hopes of gaining her sympathy so that I wouldn’t have to sleep outside tonight. “Why do you wanna help me? What’s in it for you?” She snapped back at me, like she was given the same script I had written in my head. “Maybe you could find me a place to sleep?” clearly this was a strange favor to ask so I quickly followed it up with a fake reason. “The people in my old cabin stay up too late for my liking.” It was general and vague enough to be believable because Katherine’s face morphed from confusion back to her normal bitter expression. I had to restrain myself from laughing from the scene playing out in front of me, everything was falling into perfectly place. After a moment of sitting quietly in the night illuminated by the wood ablaze. "Fine"