During the umpteenth Thursday spent at the hellhole that is Camp Campbell, the campers were all awakened within the earliest hours for their daily activities. Apparently, as per tradition at the camp, this was the particular day in which the campers must represent their love for the camp in the most unnecessarily frustrating ways possible. Apparently, the means of expression for today came in the form of collecting your favourite materials from the forest and constructs a form of art for the councillors to critique and feign satisfaction.
And as is typical, the children were in no position of power to reject their assigned activities.
Each member of the camp was paired together with a colleague of their choosing; with exception for the final pair, whom were assigned together mandatorily for obvious reasons. It was unfortunate for both parties that the pair just so happened to include Nikki and Neil, practically popular opposites with few aligning interests. As was predicted by the otherwise disinterested Neil, Nikki had been just as enthusiastic as she had always been to return to the forest, practically her sanctuary from anything remotely resembling suburban life.
As Nikki clawed her way up a tree and disappeared into the branches in her search, Neil simply leaned on a tree and awaited her return with both of their selected examples. Nikki clambered along various branched before spotting a bird's nest, looking inside to find a pair of small eggs inside. "Birds eggs aren't usually that grey… maybe their dead?" Nikki described, pulling his attention away from what little he could find to distract him. "Alive or dead, I don't think the camp will like us poaching eggs" Neil responded, prompting Nikki to shrug and continue her search.
However, as Nikki was obliviously grinning at all the sights and sounds that were nature, she caught a peculiar scent and halted in her tracks. She swung her head in several directions to find the source, believing that she herself was being watched; possibly by something dangerous. What stalked her was unknown to her, but she was more that prepared for whatever it was and refused to let her guard down.
'FLASH!'
Before she knew what was happening at the time, her eyes became engulfed in a white light, blinding her from both her surroundings and her own actions. The first thing she noticed during her impaired state was that she no longer held anything in her hands and there was a steadily increasing gust of wind against her back. She was lead to assume the worst scenario, but her suspicions were only proven when a sudden impact on her back confirmed that she had fallen out of the tree.
As soon as her eyes began to readjust to the world, she found herself staring up into the shocked and confused eyes of her partner. She squinted and propped herself upwards, resting her weight on her elbows as she leaned her head forward in pain. "Holy shit, are you okay?!" Neil asked, "You're not having a brain haemorrhage are you?!" "Whatever that is… I don't think I have that" Nikki answered as she pushed herself into a sitting position.
As Nikki struggled to maintain her concentration and rocked back and forth dizzily, Neil looked back up towards the tree. He had noticed a sudden flash of light from that general direction, though he was unable to confirm the suspect by any means. Upon listening out for any potential sounds that may aid in his investigation, he was greeted with nought but silence. He squinted his eyes and held his hand to his chin, his mind flooded by both curiosity and suspicion.
"Whoever it was, I think they took a photo of you" Neil deduced nonchalantly, Nikki finally having regained enough consciousness to listen. "Why would they want my-" Nikki questioned before abruptly pausing, her eyes widening from the sudden discovery floating within range of her sense of smell. She sniffed the air and crawled onto her hands, finally recognising the scent and detesting. She snarled and beared her canines, growling "Smells like… daisies".
Meanwhile, elsewhere away from the tracking capabilities of the bestial child, the culprit finally stopped to catch her breath and dusted herself off. She reached into her pocket and retrieved her phone to examine it, peering into her photos folder and scanning through her long list. A long line of captured moments of mediocrity and redundancy, she finally reached the end and focused her attention on her latest photo.
She peered upon the preserved image of the startled Nikki as the latter lay moments before her decent. She glared longingly upon the petrified face of her greatest rival, her single golden eye duelling with the magenta eyes that met her gaze. With a disappointed sigh, the stalker turned her phone off and stuffed it back into her pocket. "If only you had them, Nikki…" she sneered in a thick accent, "I would've loved to have gotten you back for everything you've done, you animal!"
Several children found themselves stranded within the tranquil regions that Camp Campbell was founded and living at the mercy of their councillor's absurd methods of control. They had known that their parents sent them there for less than ethical reasons and had come to accept their fates by this point. But despite this fate, the children found a level of comfort in the fact that they weren't the only children subjected to this cruel destiny.
Elsewhere, across the lake and deep within a significantly more sanitary region of the camp, there existed that sanctuary of the infamous Flowerscouts. Psychologically limited to a professional attitude and disregard for imperfection, the Flowerscouts were the victims to a level of conditioning that was both conveniently socially subtle and implicitly disturbing. The result of this conditioning was some of the biggest brats anyone could ever know, destined to age into snobby conformists deluded into expecting perfection at every moment of their fragmented lives.
The leading Flowerscout troupe was 789, consisting of members Sasha, Erin and Tabii, whom currently held a monopoly on the major cookie sales in the nearby counties. Sasha was a shining example of the aforementioned behaviour displayed commonly from the Flowerscouts, granting her great influence of the other Flowerscouts under the delusion of power she had given herself. Whether her fellow Flowerscouts respected her was of no matter to her, as the power she held over them was all she needed to maintain security.
At this time, Sasha had planned a meeting between the three troupe members and searched the entire camp for her cohorts. She had found Erin, her ethnic companion, in her room and was now preparing to look for Tabii in hers, Erin following alongside like an obedient pet. Sasha finally stopped before Tabii's room door and knocked with all the elegance she could muster, all in an attempt to hide her frustration.
"Tabii, are yah in thare?" Sasha called through, "Weh need ta beh a full team so weh can look professional tah everyone!" She listened closely and awaited Tabii's typical response, but was unprepared for the silence that would greet her instead. Sneering at this disrespect that Sasha felt in response, she knocked again with extra force, her elegance slipping with each strike upon the wood.
"Far fuck's sake, Tabii! Get out hare!" Sasha snarled, "Ah need somebodeh to make meh look sexy bah comparison!" Erin heard this and held her hand against her chest, her heart breaking at the mere thought. "I thought that's whah Ah was here…" Erin admitted, her voice expressing her pain. Sasha never even turned her head away from the door when she corrected "Yah mixed it up, Erin. Yah make meh look superior bah comparison".
Finally, having become impatient with her cohort's incompetence, she turned the handle and pushed her way into the room. She scanned her gaze across the room, confirming what she had never even consider. Erin followed daintily behind as they entered the room, Sasha hoping to find any means of determining where to look for her histrionic colleague next. However, as they searched, Both Sasha and Erin were diverted by certain details within the room that neither were previously aware of.
Upon the bed, they noticed a series of printed images of photographs, each focussing on a different individual's facial features. Sasha grabbed one and examined the face, recognising the occupant's identity immediately as one of the campers from Camp Campbell. The black, messy hair and turquoise eye colour belonged to that punky kid they had worked with in the diner. She turned and looked back at all the other various identities, wondering why Tabii would have them all here and what they could possibly be intended for.
"Whatever this all is, I don't think Tabii wanted us to know about it" Erin reasoned, provoking a frustrated glare from her consultant. "How dare sheh!" Sasha snarled as she tossed the photographs carelessly upon the bed,"Sheh can't just do whatever sheh wants! Sheh could embarrass us!" "Woah thare, Sash" Erin attempted to quell the visibly infuriated redhead, "All weh gatta do is get her tah tell us what's sheh's doin' and than never let her do her own thang ever again".
"Where is sheh, though?" Sasha grumbled, "Sheh could beh out makin' us look like complete trash raight now!" Erin thought to herself as she stated aloud "Knowin' Tabii, sheh's probably out with that loser guy at that hella gross camp". "Ick! No way am Ah goin' back thare" Sasha cringed, her muscles reflexively tensing from the mere mention of the god-forsaken place. "Yah… Ah'd rathar stay here and wait for her to come back" Erin offered, Sasha nodding in agreement as they left the room together.
If only they had known what Tabii was planning.