Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock nor do I ever wish to. It is, in my opinion, a genital wart on the industry of television films.

If you'll pardon the pun, Tess Tyler was not a happy camper. Well, less happy than her usual unhappy self. In fact, Tess Tyler was rarely, if ever, happy at all. The only times she was truly happy was when she spent time with her mother and when she made other girls cry by insulting their fashion sense or just calling them an ugly heifer.

But right now, Tess Tyler was not with her mother and she was not making people cry, so she was not happy. She was backstage at Final Jam, readying Peggy, Ella, and herself for their, rather her, big number in which she would win Shane Grey's love and the chance to record with Connect Three. Tess was also excited that she'd finally have her mother's complete attention for once, but at the moment her anger out weighed her enthusiasm.

"Honestly, guys, are you stupid or is tonight's dinner finally working it's way into your lower intestine because these steps are not that hard!" Well, she wasn't making people cry yet. "I have worked too hard for too long to have my night ruined by two incompetent back up dancers who don't know a simple step, pivot, step, pivot, shake, shake, shake routine. This is not amateur night! This is serious!" Tess stomped a perfectly manicured foot and puffed up her chest until she took on the appearance of a male chimpanzee.

Ella, never wanting to displease anyone, least of all Tess as she knew what happened when Tess got so red faced no one could see her blush, made an attempt at sticking up for herself and Peggy. "We did it right!" she said, nervously fumbling with the belt of her satin robe.

"No, you didn't; you never do!" Tess shot back, "You guys may be used to losing, but not me! I'm tired of pickin' up the slack!" If there had ever been a moment when Tess desired to snap her fingers in the shape of a triangle, it was now. She resisted the urge, however, for fear it'd make her look less threatening.

At that same moment Tess was contemplating making an ass out of herself, Peggy, who up until this point had known place and never crossed it, snapped just a bit on the inside. Perhaps it was all the verbal abuse she received from someone she had believed was her friend, perhaps her ridiculous silk robe began chaffing, or maybe it was, in fact, her dinner working it's way into her GI tract. Whatever the reason, her robe or the abuse, Peggy blew up at the girl she had been secretly referring to as Mussolini for the past week .

"Stop telling us what to do! You're the on who's ruining everything," Peggy barked while making frantic hand gestures, "You're too intense all the time and I am sick and tired of picking up your slack, too!" Peggy breathed out sharply, glad that she had finally told Tess her true feelings and turned on her heel to leave.

Tess latched herself on to Peggy's arm and said, rather dumbly as Peggy had not yet left the room, "Come back here!" She felt the smooth sleeve of Peggy's robe slip through her grasp as she went off to God knows where.

Panicking that her night to win Shane's heart was slowly circling the drain, Tess faced Ella, hoping beyond hope that she, too, would not leave her.

Tess's heart sank as Ella shot a finger into her face and yelled, "Don't worry about me; do it yourself! I'm done!" As Ella was about run from the cabin, she thought of something, about-faced back to her former friend, and shouted, "BTW, your lip gloss is sooooo not glossy anymore!" Tess was left standing with her mouth agape as the last of the people she thought of as her friends stalked away into the dusk.

0o0

She had been walking in a huff for close to ten minutes before Ella was aware she'd made her way into the woods surrounding camp and did not know where she was. Ella was confused by new places which often happens to someone with her IQ, so it was no wonder she was in her current predicament. She sat down beneath a tree so as not to get even more lost with the realization that everyone in camp was at Final Jam and nobody would even notice she was gone until after the big camper sing-a-long.

A chill ran down Ella's spine and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms hoping to prevent the unusually cool summer night from giving her goose bumps. Goose bumps always made her look fat.

As the last of the sun slipped behind the horizon and the forest became swathed in absolute darkness, Ella's mind went back to the argument she and Peggy had with Tess. It's not that Ella hated Tess, quite the contrary, Tess was one of her best friends. She could still remember the day she first came to Camp Rock and Tess offered her a seat at the special VIP table when she saw that she had nobody else to sit with. No, what Ella hated was what Tess had become. Ever since her mom won that first Grammy, Tess started believing she was better than everyone else and that everyone's musical abilities were inferior to her own. Ella wished everything could go back to before TJ Tyler was famous and Tess helped Ella differentiate between ice cream and frozen custard (ice cream has more air in it.)

That's the trouble with wishing, though, she thought miserably, it doesn't fix anything outside fairy tales.

While all this was running laps through her head, a burly stranger approached from behind.

If Ella had been one to take in her surroundings and notice things going on around her, she might have notice the blood speckled in the leaves near her. She might have also noticed that these droplets of blood led to a larger puddle of blood which had formed below the grisly remains of a camp worker who was dangling vicariously from a tree with a canoe paddle protruding from his chest. Of course if Ella had taken the time to notice all this, she might still be with us. But Ella was never one to process the going ons around her, so she did not notice the leaves or the blood or the puddle or the body and so she is not here with us today.

Ella was expecting a chip in her pink nail polish when she heard the snap of twig behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that someone had finally acknowledged her absence and had come looking for her.

"About time someone showed up!" she snapped irritably as she looked around the tree's trunk, "I thought I was going to be here for ho-" Ella's rant was cut off as she saw that the person behind her was not from camp at all.

"W-who are you?" she questioned as she took in his ratty clothes and large boots, stained with mud and what she prayed was ketchup.

The man did not answer, but rather took an awkward lurch closer to Ella.

Ella stood quickly and began backing up deeper into the woods. The large man was all of three good yards away from her and she wanted to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.

"M-my dad is v-very important and h-he'll give you anything y-you want as long as you d-don't h-hurt me," she stammered as she felt her back brush up against another tree trunk.

Again the man gave no reply and in two long strides, he closed the gap between himself and the small girl.

Ella opened her mouth, ready to deliver the piercing scream she held in her lungs, when the tall stranger raised his hand high above his head and arced his arm downward until the rusty hatchet he found in the camp maintenance tool shed connected with the girl's skinny neck and a scarlet geyser rained over his chest.

Ella's mom was always telling her that she'd lose her head if it wasn't attached to her neck. Of course, when Ella's mom always told her this, she meant it in a metaphorical sense and by no means ever imagined a situation in which her daughter would actually lose her head.

As Ella felt the edge of the knife tear through her throat, her mother's words rang in her ears and with her last moments of life, she finally grasped the concept of irony.

The girl's body slumped to the ground before the behemoth's feet. Some stray drops of blood had splashed onto his shoes and he grunted disapprovingly. Momma didn't like it when he got his shoes dirty and he knew when he got home he'd get quite the tongue lashing.

The man had no time to worry about messes now, though. He had business to attend to elsewhere. The large figure roughly pulled the hatchet from the base of the tree and, as Ella's head joined her torso on the forest floor, walked out of the woods towards Final Jam and all the other campers.