Okay, okay, challenge. Here we go. Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla, lordgemini and Gucci Mane LaFlare.

Chris gave us the rundown of the challenge. Basically, the first part of the challenge was that we all had to dive into the lake from the cliff. He pointed out the target areas. The large one had lots of savage hungry sharks. There was a smaller target area, "Which we're pretty sure is shark-free". There were also several crates at the shore, which we'd need later on to build a hot tub in front of our cabins.

Now, it was time for the cliff dive. "Killer Bass, you're up first."

Bridgette stared down at the water. "Oh, wow. So…who wants to go first?"

All ten of us just stared at her. I mean, I wasn't a terrible swimmer, just average, but I had no idea about my abilities to aim and dive.

"Hey, don't sweat it, guys." I heard Owen's voice behind us. "I heard they always make the interns do the stunt first to make sure it's survivable."

Eventually, Bridgette went first. "Fine. I'll go. It's no big deal, just an insane cliff dive into a circle of angry sharks…" And not only did she dive beautifully, she landed well within the target range.

"She did it!" Tyler exclaimed. "Yeah! I'm next!" He literally hurled himself off the cliff, and although he hit a buoy, he actually made it into the safe zone.

I tentatively started taking steps towards the edge, just as Geoff threw himself off, cheering the whole way. I looked down, and immediately wished I hadn't. Shark fins were circling the safe zone. How did I know one wouldn't sneak into it?

As I stood there, trembling, suddenly I was in thin air, screaming the whole way. Someone had pushed me off! A jolt of terror flooded through me, bringing me straight back to my childhood, being pushed around, everyone laughing, surrounded, unable to get away, desperately wanting to cry but not being able to because that would make things worse, and…

I had landed. In the safe zone. And just as I surfaced, I was splashed by another contestant.

"What is wrong with you?" I exploded, my fears totally forgotten as my mind kept replaying that push.

I didn't realize who had followed me until he surfaced. He was grinning.

It was Duncan.

"You looked like you weren't planning to jump any time soon," he shrugged. "It was my turn – I had to get you out of the way somehow. It's not like I threw you to the sharks – you were right above the safe zone all the way down."

Well, that didn't improve my feelings towards Duncan one bit. He didn't seem mad that I'd yelled at him, though. I was lucky that way.

Only nine of us actually jumped. Ezekiel hit a rock on the way down and spun his way into the safe zone. Harold jumped with his legs far apart and hit the water with a scream of agony. By that time, DJ and Courtney, both wearing chicken hats (apparently them refusing to jump meant they were "chickening" out, so they had to wear them for the rest of the day), joined everyone who'd jumped on the shore.

After a pause while we waited for our last two, we heard two voices call "We're coming, Killer Bass!" and two figures plummeted, hand in hand.

It turned out Izzy had offered to swap teams with Katie, so now she was a Screaming Gopher, and Sadie got to have Katie with her. I had a wild hunch that Courtney would be the one without a bunkie from then on. Katie would definitely want to share Sadie's one instead of taking Izzy's old bunk.

Actually, I was quite glad of that when I heard the way Izzy cackled on her jump. I didn't see much of what was happening during the jumps, but I did see Leshawna throwing Heather off the cliff herself (okay, that was a little unorthodox, but I found out later that Heather was threatening not to jump to keep her long hair dry, and when Leshawna had yelled at her to jump, Heather had said 'Make me", so she kind of asked for it. Literally).

Leshawna's jump was successful. Lindsay, Gwen and Cody screamed their whole way down, but as I said, Izzy was cackling maniacally as she went down. The fact that I could hear her all the way from the shore was rather unsettling even in itself.

Justin did a lovely swan dive, but he was the only person the whole time who did not land in the safe zone. And the sharks didn't even hurt him! They even brought him to shore. Okay, even they had a crush on him? I mean, he was still cute, don't get me wrong, but something about his good looks still looked a bit too plastic to me. Then again, who was I to talk when I'd never been attracted to a boy in my life?

Beth came down to the shore with a chicken hat. Finally, Trent and Noah dived. Owen took a while, but he did come down with a huge splash.

Also, the worst thing? The Screaming Gophers had more people who jumped, so they actually got some carts to put their crates on to pull to the campground. We had to kick and push at ours. I was lucky my arm muscles were pretty good.

Lots of stuff happened. Courtney complained of a splinter and something biting her eye. Tyler, Sadie and Katie all ran into the woods at different times for bathroom breaks. When the girls came back, they complained of burning itches, and it turned out they'd squatted on poison ivy. They had to go and sit in the shallows to cool the itch.

As we all finally arrived, the Gophers were already checking out their opened crates. Leshawna noticed our missing teammates immediately. "Hey, aren't you missing a couple of white girls?"

Courtney looked uncomfortable and said "They're getting a drink."

"Yeah, if they drink with their butts," Harold whispered to Ezekiel, but everyone else could hear him.

By the way, we were way behind the Gophers all challenge. Even once we had the crates open and started assembling them, and even once Katie and Sadie arrived and joined in, no one was really working properly. Courtney had appointed herself project manager, but our hot tub just wouldn't work. It kept leaking everywhere, and even once we put the water in and it held (with duct tape), the water still didn't heat up.

The Gophers won, of course. Their hot tub was functional, pretty and looked super inviting. They got to keep the hot tub to use all summer, and they were going to have a party in it that same night, as well as knowing none of them would be the first out.

"Killer Bass, what can I say?" Chris said. "Sucks to be you right now. I'll see your sorry butts at the campfire tonight.

Dinner was tense that night. Courtney said we had to discuss who to vote off.

Duncan spoke up first. "Well, I think it should be Princess or the brickhouse here." He meant Courtney or DJ because neither of them had jumped off the cliff.

"Why?" Courtney asked, her tone defensive.

"Because, unless I'm mistaken, you two are the only ones here wearing chicken hats. And if we ever have to lift a truck, I like our odds with the big guy." I secretly agreed, but only because I liked DJ more than Courtney. Although, if I was to be honest, she still wasn't my first choice of who to send home.

"You guys need me!" Courtney protested. "I'm the only one-"

"We know," Bridgette interrupted in a supremely bored tone. "Who used to be a real CIT. So who would you pick?"

I pretended not to listen, eyes fixed on what looked like sheep crap pellets, but what Chef claimed was a casserole. I wanted to vote off Duncan after he'd brought up some painful memories, with Courtney second. But I looked up when Courtney asked "What about him?" She was pointing at Tyler.

"No!" I heard Lindsay call out from the other table. Everyone stared at her. "I mean, no salt, there's no salt on the table, bummer…" she stammered out. It was pretty clear she'd heard Courtney and didn't want Tyler to go home.

"Hey, at least he jumped off the cliff, chicken wing." Duncan replied.
"Shut up!"

I was getting pretty tense despite trying to fake not being there. Luckily, Geoff stepped in. "Okay, let's just chill out. This is getting way too heavy."

Duncan left, saying he'd had enough "prison food", and Courtney started telling him he couldn't go while we hadn't decided who to vote off, when the problem was taken out of everyone's hands.

"I just don't get why we lost, eh." That was Ezekiel. "They're the ones that have six girls."

Katie and Sadie gasped. I couldn't help glaring, too. Had he honestly just said we should have won because the other team had more girls?

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bridgette demanded.

Ezekiel didn't seem to realize how angry we were. "Well, guys are much stronger and better at sports than girls are, eh."

"Oh snap, he did not just say that." Geoff said, looking somewhat amused.

"My dad told me to look out for the girls here, eh," Ezekiel went on, "And help them in case they can't keep up."

I got up at this point, and clearly in his line of sight, did the splits. I said nothing at all, but the girls seemed to get what I meant.

"Think you can do what she just did?" Bridgette challenged.

"Um…" Ezekiel looked down at his plate. "Not really…"

Geoff jumped up again to make peace. "Guys, let's give him a break. I mean, at least he doesn't think that guys are smarter than girls."

"But they are." Really, the dude just kept digging his ditch deeper.

Although I didn't say anything at the table, I quietly told Bridgette that night that I was more inclined to vote for Duncan, even though Ezekiel had said some really awful things. I felt like I could trust her not to tell anyone if I couldn't convince her to do the same.

"Well, it's your choice," Bridgette shrugged. "I don't like him, either, but I got the feeling he wasn't really malicious when he pushed you. He just thought you'd never jump unless someone made you, and he was getting impatient."

I blushed. "I have some trauma around being pushed," I admitted in a tiny voice. "I know he didn't know that, but it just felt like I was back in that moment."

Bridgette looked at me sympathetically. "I can understand that. You know, maybe you should just tell him that's why you reacted that way. See what he says and then decide if you still want to vote him off."

I was too scared to approach Duncan alone, but when I knocked on the boys' cabin door before the campfire ceremony, DJ answered and smiled at me. "Oh, hi, Peyton," he said, giving me a nice smile. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," I said, dredging up a smile, "Is Duncan in here?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if he wants to talk to anyone right now," DJ warned. He looked inside and called "Duncan, Peyton said she wanted to talk to you."

"Let her speak for herself." I heard the reply. "She can come in, not like we're doing anything."

DJ agreeably stood to the side and let me in. Most of the other guys were hanging out on their bunks. Duncan was lounging on his (a top bunk on the right) casually. His blue eyes fixed on me. "So, what's the word, honey?" He said the name jokingly.

I looked at the floor. "Sorry I kinda yelled at you this afternoon." I mumbled. "I have some trauma from being pushed that you brought up. It made me freak out a little bit."

Duncan just shrugged. "Okay. Cool. Jump next time. But if I really do have to push you, I'll give you some warning."

I managed a smile. "Okay. Thanks."

With that, I decided I could hold off on voting him off for now. I was still afraid of him, but maybe he wasn't quite as scary as I thought.

DJ followed me outside. "He's all right, y'know," he said softly. "I mean, yeah, he was in juvie, but he's actually a pretty cool guy most of the time."

"I was thinking about voting him off," I admitted, even more softly. We sat down on the steps together. "But he did say he wouldn't push me without warning, I guess. So I'll wait."

"I'm not gonna tell you who to vote off," DJ said. "I wanted to talk to you, though. Not about challenge stuff, but just hanging out. I was kind of worried about you. You don't say much, and you keep looking at the floor whenever you do talk."

I shrugged. "I'm shy. I take a while to warm up to people. I've always been like that. And a couple of people seemed a bit…intimidating. You know, scary."

DJ smiled at me. "Well, I get that. And with so many other people, I'd understand that. I used to be like that. I'm better at seeming braver now, but trust me, I'm not as confident as I look." He paused. "You didn't think I was one of the scary ones, did you? I know I look a bit that way."

"As soon as you talked to me, I knew you weren't," was all I could say honestly. "I'm not scared of you."

DJ smiled again. "I was hoping you'd say that. I feel like we have a bit in common. I noticed that you did some dance moves when you came off the boat and then those splits at dinner. I dance, too. I was thinking, maybe we should stick together in this game."

I smiled back this time. "That sounds nice. I'd like to have an ally…or a friend."

"Yeah," DJ said. "So, friends?" He held out a hand.

I took it. "Friends." I echoed.

While I'd usually been more comfortable with girls than guys, even as friends, DJ was like a giant teddy bear, if they had more muscles than softness. It was kind of hard not to make friends with him, and the fact that he'd made an effort to befriend me was enough to convince me to proclaim him my first friend on Total Drama. It made the days ahead seem a lot easier. I couldn't afford to be picky with my friends

on here, and to be honest, I was lucky that DJ had decided to choose me to ask to be his friend, even if it was just because I was shy and quiet.

I voted for Ezekiel that night, as I'm sure the other girls did. I didn't think the guys would vote for me, but it was always safer to vote in numbers. I considered voting for Courtney, but I wasn't so sure she'd get a lot of votes.

Chris explained what would happen. We all had sticks. Everyone who was staying would get a marshmallow on their sticks, which we could roast. The camper who didn't get a marshmallow would walk down what Chris called the Dock of Shame, to catch what he called the Boat of Losers to go home. "That means you're out of the contest. And you can't come back. Ever."

My name was called fourth. As it was, Courtney and Ezekiel were in the bottom two. Chris spent at least a minute waiting to call the last name. Finally

…

"Courtney."

Ezekiel stayed seated as Courtney took her marshmallow.

"Can't say I'm shocked," Chris admitted. "I saw you picking your nose, dude. Not cool. Dock of Shame is that way, bro." And with slumped shoulders, Ezekiel walked away.

"The rest of you, enjoy your marshmallows." Chris told us. "You're all safe. For tonight."

Tomorrow was a break day for everyone to hang out and get to know each other. Now, with my new friend, I was looking forward to it.

First day, finally over! I didn't originally plan on Peyton thinking about voting for Duncan, but after I added the scene of him pushing her off the cliff, I had to rationalize her not voting for him. The fact that she was traumatized by bullying when she was little was also last-minute – I added it in after I'd written the first draft of the prologue.