Phobia Factor. If you remember the start, I mentioned Peyton's fear. Thanks for reviewing, OmniIBIBUltraInstinctGodzilla, lordgemini and Gucci Mane LaFlare.

Since most of the day after the night in the woods was spent hanging out, we knew we had a challenge coming up the next day. Still, we felt bad for the Gophers, so we brought around some of our desserts from the tuck shop to them after their campfire ceremony was over. They were still roasting their marshmallows, with Izzy the only one gone.

We ended up all sitting down and talking. I actually shyly managed to slip onto a stump next to Leshawna. But I had DJ on the other side of me, so that was reassuring.

Some way or another, we got on to the topic of fears and everyone started sharing. DJ said snakes freaked him out, and then Tyler said chickens gave him the creeps. Beth started on a long spiel about being scared of being covered by bugs, Harold said ninjas, and Heather said sumo wrestlers.

Actually, I couldn't help a little giggle escape when Heather said that, which made her glare at me. "You think that's funny, huh? So what are you scared of, showing off your natural hair colour?" she said cuttingly.

As a matter of fact, I was naturally platinum blonde, and no, I wasn't afraid of it, but pink suited me so much better and made me look less like a fallen angel and more like a real person.

I looked at the ground. "Being ostracized, hated so much it's like I'm invisible." I mumbled. I know, it was stupid to be honest, but I didn't think about it at the time. Probably because of the pressure Heather had just put on me.

I noticed Gwen looking over at me, and she suddenly stated that her worst fear was being buried alive. That was nice of her. She'd taken the heat off me.

"Walking through a minefield," Lindsay volunteered, "In heels."

"Flying, man," Owen added. "That's some crazy shit."

Geoff said hail, Bridgette said being alone in the woods, and Cody said having to defuse a time bomb under pressure. Katie said she and Sadie were both afraid of bad haircuts, and Lindsay immediately said that was scarier than a minefield and that was hers. Courtney insisted she wasn't afraid of anything, but when Duncan called her out, she got him to admit that he was actually afraid of Celine Dion standees. Everyone found that funny, not just me.

That just left Leshawna and Trent. Leshawna admitted spiders scared her (fair enough, those things were creepy and plenty were biters), and Trent said he hated mimes. Courtney still wouldn't admit to being afraid of anything.

I forgot to mention something that was on the audition form. The sheet warned us that some of the challenges would be tailored to contestants' personalities, and we had to list things that included our worst fears. I'd kept it shorter than I had at the campground, but I think everyone, including myself, had forgotten that we had written them. If anyone had lied around the campfire, they hadn't lied on their sheet. I didn't know what Courtney had written, but either way, when Chris announced at breakfast the next day that we had to face our worst fears, we didn't take him seriously.

At least, not until he said "Heather, meet us all in the theatre. It's sumo time!" Heather choked on the coffee she'd just been drinking.
"Gwen," Chris went on, "You, me, the beach. A few tonnes of sand."

It went on. I actually missed most of the challenges. Everyone had a different one, and everyone who faced their fear and won would get a point. For that, I had to miss them.

Why? Because I was expected to sit in my cabin all day, looking out the window at everyone else and doing absolutely nothing. "Anyone else can go in, but they're not allowed to look at or speak to you," Chris explained. "It's just for six hours – you can come out any time, but if you do, you automatically fail the challenge."

Luckily, Bridgette walked me to the cabin. She had to spend six hours in the woods by herself, so she knew what I was going to go through. "You can do this," she told me. "Remember, we're not actually ostracizing you. You just have to wait. As soon as I'm allowed out of the woods, you'll be allowed to leave too." She gave me a hug. "Stay strong."

I managed a smile. "You too. We both need to get a point."

I saw a few of the challenges out of my window, actually. I heard Cody's bomb go off (yeah, he failed), and saw Trent running away from a mime. Katie told me later on that she'd seen Duncan hug a Celine Dion standee (with Courtney's encouragement) and DJ hold a tiny snake (with Courtney yelling at him to suck it up). Tyler was too traumatized to get too near the chickens he was supposed to, so he didn't make it, but Katie and Lindsay wore mullets together and made it through the day. Chef took Owen flying in a beat-up plane. Gwen spent five minutes in a glass box under a lot of sand (well, longer, because Trent was meant to dig her up and he forgot with the mime going after him). And speaking of Trent, he eventually jumped into the water, which the mime couldn't do because his makeup would run, which made him leave. Geoff didn't get a point because he wouldn't stay still, just running away from the electronic hail cloud Chris sent after him, screaming the whole time. Beth easily jumped into the kiddie pool of worms, which, when I watched the footage much later when the episode aired, made me wonder if she'd lied about her fear, or whether it was just that she didn't count worms as bugs. What shocked me was that Leshawna didn't manage to face her fear. She ran screaming from Chef's spider costume. Even Heather managed to let the sumo wrestler run right at her, which counted as a win, despite her crouching down, trembling the whole time.

Bridgette didn't finish her challenge. Apparently Cody, after not managing to finish his challenge, stumbled across her, looking like a zombie, and she ran all the way back to camp.

Still, the Gophers had performed significantly better than us until that point. Courtney was the last person to do her challenge, and I was allowed out by then. She had forgotten about the audition sheet.

There was a diving board set up by a little hot tub structure. Inside it was a wobbly green substance.

Green jelly.

Yes, that was Courtney's fear. Stupid and ridiculous. Chris said if she completed it, we'd be given extra points, enough to put us over the Gophers.

So, when Courtney couldn't do it, only getting as far as the diving board and then climbing back down, why didn't I get rid of her?

Well, it was because Courtney said in the cabin that evening, "I know I screwed up, but I'm not the only one. And I've helped out in other challenges, right?"

I didn't like Courtney much, but she was a lot of the driving force behind our team. And I kind of wanted to keep her around because of that. And I could afford to vote for someone else, as I'd finished my challenge. I'd cried a few times, thinking of what it meant, but knowing it was temporary kept me strong enough to finish.

I wasn't going to vote for Bridgette, I knew that much. She hadn't finished her challenge, either, but I considered her a friend. I was going to wait for as long as possible before I voted off my friends, and only vote when there was no other option. Besides, it was Cody's fault she ran back to camp, not a natural occurrence in the woods. It wasn't really fair, but it was too late for a do-over.

I knew Harold hadn't completed his challenge, either, but he was my friend too, even if he'd been totally insensitive about me being into the same sex – besides, we'd made up and he'd said he was sorry. And he'd told me what happened when he came to – he had been ready to fight the ninjas with his numchucks when they ambushed him in the bathroom, but accidentally hit himself in the head with them. I wasn't making a head injury a reason for elimination unless he needed medical care. He was fine now, so that wasn't an option.

That left Geoff and Tyler. I wasn't really friends with either of them, but when I thought about it, Geoff had been a lot more active than Tyler. I wasn't particular friends with Geoff because he was a bit too outgoing and loud for me, but it was kind of hard to dislike him. He seemed to like everyone. I hadn't spoken to him properly, but I knew he'd never said a mean thing about anyone in the camp. I mean, no one else would have let Harold into the dodgeball challenge, but he had wanted to play. And he'd actually given Ezekiel an out after his sexist comments – it wasn't his fault Ezekiel just dug his ditch deeper. So that meant…

Well, Tyler went by process of elimination, and apparently, Courtney managed to get enough support to make sure he got more votes than her.

"You'll get that chicken next time, dude." Duncan told him when the last name (Courtney) was called.

Tyler, looking extremely upset, trudged away. Chris watched him leave. "It seems like a new pecking order has been established," he joked.

"It's not like he could cry fowl." Duncan added.

"Time for Tyler to fly the coop!" Geoff joined in.

"He won't be flying high tonight," Bridgette said.

Courtney finally shut them up. "Okay, that's enough!" Considering Geoff and Bridgette were both guilty of the same thing as Tyler, I was glad Courtney stopped them. I wouldn't have had the courage to, but I was thinking the same thing. Anyway, I wasn't really sad or happy that Tyler had to leave – I was just relieved that, once again, I'd been to another campfire ceremony and stayed.

Not much of a difference here. I figured that if Sadie could finish her challenge, so could Katie. It helps that Lindsay was doing it with her and she's the supportive type.