Right. Okay. I did it. Another new challenge. Thanks for reviewing to Nicky Haugh, Pokemon FTW, Bloodylilcorpse and The Phenomenal Flair.

Sierra hadn't really meant it about the sleepover night, but she and Beth and I stayed up late anyway, just talking. We were painfully aware that with Heather gone, all the female Villains were gone, and endgame was really near. We were mostly talking strategy.

"I want Scott gone next." I said decidedly. "I know he hasn't done anything this season, but he doesn't seem to get what he did last year was even that wrong. I think he should try to figure that out before he wins a season."

"I can't see him learning." Sierra stated. "He's too far gone. I don't know for sure, but from what I saw last season, I don't think he's ever going to learn much."

"No offence, Danni, but I don't want Lightning to win, either." Beth said quietly. "I just feel like him winning will mean us taking far too much gloating from him. "

I gave a sigh. "I know, I know. If it wasn't that me and him have to team up, I'd ask you both to form a girls' alliance. How about this, though – you two help Lightning and I to get rid of Scott first. Then just don't let me know when you try to take out Lightning, and I won't ask."

"I'm in." Sierra said immediately.

Beth looked more doubtful. "Well..." she began shyly, "I kind of...asked Brick if he'd ally with me. We're not really working together, but we got on really well when we were in teams and during the boat race, so if it comes down to that, we were going to take each other to the finale and vote together. Can I ask him to join that plan?"

I shrugged. "Sure, whatever. I don't mind. Brick's a good guy, and he got kicked out unfairly last time. Besides, five votes makes me feel more secure than four."

"But..." Sierra began. "What if Scott wins invincibility this time?"

I shrugged. "Then we vote differently and move voting Scott off to the next challenge. He's smart, but I don't think he'll win invincibility every time. He hasn't come that close to winning the last two, and Zoey beat him in the first post-merge challenge last year."

As for the free day – well, since Lightning was only there for a little while, we spent as much time together as possible, just talking. Since we were officially teamed up for the time being, we could spend all our time doing what we liked best. I let him know about my conversation with the girls, of course, so we were all set to take Scott out next.

It was a good thing we didn't stay up late the next night. We all turned in before ten, and I'm not sure if I got even four hours of sleep before an airhorn was blasted from the intercom. "UP NOW, CAMPERS!"

Most of us stumbled out of the cabins, only just dressed and still pulling on our shoes. Chris, of course, was immaculately dressed as usual.

"Challenge time!" Chris grinned at us. "Tonight, you will be facing...your worst nightmares!"

There was a pause.

"We're going to drop each of you in a different place on the island." Chris clarified. "Your challenge is to get back to camp before sunrise. However, this will be difficult as your worst fear will be following you. By the time you get back to camp, you need to appear fearless to get invincibility – and we know how each of you look when you're scared."

That was sort of true. I knew that Lightning started moving really fast but never really got anywhere when he was scared or stressed, Sierra was prone to crying, Beth got really still and quiet (well, she couldn't scream whether she wanted to or not because of that doctor's earring), Brick would start stammering and his eyes would flicker around, Scott stereotypically just screamed when he was afraid of something, and as for me?

I usually just froze. I wasn't quiet like Beth, but pretty much the only thing that I could do was scream. I was the type to freeze.

Okay, well, I'd have to move if I wanted to get back to camp. That was what I had to remember. I wasn't sure of what would follow me, though. What was I most scared of? Whatever it was, I was betting Total Drama had probably taken opinions from people I knew.

As for other people? I remembered some of them. Brick was scared of the dark, Beth was scared of being covered in bugs (had the kiddie pool of worms meant she'd conquered that fear?), Scott was afraid of Fang, and by extension, sharks, and I was pretty sure Sierra was scared of losing Cody. Lightning didn't have to tell me what he was scared of, because I knew before we even started dating that he was afraid of losing, or being labeled a loser. Not surprising – I met his dad, who was very proud of his triumphs, but came down hard when he lost anything.

Chef dropped each of us off at a different place. He went alphabetically, so I was dropped off third. I had the chance to whisper "Be brave" to Sierra and Lightning and give Scott a threatening "I'm watching you" motion before Chef dragged me out of his jeep and tossed me into a little clearing in the middle of the forest. Or maybe further away, since I was pretty sure I'd never seen this part of the forest before, not even during the leech/paintball fight.

I momentarily wondered exactly where camp was from where I was. I knew that the forest was north of the campground and the dock was south..but with the sun down, that didn't help me. I figured I'd have to just start walking and find landmarks to make sure I wasn't walking in a circle (Actually, I found the tree with a fork in it that Katie and Sadie had found two years ago when they got lost in the woods).

But before I could start walking, it started raining. Even when I left the clearing and was surrounded by trees, the rain still pounded down upon me. Soon my hair was dripping, and my clothes clung to me. And that was the good part.

The bad part? Lightning, for one. Thunder, for another. Both words are right up there in my vocabulary with "nightmare" and "phobia".

Yeah, I guessed it was the phobia factor part of the challenge. I was, after all, terrified of thunderstorms. We'd just been lucky with the weather on the island so far. I just had to get back to camp, pretending that I wasn't scared of being struck by lightning. So it probably wasn't actually raining – just something like that electronic hail cloud they made in the first season. But the thing was...knowing where all the rain, sound and light came from didn't make me any less scared.

What else could I really say about the challenge? Well, everyone made it back before sunrise. Not all of us conquered our fears, though. Brick had dark circles under his eyes (well, we probably all did, but he reached panda levels), it was easy to tell Sierra had been crying, Beth was still flicking some ladybugs off her legs, and Lightning looked slightly dazed (he told me later he'd had a shock collar put on him, trained to shock him if he ran any faster than a certain speed, making him sure to lose – his worst fear, of course, was losing).

Scott? Smugness was written all over his face. Of course he had to have invincibility.

We spent the next day free, having the campfire ceremony that night. I caught up on my sleep in the morning. After that, I chatted to some of my former teammates, who told me what had been going on. Brick had just been dropped in the darkest part of the forest and had taken a while to calm himself down. Beth had been followed by a blanket of bugs – she'd actually made it back to camp first, but Scott had won because he'd managed to shake Fang and she still had a few bugs sticking with her. Sierra's face was still tear-stained, and she explained that the route she'd taken had sounds piped in – mostly some of the insulting or opposing things Cody had said in World Tour confessionals, or even when he was angry with her, reminding her always that Coderra was in her imagination. Then I told them about my fear of thunderstorms.

After that little talk, I spent the rest of the day with Lightning. I think we were both hyperaware that we were likely to be separated soon, so we spent extra time having fun together. We showed off for each other, played stupid games, talked and cuddled, then we made out on the grass in the forest.

"It's like being in one of those fairy tales." I giggled. "What's the one where the kids die in each others' arms?"

"We ain't gonna die, girl." Lightning said firmly. "We're living the dream – winning!"

I laughed again. "I didn't mean it like that." I reminded him. "I was just thinking – we're lying in the woods together, just like those two children, who were left in the woods and then died holding each other." I nestled closer to him, but the afternoon passed far too quickly.

I deliberated long and hard over who to vote for that night. I knew for a fact that my friends were probably all going to vote for Lightning, but I couldn't do something like that. I couldn't vote Scott. Even if I did, I'd be wasting my vote. And I couldn't bring myself to vote for any of my friends. So, in the end, I voted for myself. I was pretty sure no one else would vote for me, after all.

I was right. Not just about myself – about everything. There were four votes for Lightning, one vote for Beth, and my vote. It was truly an awful thing to watch my boyfriend walk down the dock again. At least, we managed to get a real kiss in, instead of having it cut short like last year. We kissed before Chris flushed Lightning.

Oh, and Beth offered to be the one in exile. She hadn't gone yet, and she didn't want to shirk her turn. I just had to hope she'd remember not to bring anything back.

As for who Scott took to the spa hotel? He chose Sierra. A weird choice, we all thought. Even Sierra gave him a weird look, but she wasn't going to pass up a free night in luxury.

After all, you'd have to really be crazy to say no to that.

And as we all know, Sierra is completely sane. I know the chapter was short, but I'm sorry, not an easy challenge. In case you didn't know, the movie franchise I was referencing was A Nightmare On Elm Street. Often, the dream sequences play on fears or interests the characters have, like Debbie's fear of bugs (she turns into a roach and then gets squished) and it suggests that Dan thinks his mom hates his girlfriend, and poor Greta chokes when she's force-fed her insides – I think it's to do with her mom wanting her to model.

I'm not really looking forward to the Obsta-Kill Course, either, but well, we'll try it next chapter. See you then!