"Celeste?" I stopped in my tracks as I heard David's confused shout. He was staring up the road, and I did as well. I saw not only Celeste, but all of the other campers, as if they had been waiting for us to leave. I was too shocked to see them to notice that I had stepped outside of camp.
I heard them yelling to me. "Come on, Adelaide!" I heard Rachel yell, her bandana whipping from back to front in the night breeze.
"You can do it!" added Caroline, her blonde curls bouncing as she jumped up and down.
I glanced down, my mouth dropping open in shock. My foot was standing outside of camp. I slowly lifted my other one. Their shouts, now accompanied by David's, encouraged me. I started running across the road, imagining I was in a race at school, the other girls cheering me on. I felt my long legs take me across the road, away from camp, my hair flying free through the night air... at least, until I bumped into the others.
They were cheering, almost louder than when I had freed them. The claps and stomps were so loud I was almost deafened. They clapped me on the back and cheered my name, thanking me and congratulating me over and over. One of them knocked off my baseball cap. David hugged me and congratulated me as well, though he was as confused as I was.
"What... what's going on?" I managed to yell once they quietened down a little.
"You did it, Adelaide!" Rachel beamed. "You did it! You broke the curse!"
"I... I what?" I gaped.
"You broke the curse!" Celeste repeated, beaming. "You're the first one to break the curse of Camp Starlight!"
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
"You're the first one to willingly look up at the stars," Rachel explained. "To make sure someone else could escape instead of you. Nobody else wanted to be the one to be trapped here. They all wanted to leave. They started fighting and yelling at each other. It ended up with all of them looking up, too tempted by the stars' influence. We tried to tell everyone who came that we could all leave as long as only one of them looked up, but nobody wanted to be that person."
"Until you came," Celeste continued. "You were willing to be stuck here, as long as your brother could escape. Your selflessness broke the curse, once and for all."
"But... but that can't be right," I spluttered, not keeping up. David was gaping in astonishment. "I can't be the first person who did something so... so obvious, right? Surely they'd be fine with one person being stuck here as long as everyone else left?"
"Oh, you'd think so," said Rachel. "I was so close to being that person. I was about to volunteer to look up, until the influence of the starlight overtook them and they all looked up at the same time. At that point, I decided I might as well look up as well."
"We might have exaggerated a little," Celeste admitted, brushing her long braids out of her face. "Maybe there weren't as many campers here as we made it out to be. There were only about... four groups of them here before you and your brother came."
"Four groups?" I gaped.
"But it was made up for by the amount of time that passed before a new one came," Rachel quipped. "Most of them were selfish. Maybe it's a good thing there were so few people here. It meant there was less arguing over who should look up."
"Why... why didn't you tell us before?" I demanded, feeling annoyance spread through me. "That'd be useful information, don't you think?"
"We thought it wouldn't work if you already knew," Celeste explained. "It didn't work last time they told everyone. They all ended up being stuck here anyway. It can't be known beforehand, and just done out of obligation. It has to be done out of pure selflessness."
"You broke the curse, Adelaide." I heard Natalie speak up. For the first time, there was a genuine smile over her face.
I felt overwhelmed. I hugged a bunch of the campers as we stayed there under the night sky, crying and cheering and laughing. Even Russell and his friends were overjoyed, slapping me high fives. I hugged David hardest of all. He thanked me more than anyone. I felt myself smiling as well, despite the anger I still felt at the campers for everything they had put us through. My relief was stronger than my anger.
"We're free," Ivy smiled, her freckles standing out under the moonlight. "Now there's only one question..."
We stared down the dark, long road disappearing into the night as it winded away from us, our eyes widening. I remembered how long the bus ride had been, and Gloomsdale was the closest town from here.
"How do we return home?"
Kind of a twist ending, but not really, more a bittersweet ending. A lot of the ones I've written end with a joke instead of a full twist ending, and are a lot less of a downer than most Goosebumps books. They're also twice the length. This one and the Holly and Ivy one are both 30k, and I've written two others that are 40k. I'm kind of surprised.