BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
WARNING: This story contains some graphic content in further chapters
He wrote a fake signature for the permission slip, but he didn’t remember whose signature he wrote.
Wednesday came around and they were given the results of the survey. He was sorted into Group D with two girl classmates, two boy classmates, and two chaperones.
One name stuck out to him for some reason. Dmitri Viakro. He vaguely remembered Dmitri being that one redhead with bright red eyes that seemed just as lonely as he was. He looked over at Dmitri and saw that he was looking at his paper. He could easily see Dmitri’s uncomfortable face. It might’ve been that spirit that was standing on his shoulders, but he was pretty sure it was because of the contents of his paper.
He had a strange gut feeling that he should’ve remembered Dmitri better than he already did. It was possible that Dmitri was an old friend because of his strange feeling and the urge to go comfort Dmitri.
He never really considered that anyone would’ve been friends with him in the past because most people looked at him in a weird way. He guessed that it was because of his strange behavior or it was because he kept tripping on spirits that no one else could see. Now that he suspected a relationship with Dmitri might’ve existed, he felt a small vine of guilt wrap around his heart. Despite him being antisocial he was quite observative. According to his memory, Dmitri got good grades except for English, was introverted, and always was doing something with his notebook. He actually remembered stealing a glance at the notebook when Dmitri accidentally left it on his desk. The page was filled with symbols arranged in a way that made it look like writing. He guessed that it was a code or a language that Dmitri came up with, and judging by the format it was probably a diary or journal.
When Friday came people seemed to pay attention to him, but not in a good way. Everyone was quite surprised that a person like him would like to go on the trip. They were also surprised that he actually had money. He had found enough money to buy all of the supplies that he was missing in the unused study. The cottage’s pantry seemed to be infinite and would never run out of food anytime soon, so he never went out to buy food. The cottage also seemed to supply him with money because whenever he looked in the desk in the study it had just enough money for whatever he needed. In fact, now that he thought about it, the cottage he lived in supplied almost everything that he ever needed. The bathroom was never short of toilet paper, there was always fresh water in the well outside, and everything looked like they were new. He never really questioned that since it was probably some kind of illegal magic that the old owners used, but he wasn’t protesting. Despite having money, he was too lazy to get new clothes, so he decided to wear part of his school uniform, a dress shirt, a blue tie, and brown work pants.
The first day was mostly unpacking and getting a feel of the camp. The boys had two cabins and the girls had two cabins, so that meant he would share a cabin with about four other boys. He witnessed the true chaos of his classmates, discovered what a bunk bed was, and tried to create a theory on why people fought over top and bottom bunk.
It took him a while to adjust to living with other people, but the main thing that puzzled him was how everyone had so much energy. In school, most of them were calm except for the class clown, those extremely hyper individuals, and the ones that liked to talk a lot. The cafeteria was loud, but he just assumed that it was because of all of the talking. Now that he had to live with these people for about three days, he questioned if his own behavior was normal.
Most of his classmates were excited about the idea of living in the wilderness, but he didn’t find it interesting. It was just like living in his cottage except a little different. His classmates were the spirits that wandered around his home and he had to participate in camp activities. Most of his classmates had a father and a mother figure in their life, so this felt like living on their own without parental guidance. He was already used to it, and the only worry of his was trying to socialize with his classmates. There was definitely going to be some team games that would involve communication or something like that, and he wasn’t going to have it.