CHAPTER 14

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By the time the first Friday night of the summer had come around, I was exhausted. This day was supposed to be full of excitement for the weekend. Normally, I would have been able to look forward to hanging out with the girls and staying up late because my mom didn’t have to work the next day. Instead, my Friday night was occupied by thoughts of crawling into bed and never getting out.

My first week as Camp Alpine had been nothing but a stress-filled fiasco. It had taken a real toll on me mentally and physically. I knew the secret to surviving was all about learning the right routine to fall into. Mine just happened to be a bit different from everyone else’s. I needed extra time to sneak off and change in the morning and before soccer practice. I had to make sure that I hit the showers at just the right time too. I had to be early enough so that boys were there but late enough so that I was catching them as they were leaving. My routine still wasn’t perfect, but it was getting there. 

Friday started on a high note with the entertaining thespian club. Then, soccer practice was in the afternoon. It was tiring as usual, but it had gone smoother than I had anticipated. There was minimal head butting between Luhan and me, which was nice. I got to practice with the rest of the team for once too. There was no goofing around, only focus and determination to survive these boys. Leo had even complimented me on my hard work. I would say soccer was my huge success for the day.

After practice, everyone was loud and rowdy at dinner, excited for the first weekend at camp. Villages were planning activities and campfires. That’s all anyone could talk about. Me on the other hand, I couldn’t care less. All I wanted to do was set up a date with an ice pack and nurse my sore muscles all weekend. And that was exactly what I did after dinner. I got ice from the nurse and headed back to the village. I stretched out really good, following a few tips from Minseok, and flopped down on my bed.

I didn’t care if the others had plans. I didn’t care that I was missing out. I didn’t care that I still had hours until curfew. I knew that if I wanted to keep my sanity and live to see another day, I needed to rest.

I didn’t know how many hours I’d been asleep before I was rudely awoken. I was dragged on my feet and pushed to start walking forward. The only problem was I couldn't see anything. It's dark at night, yes, but this wasn't your average darkness. There was no moonlight; I couldn't even see the faint glimmer of hope from the emergency light in our village. All I could see was black.

"Holy . I'm blind. I can't see anything!”

“Shut up before you make things worse for yourself,” someone whispered harshly. I followed the order, afraid for my safety.

This was not good. The voice was familiar, but with my mind still in a haze and racing a mile a minute, there was no way I could place it. I assumed it was someone from my village. I hoped so, at least.

I stumbled down the steps of my cabin, after being shoved out the door. I reached up towards my face to figure out what had happened to my vision.

“Don't even think about it, Jisoo." It was Luhan's voice this time. I could have easily reached up and taken off the blindfold, but the tone in his voice sent a shiver down my spine. My arms slowly fell to my side, and I stood there confused.

"Oh our little Jisoo is so obedient," Baekhyun cooed beside me.

"The only reason I'm going along with this is because I know that animal will bite my head off if I don't. And I’m really too tired to deal with him right now." I could hear Baekhyun try to conceal his laughter. Someone shoved my head roughly from behind. Luhan had heard what I said. No surprise there.

"Besides. It's past curfew. I'm not so dumb as to make commotion and get the entire village in trouble. I feel like I've got enough enemies as it is," I rambled on.

"Baek, stop talking to him before someone hears us," Minseok's voice reached my ears.  "We're moving on."

"Here, hold their hands," Baekhyun instructed me, placing my hands into two others.

The hand in my right was clammy and the one in my left was shaking. Whoever were with me were scared less. Not to say that I wasn't nervous, but I had some idea about what was going on. It was the kind of thing you saw in the movies, where the group of new kids would get corralled together and go through initiation.

As a girl trying to hide my identity, I should have been more concerned. These idiots could ruin me.

We started walking, and soon the slightly even grass of the camp turned into uneven ground with a crunch of leaves and twigs. Things were scratching my legs as I shuffled through what I presumed to be the woods.

Suddenly, gravity took ahold of me as I tripped over a something, I fell to the ground, my hand staying in the hand of the person I front of me. I was half hanging in the air. The kid behind me stepped on my leg as he came stumbling up. I let out a stream of cuss words at the pain.

"Watch your language my friend." Baekhyun said pulling me to my feet." He put my hand back in the other person’s, telling him to hold on tight.

“When we tell you to watch out for something you need to pass it along. Stuff like this wouldn't happen if you did what you were told,” Luhan barked out from somewhere ahead of us.

Someone squeaked out a quiet sorry next to me.

We walked for a few more minutes before we were brought to a halt. We were forced to sit on the wet, damp ground; that was something I wasn't too thrilled about. At lease I was borrowing someone else's pants. If they were my own, that’d be a whole other issue.

"Listen up," Luhan's voice cut through the quiet woods. Of course he was the ringleader in all of this.

"It's time for you to prove that you are worthy of belonging to Jiri Village. Tonight you will spend the night out here with nothing but the clothes on your backs and each other. If you are wondering why you’re blindfolded, it's because we don't want any of you coming back to camp. You all better be here in the morning. You…," there was a muffled whack near me of someone being slapped hard on their body, " I want you to count to two hundred. Only when you reach that number can you remove your blindfolds. That's it. Welcome to summer camp boys."

Someone started counting and leav