Fan Fiction ❯ Atheist Camp ❯ Chapter VII ( Chapter 7 )

Atheist Camp

Chapter Seven

 

By Violet Dragon

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I dreamt again of Dominick, his handsome face looking down at me, talking to me. He had on a white tunic shirt, silky and flapping in the warm breeze. He seemed comfortable and even happy. I frowned at his expression, looking at me like some little kitten that had lost its mother.

 

“Cut it out,” I mumbled. “God, you'd think you'd let me have one night's good sleep.”

 

Dom laughed, and sat on the edge of my bed. “I'm sorry, but we need to talk again. What was that fight about the other day? I suspect I didn't teach you as well as I hoped.”

 

I rolled my eyes. “What is this complex you have that you're my `teacher'?”

 

“Because I was and am.”

 

“No, you're not.”

 

“We could have this argument all night and you could wake up even more tired, or you could take my word for it.”

 

“You're not even real, you're just a dream.” I sat up in my bed suddenly.

 

“That's a matter of opinion.” He grinned.

 

“That doesn't even make sense!” I said, exasperated, and flopped back into my cushions. I was sick of his laughing.

 

“Well, are you going to hear me out or not?” Dominick asked me.

 

“Why not?”

 

He sighed, turning slightly more serious.

 

“Be careful in the next few days.” He said to me.

 

After this, I dreamt that Allie and Jean pushed me off a cliff and I fell into a kiddy's swimming pool. A gigantic green, hairy, scabbed hand pulled me by my hand into the darkness beneath it, where another, smaller hand handed me a pack of lifesavers.

 

I woke up rather perplexed.

 

I wasn't sure if these dreams were a reflection of my bad feelings and anxiousness of the past few weeks, or if Dom's dead spirit was actually talking to me while I slept. Either way, I woke up tired every single time.

 

There was only a week left of camp to go.

 

Randy threw me sour looks every few days.

 

Fay appeared nervous and/or annoyed whenever I caught her eyes.

 

So I decided to skip the current activity of the day and hide near a stream about a mile away. It had taken me a while to figure out the best way to avoid and then run away from the camp counselors—a trial and error experiment that took me about a month to perfect after getting caught time after time. I think perhaps now the counselors have given up on me, or have taken for granted that since nothing bad has happened so far, nothing will in the future.

 

How naïve of them.

 

So I explored around the stream, dipping my feet into the running water, and chewing on grass blades. The wistfulness of this area was little appreciated, and so it was my favorite spot out of the entire area. No one I knew of had discovered it so far.

 

Suddenly, I heard noise in the bushes to my right behind me. A twig snapped soon after, and an “oof!” escaped from whatever was nearby. I stood rigid, anticipating a boy or girl about my age to emerge from the thick walls of vegetation. Although anticipated, I jumped and shouted when Jean fell down the gentle slope and into the stream beside me, causing me to fall over.

 

“God damn it Jean, what the hell?” I swore, spitting water out of my mouth.

 

“Yeah, sorry about that…” he mumbled.

 

“What are you doing here?” I stood up, pushing his light body off mine.

 

“I was bored. So I left and I saw you leave and so I decided to follow you, and I was going to jump out of the bushes because at the time it seemed funny but then I got caught on a branch or something long and sharp and ended up… falling on you.” He snickered.

 

“Well, what do you want?” I snapped, obviously perturbed.

 

“Just to hang,” he shrugged, looking downwardly defeated. “I just haven't talked to you for a couple days… and there's only a week of camp left.”

 

“Yeah. We can get together after this is done, you know…”

 

Another shrug.

 

“Is something bothering you?”

 

A roll of the eyes.

 

“Ah, Jesus…” I moaned.

 

“There's something wrong with me Eric…” he started out and then sat down hard on a flat rock.

 

“Isn't there with all of us…”

 

“Eric, I'm serious, there's something the matter with me. I'm so angry all the time. The only thing that doesn't piss me off is you.”

 

I sat opposite him on the dampened grass and weeds, and asked him gently, “What are you so angry about?”

 

“That's the fucking problem!” He slammed to his feet and spat out viciously at me. “I just don't know what the problem is, exactly. I know what they all say about how teenagers are lost and all of us juveniles should feel like this at one point or another, and you're not alone, and you'll grow out of it. But that just… it doesn't speak to me. I want to be told that this is a real feeling, but I will eventually conquer it—not that it's a generic piece of adolescence.”

 

I realized then that contrary to popular belief, many people felt more alone than ever when they were told how a myriad of other people were just like them.

 

“Eric,” he looked down into my eyes with a fierce gaze, “I need your help. You have to tell me something. I can't move on without your help.”

 

This felt like a revelation, but had no deeper movement in myself. “Jean, I can't help you… only you can… help yourself.” I felt ashamed of myself as soon as I said that cliché.

 

He stared at me for a moment, although I didn't look up to face him, I felt his stare. And then I heard him move away and, most likely, walk back to the camp.

 

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Several hours or more while we gathered around the campfire and our fearless leaders told us odd and funny tales of their adolescence and finding their own un-spirituality, I saw Jean come to sit by me. We were very far in the cold back row, and Allie was already to my right, which surprised me thoroughly that Jean would sit by us. Allie as well looked a little shocked.

 

“What's up?” I said as though nothing had happened.

 

“Nothing,” the boy replied coldly.

 

I sighed and noticed a loose hair in one of Allie's dreads. Taking between thumb and finger, I fondled it until the little hair balled up and took part of her long lock.

 

I saw Randy making rude gestures at Allie, who rolled her eyes and sighed at me as I let go of her dread.

 

“He's such an asshole… people like him need to go to church,” she giggled. I smirked along with her and slowly raised my middle finger to Randy, whose grin turned quickly sour and mouthed something rude at me.

 

Jean remained quiet and eye-glazed next to me. Randy threw a piece of paper at him, and I felt chills run through my spine, and my ear rang slightly.

 

Jean looked up and shot a threatening glare at Randy, who smirked more arrogantly than ever and winked at blew a sickening kiss at my friend.

 

“Just ignore him…” I said to Jean softly. “Please.”

 

“I can't stand him… he's the one who picked on my brother so much when he went here.” He growled.

 

“He doesn't matter.”

 

“To people like me, Eric, yes he does.”

 

I took off the pale gray gloves on my hands and stuffed them in my sweatshirt's pocket. My palms were sweating and Allie put her hand inside one of them while laughing at one of the counselor's odd antics.

 

“Jean—” I started to say, but was interrupted quite rudely.

 

Randy came and sat down next to Jean, draping an arm around his stiff shoulders. “So what are you two girls chatting about over here?” He looked at me with a death gaze.

“Fuck off, Randy,” Allie leaned over my shoulder to spit at him.

 

“Aw, now Jean, you don't feel that way do ya? Because as far as I'm concerned, faggoty runs in the family…”

 

“If you don't leave me alone right now I'm going to do something drastic.” Jean told him.

 

He considered this for a moment, trying to look deep in thought, and then pouted a little. “Um, like what?”

 

I saw my friend grin a smile so disturbingly unlike him it shook my heart; his face was pale and his hair uncombed, his eyes glazed over. He turned his gaze up to Randy and pulled a flat, shiny metal object from within his coat. Randy's mouth went wide and tried to shove away from Jean in time, and I yelled out something inconceivable.

 

A few girls screamed when they saw the kitchen knife, and Randy was on the ground trying to scramble away from Jean. I ran for Jean, who was swinging his arm in precise movements toward Randy, and tried to grab at him.

 

“Fuck, Jean!” I screamed at him. I guess he was in trouble after all. Sometimes I can't tell the difference.

 

I managed to snatch his left arm with my own, but he swung around to face me, knife pointed toward my face, and I flung my right hand up as if to protect myself.

 

More people screamed, I heard them yell and call for an ambulance and even saw someone throw my Jean to the ground. I realized that his knife had gone straight through my one perfect hand and gasped loudly.

 

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I realize this part must have gone rather fast (maybe rushed)… and I don't know if any of you actually care of not, but the reason for that would be, often times when dramatic things happen in our lives, they happen in a flash. I didn't really mean for this to happen as I wrote this, but I think that was basically what it was like for Eric this chapter.

Also, I so did not edit this.