Trading Places

One-Shot

Hello readers, you'll notice while reading that when the creature is speaking that the font is bold or italicised but that is because it's switching between voices of the souls that make up the creature.

This is probably the quietest moment in Camp Landow's history. Probably in all of summer's history. There's always the noise of garrulous and bustling campers, hands smacking mosquitoes, screeching birds, the blaring of the camp director's voice over the loudspeaker but today... there was no noise. If you dropped a feather you could hear it as it landed on the ground. The first camper to awaken was a very dazed and confused Hailee. She always had her friend shoving her out of bed at five am even though camp activities didn't start until eight.

"The sunrise is amazing to watch Hails. I wouldn't do this if it wasn't important." She would say. To her, it was important every morning but apparently not this one because the sun was already high in the sky. Don't get her wrong, the extra sleep was well appreciated but that didn't provide any relief to her worried thoughts. Maybe she upset Nia in some way and she's getting the cold shoulder. She got out of her bed to look for her friend for answers. She climbed up the ladder and to her surprise, she found her friend asleep. It was easier to find Nia then she thought it would be.

She tapped and shoved her, trying to wake her up.

"Nia. Nia. Niiiiiaaaaa. NIA, WAKE UP!" Hailee whisper yelled. Her friend is the lightest sleeper she knew. If you moved your foot from under the cover to get up, right before it would touch the ground she would speak even if you knew she was asleep seconds ago.

Getting no response from shaking her, Hailee stopped her efforts after realising they were futile. For someone bundled in a blanket, Nia was extremely cold. She was about to climb down and get her blanket to throw over her friend but in her moment of observation, she took notice of the nonexistent rise and fall of her friend's chest. In fact, Nia wasn't even letting out the light snores that Nia claimed were a major step up from the tiger sounds she made as a child.

The thought of her friend not breathing crossed her mind and it struck fear in her heart. Why would her friend not be breathing? Maybe staring harder could work because her eyes were lying to her in these glances. There had to be another option. There was probably a subtle rise and fall that she wasn't trying hard enough to see but when she saw nothing, she knew she had to check to see if her suspicions were true.

Hoping and praying to anybody in the sky that would listen to her that her friend was still breathing, she raised a hand to Nia's mouth and nose. Nothing. Nothing crossing her thoughts, nothing to say, nothing to give her hope that this wasn't true... nothing coming from Nia's lungs and out her mouth as the CO2 that they learned about in biology class. Hailee's face held a pallid and wan expression. She could have been a statue had it not been for her erratic breathing pattern.

She climbed down the ladder and racked her brain for any possible answer to why her friend was dead. There was no trace of anything. She needed someone else to check. Maybe her morning brain has created demented delusions of her friend dead. Hailee went to tap the camper she remembered was named Eliza but her fingertips grazed cold skin, just like Nia's. She knew this meant one thing when paired the same motionless chest as well.

Then panic struck. She checked all the other campers that were in the Butterfly cabin. She shouted and whistled, slammed dressers closed, shook the others, everything she could possibly do. All the same results and still no answer was given to Hailee as to why this was the case. She walked out of the cabin with a blank stare.

"Look! Bryce, there's someone over there!" A shout brought Hailee out of her daze. She looked in the direction of the shout, only to see a petite girl with chestnut coloured hair jogging towards her. The girl checked her out as if to make sure she was really there... really alive.