Chapter 1:
3 DAYS EARLIER:
It's 6 am and all I want in the world right now is to go back to sleep. Outside I can hear the faint sound of the rooster reminding me I can't.
Still half asleep I somehow manage to get up and get dressed. I turn my wrist up to my face and see it's only been 5 minutes. I stare across from me into the dirty mirror. My eyes seem to be blacker than usual, accompanied with a slight shade of dark purple which symbolize sleep deprivation. I reached down to grab a brush and slowly start to brush the messy auburn haystack on my head.
A few moments later, the two other girls who I'm forced to share a room with start to get up.
"Rise and shine bitch!" says one as she passes through me, almost throwing me to the floor.
That whore. Her name is Rose and she is the cruelest human being on earth. Next to that other blonde in the room whose name I still haven't learned.
They both move around the room changing outfits almost every 5 minutes, their morning ritual. As soon as I finished with my hair I grabbed my black backpack and went outside.
The camp counselors don't let anyone leave their rooms until the official breakfast bell rings, but luckily our room is right next to the woods, so I have at least 20 minutes to myself before I'm forced to join everyone else.
As I walk into the woods, I faintly drag my fingers across every tree I pass. Sighing, I slump down on the tree stump I usually sit at and quietly hum to myself.
These past weeks have been hell.
It all started when I came from school one day, to my parents reading a brochure. My mom smoking and my dad drinking from his glass of wine, nothing seemed out of place until they called my name.
Usually, I come home from school, walking, to a house echoing silence. I hide in my room all day, the only room in the house that doesn't reek of smoke and or alcohol, and never say a word to my parents. Not that they're actually my parents.
It's been at least a whole year since I haven't said word to any off them, so them calling me to them surely felt off.
As I walked to them they both gave me chilling smiles.
"Sam! We have great news!" says Sheila.
"Uh what is it?... Mom?" I manage to utter.
Tom handed me a brochure with a picture of a camp.
"We're sending you to camp this summer" he says.
"I mean let's be honest Sam, you have no friends so I doubt you had any plans anyway! You know how busy we are with our job, and we just can't afford having you here being nothing but a bother, you understand right?"
It took me a while to soak it all in. My parents didn't want me around for 3 months, so they decided to send me away.
"But... I don't want to?" I whispered, knowing my opinion didn't matter.
Tom gave me a look I wasn't sure meant,
"Sam. You have no choice." He said
"But..." I looked down at the brochure and read the first page:
Camp sunshine!
Where your kids are sure to have a blast!
A picture of a camp house and some kids , who seemed too happy, covered the whole first page.
"Do you want to pack yourself, or should the maid do it? Silvia!" but by the time she was done speaking I was already upstairs. According to the brochure I had 5 days to pack.
