He's Crazy from the Beginning

Chapter 1: Innocent Beginning

A passing cloud changes how the world looks as he opens the locked wooden door with an old credit card. Time seems to have gone back as we enter the old summer camp's main building. It's falling apart, but the old wood still seems to be full of life. As we step inside it looks as if the campers just got up and left in the middle of everything. We're in the old art room and there are projects sprawled all around the room from the early 2000's, some only half done. I pick up a rock painted with someone's initials and feel the energy surge through me that this camp must've had.

"I love it," I say to him.

"I knew you would," he replied, smiling.

The initials on the rock seemed to weigh tons as I set it back on the art table. They were just two letters but I could feel every intention put into every brush strike. He tapped on my shoulder and I jumped- breaking me out of my trance. 

"There's something else I want to show you."

I nodded and followed him around the art room wall and into a dark corridor that led out onto a large wooden stage overlooking what must've been where the campers ate their meals. He knew I loved old stuff. I had met Bow at a thrift shop admiring things. We were both a bit odd, but I felt like that was a good thing. I glanced down at my warm maroon jacket and grinned a little, it was the one I had gotten when we had first met and I loved it with all my heart. I was always a little awkward with my mom jeans, combat boots, and striking blue hair, but he accepted it all and even encouraged me when I wanted to get another piercing.  

We'd only been dating for a couple weeks but I felt like I'd known him for years. He was truly like something out of a movie and I couldn't help but be swept away. I was always curious about this old summer camp from the way he talked about it. His parents used to be the caretakers of it when we was little and the camp had shut down already, before they had both died in a house fire near the building we were in now... He'd barely escaped as a seven year old. The way he told it made me cry, but somehow he didn't. When he told me he wanted to take me here I was thrilled, the fact that he trusted me and wanted to share this with me meant something. I'd always chosen the wrong boy, the abusive type- but Bow, I wanted to have a future with him. 

He tugged at my sleep and spun me around on the stage. It had old velvet curtains like an ancient move theater from the 20's. The mess hall around it was filled with wood canoes that seemed to be falling apart and a dirty, rusty sink in the middle of the room that stuck out like a sore thumb. I smiled at him and then jumped off the stage and onto the ground to start snooping. He smiled right back and jumped to the ground after me. We both felt the rush of a forgotten time as we explored the canoes so I was startled when I heard the sink start to turn on. I didn't know if my mind was playing tricks on me or not until the room started to spin.

The room stopped spinning and was suddenly filled with a sort of heavenly light, there was noise and life... but no Bow. I looked around and saw that instead canoes there were girls at wooden dining tables table, giggling and chowing down on some kind of chicken and green bean dinner. They had blue uniforms on and I knew instantly they were campers... but how? I walked down the row of tables slowly, not really knowing what to do with myself. Suddenly a girl with curly red hair and freckles plastered across her nose snapped her head around and looked me directly in the eyes.

"Leave."

She started quietly and just repeated the word over and over again. Then her whole table joined in and they started to get louder and louder. One by one each girl had the heads pointed at me and in unison were yelling at me to leave. I started to panic and fell to the floor, covering my head with my arms and let out a scream. They started pounding on the tables and it sounded like there fists were getting closer and closer. I couldn't look. And as soon as it had started the room was silent again.

 I unwrapped my arms from around my head and was back on the cement floor surrounded by the dusty canoes and chests. And Bow, he was standing right over me.

"Did you see that? Any of that?" I ask, panicked.

"See what? I just saw you collapse and rushed over to see if you were okay." 

"The girls... they were... never mind," I said feeling embarrassed.

"You were probably just imagining things, it is stuffy in here after all."

That had to have been it, either that or I was crazy and that couldn't be right. He wanted to go checkout the costume room so I agreed as he walked down another hall. I put the canoe I had been looking at back up right and followed behind. There was a strange feeling in my fingertips, kind of like when you get the feeling back into them after they've been numb, as I looked back one more time. I swore I could've seen a red drop come out of the faucet before running down the hall to catch up with Bow.