(Daniel's POV)
The morning came faster then I wanted it to, I always felt like I never got any sleep. I never looked tired though, and I managed to function on little to no sleep all the time. It was something I learned how to do my whole life, back when I was younger I never actually slept a full night,the beds they used to put us in were extremely uncomfortable and unsafe, not to mention there were four kids sleeping in one twin sized bed at any given time. Thinking about this made me feel a little sick, and I needed to put it out of my mind before I started the day. I got dressed, fixed my bleach blonde hair and styled it upwards as I normally did, checked out of the motel and made sure my things were packed up in my car before peeling out of the town and back to Camp Campbell. The drive was quiet, accept I was humming. A tune I had heard somewhere before, I only knew some lyrics to the accompanying song; you could be my Juliet because you're gonna end up dead, I can be your Romeo because your family wants my head...
I pulled into the parking area of the camp again this morning, parking my car grey Ford Fusion in one try while getting out the things I would need for today. I needed my clip board, and my preaching notebook with all the important chants and information in it about Zeemuug and my beliefs. Once the kids gained my trust, I would be really easy me to feed them any knowledge with them happily agreeing to me. This task would be done by Friday, Saturday being the absolute latest. When I got to the camp, Gwen was lining everyone up outside and doing attendance. All the kids looked tired and bored, and I knew I could swoop in and start making the kids happy thus earning major trust points. I stood beside Gwen and waved, smiling at the kids.
"Howdy campers! How are you all doing this morning?" I waved to them, a child with what looked like a space helmet waved back at me.
"Howdy do Daniel!" he spoke in a echoed voice because of the glass bowl on his head. He actually looked adorable. Most of the other campers just groaned. Gwen welcomed me back and told me she was just finishing up attendance and then would break the kids into two groups for the day, one group being mine and one being hers. I noticed that that Max kid was drinking coffee out of a mug, I raised my eyebrow at him.
"Umm, Max, is it? Should you be drinking coffee at such a young age?" I asked him politely, I wanted to see if maybe he had some kind of family life issues that I could appeal to to make him more susceptible to my tricks. He just looked at me, not hesitated at all.
"Should you be worshipping fucking Satan at such a young age?" he asked me, I frowned at him and just decided to call him out on his language. Max was certainly going to be a hard one to break, but I felt like I could do it.
"Ok, so Space kid, Nikki, Neil, Harrison and Nerris, you guy are going to go on a hike with Daniel and then play around at the lake when you're finished and everyone else come with me we're going to watch one of Preston's plays so I can finish writing my book chapter." Gwen told everyone, walking away with the rest of the kids.
"Don't you mean your doctor who Fanfiction?" Max argued back, Gwen growled at him, telling him to fuck off. I looked at the kids in front of me, Nikki was a green haired girl who was following Max yesterday and Neil was the lanky one. The other three I didn't know accept the one had that helmet on his head and the other two were dressed strangely. I looked off in all directions and placed my hands on my hips.
"So, where do you guys want to hike to?" I asked in a cheerful voice.
"Can we go on a quest to destroy the ring on top of mount Doom in Mordor?" a girl with a weird blue hat on asked me. I gave her a questioning look, not familiar as to what she was talking about.
"I... umm.." but before I could finish I was interrupted by a boy in a black top at.
"Enough with your fictional magic Nerris, obviously Daniel isn't going to let us go looking for a fictional mountain so we can pretend to through a ring of power into it." The boy spoke, Neil pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache, but before anyone else could say anything I interjected.
"Hey, sure we can go looking for mount Doom in More Door to get rid of a power bracelet thing if that's what you guys want to do this morning!" I told them. The two kids cheered after the darker skinned one corrected me about how to say Mordor and that it was a ring not a bracelet. I took all 5 kids up the hiking trail Gwen showed me yesterday and pretended that we were on a quest. The two kids who has suggested this were enjoying it, I found out there name's too. The one with the top hat was named Harrison, and the one with the wizard hat was named Nerris. They were jumping around pretending to use magic and fight off evil creatures and I was pretending along with them. Neil kept telling me about how magic isn't scientifically proven to be a real thing and that encouraging this type of behavior encouraged the two kids to become unemployed in the future. Neil really wasn't much fun. At least Nikki and Space Kid were running around and playing in the forest.
"There it is!" Nerris shouted, pointing to a hole in the ground at the clearing we had stopped at. Harrison jumped in front of her, holding a rock in his hand.
"We must destroy it!" Harrison shouted, grabbing Nerris' hand and running with her to the hole. Nikki launched herself in front of them and roared loudly.
"Kelsey, the mother of dragons won't let you pass!" Nikki roared, Nerris crossed her arms.
"Nikki! We're not playing Game Of Thrones!" she shouted, Nikki looked at them confused.
"We're not?" she asked, Harrison tossed the rock into the hole and waved his arms at Nikki.
"Does it look like any of us are fucking our family members?!" he shouted, Nikki shrugged at him.
"Well I don't know what we're playing" she told them, they started to get into a big argument about Lord Of the Rings and Game of Thrones while Space kid just started shouting Star Wars so I thought I would try and stop them.
"Children! I have a great idea! How about tonight we watch all these great movies and we vote on which on we all think is the best?" I asked, the kids stopped arguing and smiled.
"Yay! Movie night!" Nikki cheered. Neil rolled his eyes and shook his hands and his head.
"You guys do whatever, I think I'll go find Max later..." Neil spoke, walking back down the hill. I took the kids along with me and we all laughed and joked and talk about nerdy things. I had to actually look up a lot of TV shows when I started trying to brainwash kids, because when I was younger we weren't allowed TV. Zeemuug's teachings were the only things we needed to know and fictional television was a waste of time. I knew about Lord Of the Rings and stuff like that from websites like tumblr, I only needed to know enough to get through to kids, and it seems like these kids had taken the bait. All accept Neil, but I still had a lot of time to get everyone on my side.
We went down to the lake after as Gwen suggested. The rest of the day was fairly ordinary, not much to say about it. I kept Nikki, Harrison, Nerris and Space Kid on my side all day, and when night time came around I spoke to Gwen about our planned movie night. She told me that the TV in our cabin should work for that but I had to drive into town to get the movies from the electronics store. And that's precisely what I did, because I needed to make sure I had a cover up just in case anyone got wise about the legitimacy of my movie night. Once I got the movies, I hopped back into my car and started it up. Before I could drive back to the camp, my phone rang. It was Simon, he always called for updates now a days. I picked it up and put it on speaker phone as I pulled out of the town.
"Mr. Simon, you're going to have to make this quick because the signal is hit or miss out here." I spoke, Simon chuckled.
"Well, that sort of works out for you doesn't it? Won't have to worry about no stupid kids calling the police." Simon spoke in his clear, almost fake sounding voice. I agreed with him and continued to drive.
"It think I could be able to get them all on Friday but don't keep me to that date, there are a few kids here that will take longer to turn than the others," I started "You know compliance isn't easy to get sometimes." I told him. Simon let out an mhmm and then told me to call him if anything came up. I hung up the phone and drove a little more until I got a really weird feeling. I pulled over just before the camp, parking the car on the side of the road. I didn't turn it off yet, just left it running, the engine still roaring. I turned around in my seat, undid my buckle and started to climb to the back. Just as I thought.
I ripped the blanket off of the ground in the back seat to reveal Max, curled up and hiding. He screamed and tried to stand but I grabbed onto his hood and yanked him, sitting him down in the passenger seat. He screamed and kicked his limbs at me, trying to escape. I locked the doors and reached into my pocket, pulling out my pocket knife. I had a nicer one in my suitcase but this would have to do.
"Dude what the fuck?!" the child screamed, I flicked the knife open and held it up to Max's throat.
"I have killed over a hundred kids don't you think for a second you're any different, so I suggest you listen up alright?" I growled, Max started to hyperventilate, and I lowered my knife.
"We're going back to Camp now, and if I find out you told anyone about anything that happened here you and all your friends are going to die faster then you can say Kool aid you understand that Max?" I threatened, Max went to go retaliate but I pushed the blade against his neck again. He took a deep breath.
"Yes. I understand you fucking sociopath!" Max shouted the words, and I slowly brought the knife down, flicking the blade back inside and putting it in my pocket. I took the car out of park and started to drive up to the camp. I parked the car where it was before and turned off the vehicle.
"I swear to Zeemuug Max, if you try anything funny I will find out and you will be staring down the business end of a blade, and so will your stupid little friends. I see everything, so don't underestimate me." I threatened Max again, making sure he wouldn't squeal. He just nodded, eyes wide, mouth half open as he stepped out of the car. I was a little worried he would tell his friends, but I wasn't too worried. If he did, they would have to tell Gwen and then Gwen would have to question me about it. The way this job has been going, shouldn't wouldn't suspect it. I would just have to lie to her and then I would know that Max did in fact tell and I would off him and whoever he told.
I gathered up Nikki, Space Kid, Nerris and Harrison and brought them all into my cabin to watch the movies we had suggested earlier. However, I opened a different case and put in a different dvd. The screen went to static, the sounds were warped and sadistic. There were screams and chants, Zeemuug will save us, he is the one and only, the beginning and end... the kids stopped talking and just stared at the TV, eyes as wide as ever. I let them sit like this for about 5 minutes, and then shut the static off. Silence reigned. I smiled and went to put in the real movies, covering my tracks up further. When I sat down on the floor beside the kids there eyes followed me. Smiles arose on their cute little faces and they all said something in unison, something that told me my plan was working.
"We love you Daniel!"
A/N I'm sorry Daniel is a crazy bitch. My boi Max...💕