(7/10)
Max's POV
My eyes fluttered open and I saw darkness. I was scared that I had gone blind, but I could see a thin bar of light coming from under a door and small slits of a light coming in between curtains over a nearby window.
Was I in the hospital? The memories of Daniel and the fire came flooding back. Where was everyone else? Did Daniel make it?
"Doctor!" I screamed, but found my voice was raspy and dry. "Doctor!"
A few seconds passed and the door was pushed open, light flooding the room. The light switch was flipped on, and what I assumed to be a nurse stepped in.
"Where are my friends?" I asked.
"Just, stay calm. Do you have any parent's we can contact?" He asked.
"No. Just... where are my friends? Did they make it?" I pressured him to answer the question.
"Yes, everyone is alive. All of you have pretty bad burns and you inhaled a lot of smoke. You're the second awake." He explained, making a note on the clipboard he was clutching.
"Who was the first?" I spat.
"The blonde man." The nurse smiled.
"He's alive?!" I screamed.
"Woah kiddo! Settle down. I know you might be rejoiced but-"
"Do I sound fucking rejoiced to you?" I interrupted him.
"I'm going to go grab your doctor..." he trailed off and sped out of the room, barely remembering to shut the door behind him.
I looked down at myself. There were bandages covering most of my arms, and my usual dark blue hoodie had been replaced with a mint green hospital gown. I didn't have anything connected to my arms, so I crawled out of bed and winced at the pain in my legs when my feet came into contact with the cold floor.
There were very few bandages on my legs, but it still hurt. I limped my way over to the window and yanked back the curtain.
"Wha...?" My jaw hit the floor.
This wasn't Sleepy Peak. I was on what seemed to be the third floor of the hospital, and no other building in the area seemed to be higher than that. All the buildings were spread out, and there only seemed to be one road with few cars. There was still a decent amount of light left in the sky, but you could tell that night was approaching.
That nurse was going to return with the doctor soon, so I had to make a run for it while I could. I realized that David's bag wasn't in the room, so I had nothing. I pulled the curtain shut again and slipped out into the hallway.
I tried to make it look like I was supposed to be roaming the halls, but I still got side glances from many passing employees.
I have to find Daniel's room.
As I was slinking around the halls, I saw a large black and white photo of a train. It had lettering stamped at the bottom: 1899, Othosp.
Othosp? Is that the name of the town?
"Can I help you?"
I spun around to see a nurse, but thankfully it was different one than before.
"I'm trying to find somebody's room, can you help me?" I tried putting on my best 'innocent little kid' voice.
"Of course, sweetie! Who are you looking for?" She placed her hands on her knees and bent down to smile at me.
"His name is Daniel... he just survived a fire! He has blonde hair and bright blue eyes! Do you know him?" I hated this.
She chuckled. "Why do you need to know where he is?"
"I was in the fire with him! I heard he was already awake and I wanted to check in on him!" I put my hands together as if I was begging. Disgusting.
"You brave little soldier! He's right down the hall, room 328." She reached out and ruffled my hair, and it took every ounce of my soul not to break her arm and blow my cover.
I bounced down the hallway until I came to room 328. I was quickly brought back to a similar scenario, where I stood in front of not only Jamie's hospital room, but David's as well.
David.
I had no time to delay. I pushed the door open and slipped into the room, quickly closing it behind me.
"Heya Doc, would you mind giving me a re-" Daniel turned his head towards me and his expression changed when he saw that I wasn't his doctor.
"You survived. Tragic." Daniel sneered.
"Back at you." I spat.
Here, we were on the same level. We had the same hospital gown on, we had the same bandages covering our bodies. We had leveled the playing field.
"I'm going to give you one chance to tell me where the antidote is." I began to approach his bed.
"Or what?" Daniel crossed his arms.
I jumped onto his bed and stared down at him, yet he was completely unphased. "Don't make me show you."
"Ooh, I'm scared." Daniel mocked, but it was quickly cut off by his outburst of laughter.
I pulled back my fist and clocked him in the jaw, which did much more damage than I expected. Daniel shoved me off the bed with his arms, causing me to fly into the wall and knock over a saline bag stand, which sadly wasn't hooked up to Daniel's arms.
I jumped back to my feet and rushed onto the bed, grabbing him by the thin fabric of his gown. "Tell me where it is!"
He gripped my shoulders and began to push me again, but I latched onto his arms making it so he couldn't throw me off. I leaned over and bit his wrist, a move inspired by Nikki.
"Get off of me!" He yelled, retracting his arms.
"Not until you tell me how to save David!" I wrapped my hands around his throat and when he tried to remove my hands, I kicked him in the stomach.
"Help!" He choked out.
I knew it wasn't loud enough to get anyone's attention, which means the crash from the saline stand had to have been the reason two nurses rushed into the room.
I felt a pair of hands grab my torso and pull me off, but I began to kick my legs, hoping to hit something. I leaned over and bit the nurses arm, which had been effective because she dropped me to the ground. I made a dash for Daniel again, but got scooped up by the other nurse in the room. I tried to kick and scratch at him too, but it wasn't as affective.
"Give me the fucking antidote, Daniel!" I screamed as the nurse tried to drag me out of the room.
I felt a sudden sharp pain and the world began to slow. Daniel's yelling became slurred and my eyelids grew heavy. Not heavy enough to put me to sleep, but I quickly became very unaware of what was going on around me.
David's POV
I felt like my will to survive had been sucked into the television. All I could do was stare endlessly at the screen as the doctors and nurses came in on routine and checked my machines or gave me food. I hadn't seen Max since the day he ran out of here, and I was kind of scarred I would never see him again. I felt my time was almost up, but I didn't want to believe that. Anytime the doctors spoke to me, I still tried to be the happy camp counselor I used to be.
My door burst open and Gwen rushed into the room, dripping in sweat. Before I could greet her, she snatched the remote off of the table and flipped to the news channel.
"Gwen? Wha-"
"Shut up." She snapped as she sat down on the edge of the bed.
I turned my attention back to the TV as Gwen adjusted the volume so it could clearly be heard.
"-it's crazy folks. No one quite knows how, but the entire Camp Campbell has gone up in flames. Over to you, Patrick."
"What?" I couldn't tear my eyes away from the flickering screen.
The camera was now focused on who I assumed to be Patrick. He was standing in the woods as fire trucks swarmed around behind him.
"Cameron Campbell's summer camp. I'm sure many people are familiar with the place, but just recently a fire has sparked and burned the entire property to the ground. Reports have shown that an accelerant was used, but that isn't all. Six survivors have been pulled from the wreckage, and some of them are causing mayhem over in the town of Othosp. Apparently they saw the smoke first and sped over as quick as possible, which explains why the victims are not residents at the Sleepy Peak Hospital."
I felt my eyes begin to water up. That was my home- my everything. And it was gone, just like that. But who were the survivors? Why were there people there in the first place?
That's when a new video appeared on the screen. It was black and white, clearly security camera footage. It showed a hospital room with two people in it, one seemingly straddling the other. The one on top had a large bushel of hair...
"Max?!" I yelled, watching as the lovable camper began to basically abuse the person in the bed.
I couldn't quite see who he was attacking, but when the nurses finally pulled him away all the faces were blurred.
"What the... what?!" I stared in disbelief as the video disappeared and an ad for a local restaurant popped up.
I looked over at Gwen. "What's going on?"
I felt tears escape my eyes. Camp Campbell was gone. Set ablaze like a piece of crumpled newspaper.
"I'm so sorry, David..." Gwen was holding something back.
What isn't she telling me? Was Max okay? Who was he hitting? Too many thoughts, too many possibilities. My breath began to quicken as nonsense words stumbled out of my mouth. I kept glancing around the room, but all I could see where flames.
So much pain. Everywhere. My whole body. I felt something rising, but whether it was a cough or vomit I couldn't tell and unfortunately I passed out before I could find out the answer.
-1714 Words-