Hey people, it arrives at last! I did put a preveiw of this story onto my other Camp Camp stories, and now it arrives! :)
But I mus warn you, it is DARK AS SH*T!
Let me get into the warnings, shall we? Ahem (deep breath) Ghosts, underage drinking confusing sh*t, depression, self harm, major characters will die, death, some bloody violence, violence, shooting severe mental health issues, Nerrison, Nerriston, implied NeilXHarrison, cursing and LOTS OF ANGST!
Well, hope I haven't discouraged you. Enjoy :)
Camp always started off the same way. After everyone had arrived, ditched their stuff in their tents, had dinner and a health and safety talk and gotten introduced to the four councillors, thy would be sent to bed. The councillors would give a brief check in in them half an hour later, and after they too had retired to their cabins, the campers would all slip out of their tents and climb their way up the biggest tree in camp, and just hang out until dawn, or until they got tired and went to bed.
Max sat round about halfway up the tree, lost in thought. He looked down at his fellow campers. Lowest down was Nurf, not because he wanted to sit there, but because he weighed the most out of anyone there and didn't want to snap the branch he sat on. He was carving his name into the trunk like he did every year. Nurf was the stereotypical bully kid, but had toned down a little throughout last summer. Max still avoided him, however.
One branch above Nurf sat Dolph, the shy artistic kid, and the youngest of all of them. Even though he had been here all of last year, Dolph had kept himself to himself and Max barely knew him, only that he had a thick German accent, so probably wasn't from their country. Dolph was further away from the trunk than Nurf, on the very edge of his branch, swinging his legs and looking at the ground below.
Just below Max was the theatre kid, Preston, on the same branch as Max's closest friend and tent mate, Neil. Presto was usually in a good mood and excitable, but Max hadn't seen him smile in a while. Even now, Preston was scowling down at the two kids sat just below him, Harrison and Nerris, who were chatting and smiling at each other, just like couples did. Last year had been complicated, both Preston and Harrison had been crushing on Nerris for a while and eventually, she'd had to choose between the two best friends. She had chosen Preston, so Harrison had promptly gotten together with Neil to make her jealous. It had worked and Nerris had dumped Preston a few days before the summer ended and gone with Harrison. They had obviously kept in touch throughout the year, as they seemed closer than ever. Preston looked pretty pissed about it, but Neil looked fine, just lying down on his branch, reading a book on coding. Neil was a nerd.
Higher than Max were only two other kids, Ered, the cool girl daredevil, who was sat as high as the branches would take her weight, fidgeting and looking down towards her skateboarding ramp. Right at the top was Space Kid, jumping from branch to branch, shouting about commits and asteroids, looking up at the stars, his helmet over his head as usual. Max didn't watch him for long. He examined the other kids. The nine of them had spent the last summer together, but weren't very close, except maybe Nerris and Harrison. They had been told about a new kid coming tomorrow, and Max wondered where they would sit on the tree.
Max knew he was different from all these kids. Max had a secret.
And a secret friend to go along with it.
Max could see ghosts. He saw them everywhere. At first he'd been scared of them, like the first ever time when he'd been three years old, but he'd grown used to it over the years. He'd been three years old when he'd seen his first ghost. They had just moved to a new apartment and Max was having trouble sleeping. He'd gotten up to get a drink of water and was just coming down the hall when a huge fat man had just walked straight out in front of him, from his parent's room to the kitchen. Only he didn't walk, he sort of glided. Max had followed him to the kitchen and seen him staring out of the window. Then he had turned around to face Max.
A huge knife was sticking out of his chest, dripping blood.
"Hey." The man said with a smile.
Max had screamed so loud and ran to his parents room, trying desperately to make them see the man. When he'd eventually dragged his dad out of bed, the man was still in the kitchen, but his dad had sighed.
"Stop playing stupid pranks." He snapped, and went back to bed. Max had stared at the man for a few more minutes, before running back to bed. From then, he had had conversations with the ghosts and gotten to know the man who lived in their apartment quite well, and why his wife had murdered him. Though he was still quite annoying when he walked in on Max in the shower.
But Max hadn't really had any undead friends his own age. Not until his parents had sent him here, to this crappy summer camp. He had been looking around as David gave them the tour with that stupid smile on his face. He'd seen a boy wearing a yellow Camp Campbell shirt, leaning against a tree, crying. David didn't seem to have noticed. Max had stared at the boy for a long time before seeing that translucent layer that seemed to cover his body. The boy was a ghost.
Max had slipped over.
"Hey." He said. "Please don't tell me you're crying because you're recently dead, because I will run all the way back home."
The boy had jumped so violently he landed inside the tree.
"Oh, hello." He said, embarrassed. "You... alive?"
"Yeah." Max nodded. "But I can see dead people, so, yeah."
Max and the boy, whose name was Jasper, had spent at least half an hour chatting. Jasper had died in the 90s era, but Max still didn't know how. He didn't really care, that was the 90s. Anything could have been happening twenty years ago. Max had eventually realised that everyone else had disappeared to dinner without him, and he'd had to promise Jasper he'd see him again. Jasper didn't usually come to the camp; stayed over on a haunted island in the middle of the lake, so Max would often row out there. Jasper had made camp bearable.
Max couldn't wait to see his ghostly friend again. True, Neil was friendly and some of the kids were OK, but the councillors were all annoying, except maybe Gwen, occasionally, and he hated the activities. But Jasper made camp bearable.
But if Max had known what that summer had in store for him, he would have scrambled down that tree and run as fast as he could away from the camp and never looked back.
So yeah, not very exciting, but that was more an introduction chapter than anything else. Reveiws are appreciated. Thanks for coming and I hope you keep reading :)