Save ourselves- One Direction

Avery

The rest of the day, I let Linda's words run through my mind. So far I had only been here one day and was still settling in. I already found the conditions edgy, but could it really get any worse? Since this issue kept me going, I was very silent the whole day and helped Daisy, Roxanne and the girls from the other group to do the laundry. The washing was done by hand. With mostly cold water and a few spoonfuls of detergent and soap in the vats. Not exactly optimal conditions for clean clothes.

"Don't they have a washing machine here?", I asked Daisy.

"Sure they have one. Several, in fact. But only for the supervisors," she replied contemptuously.

"Why is that?"

"They try to spend as little money as possible on here. Why do you think we have to get our own dinner in the evening. Not to 'learn to be independent', as they call it. It is because they don't want to waste money on us. They put it all in their own pockets," Roxanne explained with a sneer.

I raised my eyebrows.

"This place really needs a raid," I muttered.

"Dream on."

I scrubbed my clothes as clean as I could under the watchful eyes of the attendants. I didn't like the looks on the male supervisors' faces. Some of them didn't really seem to be concentrating on how we were doing our work. Much more they were staring at us as if they wanted to eat us.

"Do they have some kind of problem?", I asked Daisy quietly.

She shrugged her shoulders and continued her work.

*******************

Since I didn't get lunch today, I spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry and then I helped Linda wash the dishes. In the evening everything hurt. My back, my arms and my feet. I was tired and wanted to take a shower. Linda let me have a short break in between and gave me a carrot to replace the missing lunch. It wasn't enough, of course, but I was grateful anyway. I devoured it hastily and thanked her.

" Don't thank me for that. I'm not going to get anything out of you helping me here if you pass out from hunger."

When I was finally done, I dragged myself to the small house where the showers and toilets were. The water was at least lukewarm and felt good on my tense muscles. When I got back to the tent, I was actually ready to crawl into my sleeping bag and go straight to sleep. However, I had reckoned without the rest of my group. When I got there, everyone was already sitting around the fire and looking at me in expectation. I looked back. Unsure and perplexed, though. Daisy waved me over.

"Come and sit with us. We have to officially initiate you today," she said almost solemnly.

I hesitantly sat down between Louis and Zayn on one of the tree trunks that were used as seating. Everyone was staring at me. Uneasily, I looked around at the group. Official initiation. What exactly did that mean? Was I supposed to do some kind of dare now?

"What exactly am I supposed to do now? Make a blood sacrifice, hold my breath underwater for three minutes or juggle burning puppies?"

"I was all for the blood sacrifice or you rolling naked in glitter, but the others voted against it," Roxanne said deadly serious, but I saw the hint of a smile on her face.

"We're just playing a little game to get to know you better," Daisy then explained reassuringly.

Play a game. Wasn't that what all horror films said? It started out all innocent and then 30 minutes later, everything was fucked. Still, I nodded and a few seconds later Liam came back with a pack of cards. I let my aching shoulders rotate. A groan escaped me as I did so. Damn, it still hurt a lot. Daisy noticed it immediately.