𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘳 ~ [𝘋𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘥 𝘹 𝘖𝘊]

⇒ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ

"Good morning, Avery!" Excellent. Thank God for that.

I buried my face deeper into the pillow of my bottom bunk, pulling the blankets up a little further to aid in my act of sleeping. I just prayed David would buy it.

In all honesty, being a light sleeper, I'd been woken up by the red-headed counsellor a few hours ago when he'd gotten up himself. I'd just been drifting back off as well when he entered. I silently cursed my coworker and his loudness. Screw him for being up at ungodly hours in the morning. I was ninety-nine percent sure the man didn't sleep at all, whether from ever-lingering excitement or insomnia, I'd never know.

"Come on now, I know you must be raring to go and welcome our new campers!" Oh, right. That. With that in mind, I probably should get up. It was kind of a big day. His decent point didn't stop me bitterly resenting the upbeat tone of his voice. Sure, I could handle David's optimism usually, and it being a tad infectious, but in the mornings it usually just succeeded in pissing me off.

"Alright, you win. I'm getting up." I mumbled, inclining my head up slightly to let him know I was awake. I could feel him beaming without even having to look. To be fair, he beamed a lot.

"Well I expect to see you down by the entrance in half an hour." I slowly removed myself from the blanket cocoon and swung into a sitting position, legs dangling over the side of the bed.

"You got it..." I yawned, giving a sleepy half salute. "I assume Gwen is sorting breakfast?" David nodded.

"Well I'll leave you to it, see you soon counsellor buddy!" I counted myself five seconds after the door closed before collapsing back onto my mattress.

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

"Can you believe it, Max? We're getting not one, not three, but two new campers today!" I barely raised my head at David's words, nursing the mug of coffee clasped between my hands. Sweet, sweet caffeine.

"Yup, it's truly horrifying." Max. The most annoying kid at Camp Campbell. Well, maybe not annoying as such... But he'd certainly managed to piss me and Gwen off more than a few times. If David had any of our awareness, he would probably be vexed by the ten year old too. Unfortunately, he had no awareness. Whatsoever.

"Horrifying?" I raised an eyebrow. The boy in the blue hoodie opened his mouth to make an undoubtedly snarky reply, but my co-counsellor got there first.

"Are you afraid of making a few new friends?" He ruffled the kid's hair affectionately. I winced, not something I would have done. I took a long sip of my drink as Max began protest, flapping at David's hands until they left his black hair alone.

"I'm not here to make friends, David. I'm here because camp is where kids are sent by their parents when they don't want to deal with them." Oh, another thing about Max. He was surprisingly and scarily knowledgeable about the world, and the cynicism it held. It was getting to the point where I couldn't really tell the difference between jokes and actual truths when he spoke.

"Hang on a second, why are you even here? You're supposed to be having breakfast." I frowned slightly.

"Well it's definitely not because the bus only comes in and out of the city to drop off new campers and so far seems to be my only method of escaping this fucking nightmare of a camp. Definitely not that." He rolled his eyes as I sighed.

"Kid, you're a little shit." I murmur, rubbing my eyes.

"Eat a dick." Charming.