The Camp

STAGE ONE: Chapter Two

That first morning was a blur. We were woken up by a clock we hadn’t taken any notice of the night before, built onto the wall above the door. It was apparently designed so that we’d get out of bed to turn it off, but it had a motion sensor and once you stepped close to it, it turned itself off and just ticked off the time. At first we were really confused by this, but eventually we just accepted it as part of this new place and turned to get dressed. More faded, distressed jeans and another cut-off white tank top for me, though I pulled my hair out of its braid this time around; Dana donned a pair of tight, black jeans and a white t-shirt with some sort of silver, swirling design; and Maisie managed to squeeze into another pair of too-tight jeans under a loose, white shirt. It was strange – the effect of a simple rule about colors made us look similar while still looking very different.

“Okay, it’s 7:30 now. We’re supposed to be down at the Amphitheatre by 8:15 and we don’t know where that is,” Maisie pondered aloud and Dana made a noise in the back of her throat that vaguely reminded me of a pig.

“Oh, come on, Maisie, you can’t honestly believe they wouldn’t have signs up? There are paths that lead from the dormitory to the Main Commons, which is set up like a mini town, then there’s a trail from there to the Amphitheatre. Didn’t you listen to Mrs. Panát at all last night? I heard there’s a lake down by the Amphitheatre, though. That’ll be cool. We’d better get going, just in case, though it can’t be too hard to find. My sister told me that it’s as big as two football stadiums put together!” Dana exclaimed and Maisie and I exchanged a look.

“What’s a football stadium?” I asked her, caught between wanting to know what it was and not wanting her to know that I had no actual idea what it could possibly be.

“I’m not sure…She told me that I’d learn about it here, but that it was kind of like the Old World equivalent of our Sport Arenas. She wouldn’t tell me what football was, though…” I just nodded my reply, relieved that I wasn’t the only one with limited knowledge of things outside the online academic programs and my parents’ professions. At that, we all stuck our keys into our pockets and headed out of our room into the same hallway as last night, only this time sunlight streamed through the windows on either end. We located the stairs and began heading down, a few other stragglers our own age following along with us. Three flights of stairs later, we were standing in a room with a large kitchen sort of area to the right, what looked like a living room on the left and a set of clear, glass doors just ahead that led outside. Next to the glass doors was a framed list that I could read from across the room.

STAGE ONE DORMITORY

                 LOBBY: COMMONS & KITCHENETTE

                 FLOOR 1: ADVISOR – APRIL. 25 ROOMS; FILLED

                 FLOOR 2: ADVISOR – MICHAEL. 25 ROOMS; FILLED

                 FLOOR 3: ADVISOR – FECILIER. 25 ROOMS; FILLED

                 FLOOR 4: ADIVSOR – ALICIA. 25 ROOMS; FILLED

                 FLOOR 5: ADVISOR – NATHAN. 25 ROOMS; 4 VACANCIES

TRAINEES HOUSED: 371

“Wow, there are five floors in this place?” Maisie sounded shocked at this, but I’d gotten a pretty good look at the size of the building before we’d come in the night before.

“I’d believe it, the ceilings aren’t high or anything and they have to be able to house a lot of Trainees at a time,” Dana remarked and started out the doors that reminded me of the ones at the hotels down by the Beach where I’d stayed with my parents, only these ones didn’t slide open for you when you got close to them. Outside of the building the sky was blue with those cotton candy clouds floating around and the sun seemed to brighten everything. The first thing that I really noticed was all of the green. It may have been my favorite color, but I couldn’t believe how much there was in one place. The large dorm building was encircled by the tallest trees I’d ever seen, all covered with green leaves and green moss and surrounded by green shrubbery. The perimeter of the dormitory was surrounded by roughly ten feet of stone flooring, which then trailed out into three different wooden paths that led through the trees to what must have been the rest of the Stage One Camp. At the start of each path was a sign that read MAIN COMMONS, so I assumed they just went to the same place. Under each large title was a map that laid out the floor plan of the Stage One section of the Camp, with small labels for each building.