Top Bunk

DAY 26

⌚ 6:24 AM

Since El was thrusted from her sleep, she's been paralyzed under her covers, frozen in horror. It's been over twenty minutes since she woke up and saw a gigantic daddy longlegs spider three feet directly above her face. Perched precariously on the board above her head that holds Grace's mattress up, the spider seems to be staring directly at her, provoking her.

Spiders give El the heebie-jeebies with their spindly legs and pincers and beady eyes. She is well aware that the particular spider above her is a venomous one, so all the more is she freaked out.

Of course, today is the day Grace chooses to swing her legs from top bunk and hop down instead of climbing down like a normal person. El whimpers as the bed creaks, and the spider loses its footing for a second. The thing is dangerously close to landing on her face but she dare not move.

El can feel moisture in her eyes and she tries to blink it away. How sad is it that she's crying over a tiny spider? (It's not tiny though. From leg to leg, it might as well be the size of El's palm. Granted, she has tiny palms but whatever.)

Grace, who is now on her way to the bathroom, peers at El's direction - not at El, of course, never at El. She sighs and walks towards her vanity, where a month-old issue of Vogue magazine is laid out. El gulps. For a fleeting moment, she thinks Grace will thwack her on the head for being such a weakling.

But she doesn't. Grace purses her lips, sauntering back to the bunk. A quick glance at the spider is all she takes, and she doesn't even flinch. She tucks her hair behind her ears and licks her lips and grunts. El pulls the covers tighter over herself, her eyes barely peeking through. It seems like an eternity that Grace has the rolled-up magazine raised.

Suddenly, in a swift motion, she swipes at the spider and it lands on the floor by Grace's feet. With a satisfying crunch, Grace huffs, sets her magazine down at El's covered feet, and throws her hair over a shoulder. Heading to the bathroom, she smirks - El feels like she wasn't supposed to see that, but she's been watching Grace very closely. Too closely. It's actually quite concerning.

When the bathroom door shuts, El throws the covers off her sweaty figure. She peers down at the hardwood floor, gasping when she sees the dead spider carcass crushed against it. Legs bent every which way, exoskeleton shattered. Grace did that without even thinking twice. El is more scared now that there's a possibility that Grace is capable of breaking her neck without breaking a sweat.

However, El is too busy being stunned at the fact that Grace saved her from a fucking spider. The same Grace who seemingly doesn't give two shits about her - and she doesn't give two shits about either not at all nope - killed a spider for El. And looked hot doing so. Well, she does look hot either way, but the rest still stands.

El didn't even thank Grace. She saved El's life. (Is that stretching it?)

The life she's kind of ruining at the moment. (That's definitely stretching it.)

El eyes the remains of the spider on the floor once more. She shudders, imagining it's her bloody head. Still, Grace could probably skin her alive and she'd still be thinking about how great Grace's hair or mouth or her general person, really, looks. Grace Upland just has that effect on people.

And it scares El. Almost as much as a spider would.

⌚ 1:16 PM

It dawns on El that there are four days of camp left. That hits her like a bus, of course. Time, considering it's a stupid illusion fabricated by mankind to convince themselves they have their shit together, seemed to simultaneously fly by and crawl along. El would think, camp's about to end already? and the start of camp seemed like eons ago, within two seconds.