L' appel du vide

Chapter 6

Turquoise morning light flooded the small space, that was our shed. It was early in the morning, I could tell by the birds singing outside. I looked over at the old digital clock on my nightstand: 7am. No way it was this early, right? I look out of the small window, only to see a gradient blue sky behind the tall and dark trees.
Suddenly I heard a screeching beeping sound, ripping me out of my trance and making me flinch.
"Ugh fuck. Let me be!" I heard an angry sounding grumble coming from the other side of the room. When I looked over, I saw a half awake Ollie sitting on his bed and rubbing his tired eyes. Seems like he didn't sleep well tonight. Or ever.
"Morning." I commented.
"Yeah hi." He responded, immediately confused by his own answer.
"Should we get like....ready?" I asked after a moment in silence, not demanding an immediate answer.
"Yeah whatever dude..." Ollie replied, slowly but surely standing up and heading to his closet to put on his daily clothes. "Wear something comfortable." He added, pulling out a loose shirt out of his closet.
"Alright, will do." I said lightly, trying to make the mood a bit less awkward. That didn't work though, as we spent the next ten minutes turned away ,changing.
"Can you show me the washroom please?" I asked, once again adding a joking undertone to my voice, to wich Ollie just glanced at me.
"Yeah. Come on." He dryly answered as he opened up the front door and put on his shoes.
I quickly slipped on my loose Converse and headed out with him. The damp morning air hit my face, rattling me awake. I took a deep breath, filling my nose with cold air, before catching up to Ollie, who was waiting a few steps infront of me, looking at me like I was some strange creature that just crawled out of the woods behind our cabin. When we got up to the older looking building that was apparently the community bathroom, the door creaked open and a tall guy with blond hair walked out. As he passed me, he bumped into me, to which he turned around for a second and grunted: "Watch it, losers." then walked away, his back slouched like the one of a nine-to-five-worker.
"Don't mind him, or whatever. I guess you could describe him as a cliche bully. He doesn't have a clique though, he's a loner." Ollie explained, entering the washroom.
"Oh? I never would have thought! What's his name?"
I sarcastically added, to which Ollie just gave me a faint smile.
"His names West. Avoid him, or at least try to."
Our words echoed in the large room we were now standing in. The walls and floor were decked out with tiles and there was water leaking from the ceiling. My shoes clacked on the hard floor as I strolled over to Ollie. He was looking at the dirty green walls, which had words and sentences scribbled all over them. Some nicer than others of course. For example:
"M+F, always forever"
"Someone was here"
"This place is fucking haunted"
"Camilla is a f*cking c*nt"
Just a lot of teen stuff. Some was scribbled through too.
"......Alex. Alex!"
"Huh? Yeah?"
"This is where you can get ready in the morning, this is where you can shower...." Ollie explained, while my thoughts wandered of again. I looked at the ceiling, that had big stains of water on it. Then at the floor with dirty turquoise tiles. This place was really nothing fancy, but also nothing worse than I imagined.
"Uh huh. Yeah." I mumbled after a few seconds, then turned around to Ollie again. He seemed to have noticed that it was no use to try to explain literally anything to me and just gave up. He started washing his face with a bit of water, so I did the same. After a few minutes we finished getting ready. It really didn't take long. We walked out of the building, and the sun was now up, shining light over the evergreen trees. I looked to the bonfire, that wasn't burning anymore. I saw Milo and Finn walk in our direction, engaged in a conversation. Were they really just friends? Didn't seem like it. When Ollie saw them too, he waved and jogged over to them, with me wandering behind.
"Hey you guys! How was the night?" Ollie asked, with a sarcastic and teasing undertone to his usually so quiet voice. They all chuckled in response. When I got to them, Finn and Milo greeted me friendly. "I could ask you the same thing Oliver..." Milo teased and bumped his shoulder against Ollie's. Ollie raised an eyebrow. "W-what the hell are you suggesting Milo?" He stuttered, his face becoming a slightly more red shade of pale. "Nothing bro! Calm down haha!" Milo laughed. I was as confused as ever. What did he mean by that? Whatever.
"We're going to the bathroom guys." Finn reported, taking Milo by his wrist and practically dragging him behind him. We could hear them arguing a few meters away, when they thought we couldn't. Once they were gone, Ollie turned to me.
"Hey I'm sorry Milo said something like that" he apologized, rubbing his right upper arm with his left hand and looking to the ground.
"What? Oh. Oh no it's fine! I don't mind your friends cracking some jokes. Even though I don't get them." I answered.
"Really? I'm glad. Oh and also, my friends are your friends now. So don't be scared to talk to us or something like that." He added, trying his best to seem positive.
"Sweet! I'll have that in mind Ollie."
Some other people were now coming out of their sheds, most of them walking to the washroom. The camp didn't seem like it had this many people, but apparently it did. I heard them chatting and laughing, they seemed optimistic and relaxed. I felt a bit less nervous about my first day now.
Some tutors walked out of the service building, to explain the plans for today once everyone had arrived. One tutor even had the big dog with him.

My thoughts wandered back to the boy that was rude earlier. What was his name again? West. Right. He seemed... pretty rude. Maybe he was just having a bad day though, so I wouldn't base my final opinion on that. Ollie and I walked back to our shed, to get our backpacks for the day. I still wondered though: 'why was that guy in the washroom so early though? I mean, me and Ollie were the first people to be on the camping ground and it was very early. So, why. Why would've he been there so much earlier? Huh, weird.' My thought wandered off the subject, then back to it. I think Ollie was getting annoyed, because I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. But I didn't care about that a lot. I just tried to focus on the day that lied before me.