𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

iii ━━ we're at the starting line (i did my time)

01. chapter three

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

𝐎𝐊𝐀𝐘, 𝐌𝐀𝐘𝐁𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 school was that bad.

even ignoring the nightmares that haunted me as per usual, the place was a total prison.

when i was told i was going to a wilderness school, i imagined camping, learning to make fires, learning which berries to eat and which to avoid, swimming in lakes.

i did not imagine running five miles every day while a short man with a club screams at me to run faster.

i had never been through such rigorous physical education, ever.

but after a week at the school, the running became less treacherous. it never got easy, or anywhere even close to that though.

the school nurse treated the wound on my face i had gotten when i was in that cavern. being on the streets, i didn't have any first aid, so the wound grew infected and didn't heal. some sort of healer that worked for the courts was able to disinfect my wound and bandage it. at the school, the gash finally closed and was healing quite nicely.

they told me i'd expect to have some scarring, but besides that it wouldn't be an issue. some of the kids at the school teased me and speculated about how i had acquired such an injury. i tried to ignore them.

piper was an amazing roommate to have. she never judged me when i asked dumb questions. unfortunately, we didn't have our classes together because she was a sophomore while i was only a freshman.

jason, piper's boyfriend, was kind and levelheaded. he was the type of guy you'd expect to be a mayor. piper was absolutely smitten with him. she told me the story of how a few days before i arrived at school, her and jason had kissed on the roof of the school. it was the most romantic thing i had ever heard in my life.

leo continued to torment me with flirtatious jokes and awful attempts to show off. these usually elicited a response of laughter or a sarcastic response. it was obvious he wasn't serious about liking me. he just did it to mess with me because i'd always get flustered or angry.

having friends was weird. they made me laugh sometimes which made my face muscles ache. i wasn't used to the sensation. i couldn't remember the last time i had smiled before meeting piper, leo, and jason, but i assumed it was about a century ago.

i tried not to fret about my current situation. it was an odd feeling, not knowing anything about the modern world or why my life had changed, but all the exercise kept my mind busy at least.

a week into my stay at the wilderness school, there was a field trip set to the grand canyon.

the freshman and sophomore classes filed onto the bus, chatting (not so excitedly) about the trip ahead of us.

piper took the seat next to her boyfriend, jason, so i was left alone. i slid into the seat in front of them, but before i could even get confortable, leo practically threw himself into the seat, knocking into me.

"hey, cammy," he said.

"get off me please," i said, lightly pushing leo away from me.