N A E P H O R I A II | Camp Camp

Chapter 1 - Notes of a lost one

NOTES:
—Max's last name "Anand" actually means happiness/joy; isn't that humorously ironic? Also, Max for private prepubescent investigator say 'I' 
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The sounds of the crickets and cicadas don't irk Max—they never have. As he flicks another switch and the grinding of the old machine begins whirring, he would say he's even relaxed by them. Still, he wouldn't be making coffee at four in the morning if he had been fully calm. His nerves were jumpier than what he would've liked.

This week's events unsettled him no matter how hard he tried to keep them from crawling underneath his skin. Daniel has 'been admitted' to the hospital as far as anyone knew. And call Max paranoid, but that was doubtful and the cultist still stalks the woods, trying to pick out his next target.

The next child to purify.

Maxwell Anand shuffles through a bottom drawer, awaiting the well-deserved beep of the coffee machine. There sits a flat box, the contents of which he knew had been taken  once years prior. There were papers Max 'wrote out', those he said would allow him to contact his aunt. Gwen took them, walking off with a comment that they had seemed 'all too conspicuous' to be simple contact papers.  That she couldn't afford to lose this job no matter how shitty it is. Sometimes Max wonders if she had taken a closer look at those papers.

That was fair enough though, having been made that sorry excuse. They weren't contact papers.

Alongside the box is an object he takes in hand when the machine finally beeps. Walking around at this dangerous hour isn't something unusual for him, with only a cup of joe and flashlight on it's last legs. Despite all the Quartermaster had shown him in the past years, he doesn't stop his early-morning wanderings.

He pauses at the name. Quartermaster was a weird 300-year-old man (at best estimate). No matter how much Max could call him insane, disgusting, or stay on his good side so he wouldn't be a victim of the veteran's eventual mentality break, the man always seemed...much too intelligent. And sure, Max  never believed as much as the next guy that as you age, you get wiser, but maybe it had taken a heavier toll on him for as long as he lived.

He did lose his name in the war apparently. Which war, however, was a mystery. Maybe it was for the best for whatever made him fucked him up enough to have old people orgies on an abandoned island...

Max banishes the thought and turns the machine off, slipping his hand into the box and grasping at the small stack of papers sitting there. No matter his spiel on Gwen taking them, he doesn't dwell on things without taking action. Sneaking into the cabin had been simple, but the complicated part came at unlocking the drawer Gwen liked to put her 'fan-fiction' and rejection letters into. David had confiscated all of his lock picks, so he made do with some rusty metal slips found in Quartermaster's shop.

After accidentally slitting his finger with one, he was surprised he didn't get tetanus and a whole lot of other diseases. Or, at least, that's what he hopes. No one but his parents could really afford hospital expenses.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he switches the flashlight on, watching it flicker for seconds with a held breath. Luckily, it stayed on as he brings it over the papers, jade eyes glowing as he reads the words littering it.

Virtue  Bad Omens located in the country
Nineteen cases so far
Make a report to the Solomons later, file in a written report to the government officials
—21:04 Lt. J

Max's eyes narrow and he places the cup down. So this was written by a lieutenant. For the longest, even as a ten-year-old boy stuck at a worn summer camp for several months, he had wondered what Virtues were. Or, in this case, Bad Omens? Of nineteen cases that were found, could one have been in this camp? Is that were Chucky went? Or was Campbell running some deeper establishment nobody but the Officials knew about?

Deciding to read further, he settles down onto the kitchen floor. Sometime later would he regret it when the grime comes off on his jeans and only bright yellow hoodie, but for now this was more important.

Virtues Bad Omens(?) seem to be appearing randomly, through children and young teens as a vessel-indicated virus.

Reasons why have not been discovered other than mutation of genes

Why this mutation of genes occur had not yet an answer to it

He hums finishing off his coffee (which he had somehow guzzled in one go) and feeling the faint return of energy to his body. There's enough information on here to know the basic gist of where and why, but not what and who. The next piece of written scratch catches his attention as he sets the mug elsewhere.

Targeted: children 8 to 10 years of age admitted between years 2014 - 2017
Children Quad-C  could gather
Idea maybe?
—3/06 Lt. J

Max's eyes widen, and the papers crinkle as his grip tightens. So children around his age admitted between 2014 and 2017 would be targeted. It's June 19th, 2017...

Could he be a possible target? Quad-C sounds like some secret bunker that would be underground somewhere. The bunker near the camp? No, that's probably not...

Biting his lip, he takes the box out of the drawer and slips the papers back in. With the box and light in hand he drops the mug into the sink on the way and heads out of the mess hall. Right outside the door stands a watchful Quartermaster who gives him a glance. Then, he speaks in that gruff yet somehow grounding voice of his. "Another walk?" Max nods, and the man only murmurs his acknowledgment, going back to his watch.

There were times this creepy old man could be one of Max's 'bearable'-listed people. This was one of those times as he continues past him, and downwards the path where the dirt trails off into dark oak woods without a single 'that's not safe'.

But he supposed Quartermaster could care less about his safety as long as his 'initiation' wasn't interrupted.' And there his traumatized brain goes, back to the orgies with furry tails and sagging wrinkles—jesus fucking christ.

He focuses back in on the roads, leaving camp behind for what might be the rest of the morning.

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That seems a little rushed at the end, but I don't know how to end things so...

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