...And It's Blue

22

My first year in college was good. No troubles. No worries. Everyone was kind to me, and it felt good. Before my second year started, we all had planned to go camping. And that's why we were here, in the middle of the woods (not really), building tents. Aiden and I had a hard time building ours, no thanks to him.

First, he tripped and injured his hand while taking out the tent. Then, we couldn't find a good place to set it up. Oh, and inserting the tent pole was another problem. It hadn't looked difficult when we searched online, but when it came to actually setting it up, it was hell. At least, to us.

It took us around 30 minutes to finally finish it. I sighed in relief and fell flat on my back.

"Tired already?" the deep voice beside me asked.

"Already? We took more than 30 minutes to build that thing," I glared at him, and he laughed. He ruffled my hair and went to everyone else, leaving me in the middle of somewhere. I got up, ran after him, and jumped on his back, grinning like a kid when he didn't protest.

"Okay, so guys, let's just rest today, and we'll start with the activities tomorrow," Xav said. He was the one who prepared everything for the camping, surprisingly. He was like a teacher, and we were the students. We all cheered and went inside the tent. I flopped down inside and drifted off to dreamland.

I woke up somewhere in the evening. I didn't bother checking my watch and went out. Everyone was gathered in a circle outside the tents with a campfire burning in the middle. I slowly made my way towards them and sat beside our ray of sunshine, Jason, without making any noise. When he felt my presence beside him, he screamed his lungs out, and I started to scream too. We both started to flail our hands everywhere, and I hit him in the face... by mistake, of course.

"Wh- what was that all about? You scared me," I said in shock. My eyes were probably bulging out.

"I scared you?" he asked in disbelief. "You were the one who scared me. I mean, who sits like that without making any noise?" he said, breathing hard and placing his right hand on his chest.

I looked at everyone blankly, trying to get answers about what just happened since I knew Jason wouldn't say anything.

Surprisingly, Emma spoke up when no one did. "Uh, we were telling ghost stories, and that kid over there," she pointed at Jason, "just overreacted. It's nothing, really."

I looked at the said guy and burst out laughing. I didn't think he, of all people, would be scared of ghost stories. Of course, he was all rainbows and sunshine, but the fact that something like this scared him, when horror movies didn't, was too much for me to handle. I hit his back while laughing, something I do when laughing hard.

"Hey! Stop laughing and stop hitting me," he pouted.

"Sorry," I patted his back and calmed myself before all of us burst out laughing.

"So, wanna continue the story?" I asked the others, catching my breath.

"Sure," Ashton said with excitement and continued telling the story. I kept glancing at Jason to see his reaction, and well, he was definitely scared.

It was dark, and the stars were shining brightly. I could hear the slight sound of water coming from somewhere. It was peaceful here. I slowly drifted off to sleep and leaned my head on Jason's shoulder, who was sitting beside me. Ava was tiny, so I'd have to bend a lot just to lean my head on her shoulder, so Jason was the better headrest. I felt someone picking me up, but I was too sleepy to open my eyes.

"Good night," it was Aiden's voice. He kissed my forehead and went out of the tent, zipping it completely.

I woke up the next morning to see Ava and Zoe staring at me like crazy. Creepy. Such creeps. I shot up and looked at them, almost hitting Zoe on the head.

"Why on earth were you looking at me like that? That's so creepy," I blurted out my thoughts.

"Sorry, we just wanted to wake you up, but then you looked like you were having the nap of your life, so we just waited for you to wake up," Zoe smiled while saying that, making it creepier.

"Still creepy," I rolled my eyes at them.

"Whatever, go get freshened up. There's a lot we have to do today," Ava pushed me out of the tent, and I freshened up. I went back to the tent and sat down between the two girls.

"You know, you and Aiden are so cute together," Ava squealed. "I hope you both stay with each other forever," she squeezed my cheeks as she said it.

"I know, right! They are like the cutest couple!" Zoe squealed too, totally not her. Something had definitely possessed her.

I blushed at their comments. I really do hope we stay together forever. "Yeah, like you guys are any less. I mean, of course, we are cuter, but y'all are cute too," I winked at them. I wasn't gonna let anything get into their heads.

"Hello everyone. Hope you had a good sleep," Xav greeted everyone when we gathered outside. That was so not Xav. Something was wrong with all of them today. "Okay, so we are going to start the day with a game. It's a treasure hunt!" he said with excitement, and we cheered along with him. Fake cheers.

"Okay, so I hid a few things in the forest yesterday, and you all will have to find them. The one who finds the most will be the winner. You need to partner up with someone else and follow the directions and clues to find the treasure," he explained with pauses every now and then. We still didn't know what we had to find, but we just went along with it. And when the hell did he hide things in the forest? I had only seen him with others yesterday, and I'm sure he would have hidden them alone.

There were four groups: me and Aiden (of course), Jason and Emma, Ava and Ash—Dumb and Dumber. Zoe and Emma, our last pair. We all set out in search of these things our precious Xav called "treasure." We found a few papers stuck on the tree trunks with directions and followed them. We reached one tree where the arrow was facing down.

We looked at each other, confused. We crouched down on the ground and removed the topsoil. We found a picture of Xav, and at the top, it was written—treasure #1, XOXO. Okay, so now we are searching for his pictures in the forest. I facepalmed myself.

"So, should we continue looking for other things as well?" I asked Aiden.

"I don't know, but let's just look around this place. If we get anything, then we can take it," he said. What did he think we would get in here? Actual treasure? Without arguing, we just roamed around, hoping we could find some hideout or make one somewhere.

We surprisingly found around six of Xav's pictures. We went back to the tents, and we had the most number of pictures, so we won the first game. I bet no one would have tried searching for the pictures. And Ava's team searched for his pictures only for Ash to tear them up in pieces. The second game was tomorrow, and we all gathered in a circle again and told stories like yesterday, but this time while roasting marshmallows.