Camp Charlie

Chapter 22

Song: No time to die by Billie Eilish

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For you to understand everything I'll begin from the very beginning. The day we started dating, I began my work. The first thing that I did was to hack your and your friends' moblie phones and tab them. I placed wire taps in your house to know your friends as well as you. You Hannah, on the first glance seemed like a shallow bimbo. That's the best someone who didn't know you would've said. But I knew that you had always been like an iceberg, showing very little on the surface even when there was so much underneath. 

On meeting Sarah, I felt that both of you were complete opposites. I mean, that's what it seemed like to me in the beginning. She seemed like a machine, so organised, so obvious. Her actions were enough for me to crown her as the nerd, but I was proven wrong after sometime. You and her were not different, rather I would've said that both of you were very similar indeed. 

On the surface she was a nerd but underneath she was so much more that just books. She was a very good judge of character. I would feel threatened whenever I was around her because the fear of her seeing underneath my act always lurked in my mind. The suspicion inside her eyes when we first met wasn't so obvious, but it was there. Her eyes saw the things that people like you and your other friends couldn't even dream of seeing. That's why she had always been the first on my radar.

As for Ethan, he wasn't deep. It was the easiest to figure him out as he was very predictable. His actions had always resembled the ones of a playboy. I knew that he had a softspot for Sarah but other than that there was nothing more to him. 

Maya was total badass. The moment she opened her mouth, you knew that something dangerous was coming out of it. Like Ethan, there wasn't much to her and maybe that's why she hid her shallowness beneath a mask of sarcasm. Ethan didn't feel the need to hide the fact that he wasn't a very deep person, but Maya felt uncomfortable in her own skin. 

The sarcasm was only a way to hide her insecurities about herself. She never had anyone to share her thoughts with. Did you know that she had a negative body image? She kind of hated herself, never accepting the real her and always being consious about herself. She spent most of her time in the gym, trying to shed off any extra fat which didn't even exist. I never knew what went through her mind but that was the only possible explanation to her queer behaviour.

Liam seemed the most ambitious. The only one to whom his carrer mattered the most, the only one who was bound to have a bright future. He seemed a little self centered but who isn't? To him, it was winning that mattered. Rohan was the only one who was actually close to him. Their friendship resembled the relationship that you and Sarah had. Rohan seemed like a normal guy, with a lot of secrects, but most of them weren't worth mentioning. I had already dug out the bones that he had carefully buried deep inside his closet and that is why he was the first one to die.

Hannah had been listening to him with her eyes closed and her brain was playing games with her by showing her flashbacks. The faces of her friends were constantly making their way in front of her eyes. She couldn't help but blame herself for all of this. 

There was so much that she didn't know about them and she wished that she had been there for them when they needed her. Maya always seemed so happy and content that Hannah never felt the need to get closer to her. Rohan always hid everything from her and maybe she knew why. She was so wrapped up in her own world that she never got the chance to actually know them. Sarah, who had always been so close to her was a good listener, but Hannah never felt the need to ask her to speak. Maybe she should've done so eariler, but now it was too late.

Hearing Charlie talk about her friends like they some fictional characters made her angry but at the same time she wanted to cry. A moment by herself would've been enough but Charlie was following her movements like a shadow, always ready to pounce at her and devour upon her pain. At last, an idea struck her.

"Before you go on, I need to use the restroom." That was probably her only chance to get some time alone.

"I'm sorry but I can't allow that."

"What do you mean by that? It's urgent."

"I can't risk that. What if you try to escape?"

"Even if I do manage to get out of these caves, there's no chance that I'd be able to make my way back to the city. You'd surely catch me before that and I give you my word that I'll not try to escape. There's no point being alive after all my friends were killed."

If Hannah had something to brag about, it would've surely been her convincing powers.
"Fine."

He untied the ropes on her feet and hands, then led her to a corner where he pressed a button on the wall and a sliding door became visible to her. He opened the door to reveal a small bathroom. She entered the restroom and the door closed behind her. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. He had been suffocating her with his presence and she felt free, even if her relief was short lived. 

She pulled her jeans down and then sat down on the seat to relieve her bladder. After she was done, she pulled up her pants but while doing so a sound reached her ears. The sound she had heard before. After zipping up her jeans and washing her hands, she looked down to look for that object. Her eyes landed upon a kitchen knife. It was the one that she had kept inside her pocket earlier. Her hands held the knife tightly.

The first thought that entered her mind was to end her life. She had never felt so hurt and helpless in her entire life. Not even when her father had died, not even when her biological mother had decided to drown her pain in alcohol and drugs. She hated Charlie but more than that, she hated herself for being the one to push her friends to their own deaths. 

Even while living in the foster homes, she had never considered suicide to be an option because she had always loved herself. But right now, as she stood in front of the mirror, there was no one else she hated more than the person staring back her, not even the one standing outside. It was weird how a person can switch from self love to hating themselves so much. Charlie took pleasure in killing and it would be outraging to him if she killed herself first. This was the only way that she could defeat him.

She pressed the knife to her wrist and looked straight into the mirror. But before she could do anything, the faces of her friends started playing in her mind and her eyes closed automatically. Would they want her to do this? No. Indeed, she could defeat him like this but would she win? No. There's always another way. Him losing wasn't the same as her winning. She wanted to win for her friends and couldn't do so without avenging their deaths. She opened her eyes and the world around her seemed different, it seemed more rational. 

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