Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 22:38:43 EDT From: Roman Genesis <romangenesis@hotmail.com> Subject: Survivor - Chapter 2 -------------------------------------------------- About this story: Thank you to those who have written. And for those who have not written, please Email me your questions, opinions, and suggestions at RomanGenesis@hotmail.com. I should be able to respond to all serious Emails. And now, without further ado... ------------------------------------------------- Survivor - Day 2 (Point of No Return) After breakfast we all headed to the back of the camp warehouse to pick our snorkeling and scuba equipment we would be taking with us on the boat. I was kind of tired because I hadn't slept very well the night before. I kept having the strangest dreams about Randy. I looked over at the boy and saw him sifting through the snorkeling masks looking for one that would fit. Randy was 17, just like Philip. One year older than me, but being in high school, one year was like a lifetime. He was wearing his uniform like Philip and his crew always did, hanging low around the hips and shirt not tucked in. He swatted a fly away from his face and ran the back of his other hand across his sweaty forehead. My dreams from the night before began to replay in front of my eyes. We had left on the boats and Randy was on my boat for some reason and was treating very strangely. He would act like we were best friends for a while and then he would start making fun of me and then he would treat me like a complete stranger. That dream had gone on all night, even picking right back up after periods of wakefulness. Randy looked over at me and I realized I had been staring and I looked back down at the snorkeling masks in front of me and continued rummaging through them. I was pretty sure that having a crush on one of Philip's henchmen wouldn't go over to well with him. "Eric, would you just pick one already so we can get out of here?" Jack complained. I grabbed the first one I had tried on and we walked back outside. "God, were you looking for the one with your name on it?" I pushed him playfully and we continued on to the pavilion where we would get a quick lesson before going out in the lagoon. Today, we were going to practice snorkeling and scuba diving and then we were going to start loading the food on the boats. I couldn't believe that tomorrow was the day we were going to go out on the boats. The lesson was long and boring, but soon the counselor led us out to the docks so we could get in the water. Basically, the whole troop was there except for Kyle and Kevin, the Senior Patrol Leader and his assistant. I figured that since they were 18 they didn't have to do a lesson before we went out. We all stripped down to our swimsuits and I kept looking over at Randy. He seemed to move in slow motion as he took his hat off and pulled his shirt over his head. Randy was on the baseball team and you could tell he worked out a lot. I was completely infatuated with him. He put his hat back on backwards and leaped into the water. "Hey, Eric," I heard a voice call from behind me. I turned around and saw Austin standing there with his mask already on. His giant mask seemed awkward on his small head. "Think fast," he said and before I could figure out what he meant, he pushed me towards the edge of the dock. Luckily, I wasn't as slow as he thought and I had the chance to grip his arm as I fell over the side, dragging him into the water with me to make a huge splash. We both surfaced laughing our heads off. "Don't fool around on the dock," the counselor complained, but we both ignored him. I wasn't the slightest bit impressed with the scuba diving and snorkeling in the bay water. Visibility was about three feet and the only thing underwater was mud and seaweed. I tried to remind myself that the reefs would be a lot more fun than this little lesson we were getting. By the time we got out of the water and got cleaned up it was time for dinner. Dinner was about as nasty as last night, but once again no one cared. The younger kids were so impressed by the diving today that I couldn't wait to see how they would be at the reefs. They thought this was as good as it was going to get. After dinner we loaded a lot of the food we were going to take with us on the boat. We would do the rest tomorrow before we left. That evening I stretched out on one of the benches overlooking the bay and just sat thinking about the trip. My parents had given up a lot to let me be here. The trip was pretty expensive and that was one of the reasons only 15 kids from the troop had come. I heard someone coming up behind me and turned to see that it was just Jack. "You didn't want to play volleyball tonight?" he asked. Most of the kids were playing volleyball again tonight because they had so much fun the night before. "Not really," I replied. Jack sat down beside me on the bench and looked out at the water. "Who's winning?" "My team of course," he said in his cocky, half-joking way. We sat there a few moments longer just watching the sun settle lower and lower in the sky towards it's inevitable plunge. "Is something wrong?" he finally asked me. I grinned and told him there was nothing wrong. People always assumed that there was something wrong with me when I was just relaxing and enjoying myself. Extroverts were always feeling sorry for me and asking what was wrong when I just wanted to spend some time alone. I felt sorry for those people that needed human interaction all the time. We begun to talk about everything from school to our ship's captain and by the time the sun had completely set and the sky was turning dark blue and purple, some of the younger kids had come over to the bench to throw stuff in the bay water below us. Kids always felt the need to throw stuff in the water, as if the concept of liquid and the way it flowed and moved when something struck it hadn't sunk into their heads yet. "I think I'm going to go back to the room now," I told Jack and stood up. "All right, just try and lighten up a little," he told me. I smiled to myself and walked off toward the rooms. Extroverts, go figure. I walked across the field to the rooms and before I got to the stairs I saw someone sitting off on the side of the huge building by themselves. I squinted into the darkness and couldn't make out who it was. I was suddenly hit by a strange need to go over and investigate to see who it was. I began walking toward the figure and as I got closer I saw that whoever it was was smoking a cigarette. "How's it going Eric?" the person said. As soon as he spoke I knew it was Randy. "Hey, Randy," I replied, suddenly not sure if I should go the rest of the way to him. My legs decided for me and I walked right up to him. He had his baseball cap turned around backwards and was looking off into the woods, casually puffing on his cigarette as if there was nothing wrong with the act itself. "Where were you all night? I was looking forward to kicking your ass in volleyball," he said. He was looking forward to seeing me, I thought. There was about a million ways I could take that, seeing as though we barely spoke at Boy Scouts. "I was out by the docks with Jack," I said. "Oh." He continued staring off into the woods without looking at me, a line of smoke trailing off the end of the cigarette that hung between his fingers. He was so complete and sure of his own importance. It was no wonder I found him so irresistible. He knew he was inhumanly hot. He sat there silent for a moment and I figured it was my turn to talk. "So, where's Philip and Travis?" I couldn't have cared less, but this was the first time I had seen him not glued to the others. He shrugged his shoulders, again without looking at me and continued smoking. His inability to look at me was making me feel awkward so I began to make my retreat. "Well, I'll talk to you later," I said. "See ya," he said. I walked back over to the stairs and went to the top floor to my room and laid down in my bed. I began to think about Randy as soon as I laid down and I closed my eyes and replayed seeing him on the dock stripping his shirt off. I was getting really hard all of a sudden, but decided that this was neither the time nor the place to relieve myself so I ignored it and went to sleep. The dreams I dreamed and the life I lived when I was asleep played out in an array of images, sounds, and feelings. Randy was next to me on a beach looking out over the endless expanse of water. Austin was running through the woods, running from unseen assailant closing in for the kill. The last image that played out chilled me to the bone and made me awaken in a cold sweat. I had seen Jack floating face down and motionless in some body of water. The water had been some unnatural, cloudy red color. The color of blood, and if you looked close enough, you would be able to see tiny fish swarming around him and pecking away at his pale, unresponsive flesh. But who knows. Maybe I didn't dream those things the night before we left on the boats. Now, I'm not saying I'm lying or anything like that. I mean, we all know how things turned out and maybe having the memory of those dreams was simply some way for me beat myself up over not being able to do more to divert such a horrible fate. Back then, though, everything was like a dream, so maybe that was simply part of reality spilling over into my dreams, or my dreams spilling over into reality. Look, I'm kind of tired of talking right now. Could we finish this later? I'm just tired, you know? I just want to rest. I'm sure I'll be able to continue in the morning. Maybe then I'll have convinced myself that there was no way to save them... continued..... --------------------------------------------------------- The boats move out of port and the fate of Troop 258 is sealed forever. Day 3 is coming in a few...