Minhyuk Park

Let me assure you, waking up drenched in rainwater and dirt from leaves is not a good way to start your day. Waking up to the reality of our situation was even worse. I'd give our shelter 0 out of 5 in my yelp review, with an added recommendation to a particular family. As we staggered out of the woods we came across other survivors, soaked and in shock, no doubt having heard similar occurrences in the night.

We followed the crowd into the dining hall. My stomach growled hopefully but I was prepared for the gross camp food I was about to digest. Nothing at all like homemade tteokbokki or kimchi jjigae. The lines were marked with zeros, ones, twos, and threes, probably referring to the tallies. There were noticeably fewer threes, most of which, definitely did not look friendly.

"I am guessing this is based on the tally system," Santiago said quietly. No duh. His eyes were half-closed and he looked ready to fall asleep any second. Although I'd like to assume otherwise, I probably didn't look any better.

We waited in the line of zeroes for what felt like an eternity. Once we reached the window, a hand pushed out half a bowl of goop. The smell was enough to make me gag, but my stomach's persistence forced me to reach out and take it. The pale hand hovered over the dish momentarily, before quickly disappearing. Who works here?

The four of us sat down at an empty table and tried to get some feeling back into our toes. As much as I wanted to change into dry clothes, I figured I should probably save them for later. My poor jacket...I looked at my leather jacket, or what it used to resemble. Now no amount of professional cleaning could save it.

"At least it is warm," Becky said, staring down at her bowl of unknown mush. She was small, but she gave off such a warm welcoming aura, it was hard to believe she came from a family like mine. Money tends to make people cold. I glanced at the siblings. Their attitudes were also contrasting most of the kids here but in a different way from Becky. As much as I hated to say it, they definitely did not belong here.

We sat in silence, no doubt craving warm beds at home. A short while later the same moron that gave the speech last night walking up to the podium.

"I see that some of you survived," he began, "Today you will have your evaluations, so we can decide what classes you will be taking."

Are you fucking kidding me? I was liking this camp less and less. Father hadn't really told me what the camp was about, but I figured it was a convenient way to get rid of me. We were herded outside like stupid sheep. Almost everyone seemed terrified while Steph looked like she was going to throw up her pitiful breakfast.

"205," A guard called out. In unison, we looked down at our bracelets and sighed in relief. A ginger-haired guy pushed past us in an attempt to appear tough, but his face contorted into a look of fear.

"206," The guard called out, again. This time it was a girl with bright blue hair. She seemed confident, but her steps were uneven.

The guard continued through his list of numbers. Each person seemed to be more fearful as none of them returned. Almost an hour passed before the ginger finally came back. He looked as if he had just run a marathon as he conversed quietly with his friends. I stopped listening to the numbers, thinking about the food I could've been eating at home.

I was startled awake when the guard called out, "257."

"Fuck."

To anyone else, I would appear to not have a care in the world, but I was terrified as I walked inside. A woman greeted me, a frown etched into her almost porcelain face. She handed me a stack of papers.

"You have half an hour to answer as many questions as you can."

The 30 minutes flew by as I scribbled in answers, failure was obviously not a good bet. I'll admit, the questions were fucking hard. There were questions ranging from math to history, different customs for other countries, and more. Thank God I paid attention to those stupid meetings. What asshole created this shit?

"Your time is up." The test was replaced with a blank questionnaire sheet.

"Fill this out and then go through those doors." I looked to where she was pointing, a large set of metal doors reflected the room perfectly, with slight rust stains around the edges.

The questionnaire had simple questions about favorite colors or horoscope signs, as well as strange ones along the lines of: What is the best way to kill someone? Should you look at my answers out of context, I'd sound like a psycho killer, but I figured that's what they wanted.

I made an attempt to casually stroll through the doors, but couldn't hide my surprise at seeing exercise equipment on the other side. A very muscular man motioned to the treadmill. He hooked me up to a heart monitor and chose the fastest setting.

"You expect me to just jump on and get going?" He merely grunted before starting a timer and sitting down to lift weights.

"Fuck this shit." Against my better judgment, I forced myself onto the death machine and started running.

Then I ran. I ran and ran and until I was drenched in sweat. I wasn't until I felt like I was going to collapse that the man stopped the timer and the machine, gesturing to a pull-up bar. I sighed and grabbed the bar.

"Damn you, Nick," The anger towards my 'accomplice' fueled me through the last three sets of ten before I promptly collapsed.

The muscular man grunted and pushed me towards the doors leading outside.

"Do you ever say shit?" In response to my less than stellarly worded question, he slammed the door in my face.

I sluggishly walked out the door and into the fresh air. I stumbled toward what looked to be Steph's bright red hair before collapsing onto the hard ground.

"Hey!" I rose from my coma-like sleep to see Santiago hovering above me. Damn those lips though. I shook my head, knowing this was neither the time nor the place.

"Are the girls still inside?"

"Nah man, they already came out." I glanced over to see the girls leaning against a tree, speaking to each other, holding pieces of paper.

"They're passing out schedules."

"What is this, fucking school?" Bro, I did not sign up for this shit.

"No, it is worse" He was dead serious. If this was a different time, I would have melted under that gaze. This, sadly, was not it.

"257." The guard called out, paper in hand.

I stood up and walked toward the front. I snatched the paper, with the clear intent to give him a paper cut. Eventually, everyone from the group received their 'schedules'. Quietly, we started comparing them. What the flying fuck are these classes.

"It looks like I have Implementing Fear for my first class." Steph wrinkled her nose at Santiago's comment.

"Goody, The Usefulness of Uselessness," Becky spat.

"I'm so fucking lucky, I got hacking," I snapped, "racist a-holes." Oh sure, give the Asian kid hacking classes.

We all turned toward Stephanie waiting for her to share.

"The hell? Your face is as red as your goddamn hair."

For a moment she did not speak, before finally mumbling, "The Power of Looks."

Becky broke into a coughing fit trying to conceal her giggles. Santiago, on the other hand, didn't even try to contain his laughter.

"It's not funny, you ass." Steph snapped, her eyes blazing with embarrassment and frustration.

When Santiago finally calmed down, he snickered.

"I feel like a middle school girl comparing schedules. Park darling, whatever do you have for your third class?" He added a very dramatic imagery hair flip at the end of his sentence. Park? What the fuck? He winked at me and any concerns about my name vanished. Of course, I knew we would have classes, even if I didn't know what the options were. What else were we supposed to do at a camp like this? Kayaking?

"It looks like we have a lot of physical activities in the afternoon," Becky interjected, desperately trying to change the subject. It was true. One of the classes was acutely labeled Running. I raised an eyebrow, so far unimpressed with the class names.

"What are you all standing around here for?" A guard had snuck up behind us, "Get lost." How can they stand that uniform? It was a dark grey canvas material jacket and pants set. Many of the guards had tied the jackets around their waists and opted for a lighter weight shirt underneath. This one, however, wore the entire thing along with some heavy-duty boots.

"We should probably try to fix our shelter." Becky quickly stood up after fully examining her schedule.

In agreement, we all ventured into the woods.

A/N Heyyy, Thanks for sticking around! Next chapter is from Santiago, so get ready!