The bonfire was a ring of kids dancing and screaming their guts into the air. Near the bonfire was a totem that reached the foliage of the trees. Underneath the totem was five camp counselors lifting the heavy totem while a younger teen is adding another idol at the bottom.
Drums filled the night with deep throngs and booms. Howls filled the space between beats. And then, a deep beat from the largest drum silence them all. The newest idol is added and thus, the camp leader demanded silence.
"Piners!" the leader boomed. "We are here to celebrate the birth of our new fledglings."
"Hoo-hah!" The campers shouted. Everyone said their best except for the young children in the outer circle, including my target wearing a chullo hat.
"Fledglings!"
Another chant.
"Fledgling, stand up and hold your hands."
All children in the outer perimeter held hands and formed a large circle that hugged the whole camp. The children closed their eyes and recited their chant of invocation to enter the camp. As they were doing this, I made my move. I crawled at the foot-trodden dirt and the undersides of fallen leaves. I reached my target's shoes and crawled slowly towards his legs. The kid was too busy mumbling the chants for him to notice me crawling up inside his shorts. Once inside, I formed a row of titanium teethed mandibles and dug my way inside. The boy flinched in pain but I quickly synthesized a neurotoxin that robbed him the ability to scream. I also added a drop of anesthesia so that my takeover would be painless.
The boy closed his eyes tighter and bit his lip. His hands trembled in the fear that is enveloping every cell of his body. He couldn't do anything but to stand and fade away as I cleaned his mind and replaced it with my own.
We finished chanting and the circle was in silence one more. A yellow-haired boy on my left looked at me. He looked at me with strange brown eyes and said,
"Damian, that was a tight hold back there."
He raised his right hand and showed how red they were. Damian held him hard while I was invading his body.
"I'm just excited."
Suddenly, a shush came behind me. An instructor looked at me sharply and continued trodding the outer perimeter.
"Fledgling!" the man in the center said. "You were mere eggs when you entered, and now you're eagles ready to seize the day. Excel in your activities and one day, you might add your idol at the totem of champions. Piners!"
"Hoo-hah" everyone chanted, including the newly invocated fledgling, including me. I don't mind much about this event I'm in. Only that I got this body where I can hide with my new associate. Although, there's this feeling inside me that made me smile and feel satisfied. It's like I'm included in something new. Something big where I can participate in. I gave a small chuckle and faced, Thom, the yellow-haired boy beside me.
He smiled as well and held my hand. His were soft and supple. They were perfect. I smiled deeper for I found the body that will hide my friend for a while.
---
We ate our dinner after the ritual in the grand hall. I played my part as Damian and laughed with friend's childish jokes. As we were eating, I caught sight of Thom and waved at him to sit beside me.
"Thom!" I waved. He caught sight of me and laid his tray at my table along with my other friends.
From Damian's memories, Thom was his latest best friend from his long list of previous playmates. Damian's family moved houses most of the time because his dad was an ex-pat from Canada. But soon, they found permanent residence near Spokane and never moved since. Thom was the first kid he met during their school's baseball tryouts. They didn't get in but they turned out friends and then best friends when they realized their shared interest in camping. For the first time in years, both of their parents agreed on making them join an actual camp in an actual forest. And now, both of them are here grinning for cheeks to cheeks as we are gobbling our first camp food.
Our meal was a meager dinner for children, a leg of chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and a side of vegetables. Damian hated vegetables, especially carrots. When Thom saw me eating a spoonful of the green stuff, his eyes flashed open.
"I thought you hate vegetables."
I scooped another and chewed slowly while staring in his eyes. I smirked a bit and waited for his response.
"Gross..." He belched. He ate his food and talked about what we're supposed to do tomorrow. He talked about climbing trees but I know that's not what we're going to do. Younglings are trained to properly knot a knot first then a month-long lecture about camping basics. It's only after your third year that you're actually going to do physical stuff. By then, half of the younglings quit due to boredom.
Even with this truth, I flashed my youthful eyes and agreed with the tree climbing. I don't want Thom's final moments to be spoiled by the truth.
After dinner, the younglings walked on a line towards their sleeping lodges. It was a cute sight to see groups of children laughing and teasing each other. I felt someone tapped my right shoulder but when I looked, there's no there. I turned to the right and Thom was there, laughing his ass out at the simple childish prank. I laughed as well and did a knocker on his head. An instructor shushed us so we laughed in lower tones.
The events in the lodge weren't exceptional. We dusted off our beds and slept. Thom slept on left while an unknown red-haired boy with freckles slept on my right.
Before sleeping, Thom whispered a prayer to his god and thanked the experience in joining an actual camp. He gave thanks for having me accompany him. He gave thanks for the food. And finally, he wished for a better camp experience tomorrow.
If he only knew what I'm going to do to him.
---
My body is catatonic in its sleep while my mind is wide open. I could sense my immediate area. I know who is awake and those who are asleep depending on the depth of their breath. There's only a handful of younglings who are awake and the instructors are beginning to go to sleep as well. As for my associate, he's hiding at the wall behind the lodge. Judging by his speedy breath and the low growl of his stomach, he's impatient and hungry after hours of waiting for a signal on my end. I elongated one of my fingers and snuck it out via a hole on the wall. I transformed the tip of my index into a mouth called out Steven.
"Jesus!" he blurted. "You scared me."
He looked around but he couldn't find me.
"Where are you?"
"I'm inside the lodge" I rested my finger on the forest floor and sensed that there's no soul to hear our conversation. "I have a plan. Hold my finger."
I tapped him and he held one end of my finger. Back in the cabin, I elongated my finger from my other hand and let it crawl to Thom's bed. It slithered on the floor and climbed on the bed pedestal. It rose above Thom's chest and strikes clean at his solar plexus. Like before, I administer a neurotoxin and anesthetic to keep him from flailing and screaming.
On the other hand, the flesh Steven was holding transformed into a blanket of skin that wrapped around him. It formed a cocoon around the kid and flushed him with acidic enzymes the melted all of his essence into a watery goop. Everything was quick and streamlined so there's no moment for screaming. All of his essences traveled to my body for reassembly and then funneled it towards Thom's body.
Veins formed where I struck in Thom's chest and the neurotoxin I administered wasn't enough to keep his body from struggling. Luckily, the entire process took only a few seconds before everything went to silence again. I retreated my elongated fingers and went back to sleep.
---
The next morning...