surrounded by new faces.
Henry Bramble sat in the middle row of a bus filled with teenagers on his way to camp Chrysalis. He was sitting by himself and attempting to pass the time by reading a book on magic throughout the ages. It was going poorly as a result of the noise the other teenagers were making.
Henry himself had an androgynous face with shoulder length wavy black hair and eyes which were a deep blue. He was slightly tall for his age of fifteen with a physique which was lean and similarly androgynous. He wore a simple outfit consisting of a plain white t-shirt, tracksuit pants and sneakers.
Realizing he was not going to be able to read under these conditions. He decided to observe some of the people he was going to be spending the next month with instead. He glanced throughout the bus spotting four people who intrigued him.
There was an average looking girl with brown hair and hazel eyes who sat near the back of the bus. She talked to everyone around her wanting to find out as much as she could. She talked fast and with a lot of enthusiasm, the people she was conversing with seem to be infected by her energy.
There was also another girl sitting near the front. She had black hair which covered a portion of her face, if one was paying close attention, they would notice that her hair was in fact blonde and merely dyed black.
She stared outside the window at the passing forest, she had an expression which made it look like she was uninterested in almost anything.
This by itself would not have intrigued Henry however, it was the way the girl was sitting that did. She took up the entire bus seat with her legs which rusted on the seat.
Henry had remembered when they had first gotten on the bus and the girl sat like that. The bus driver had argued with the girl about how she left no space for someone else for several minutes before giving up.
The last two that Henry had bothered observing had been having a rather unpleasant interaction, although the unpleasantness was one sided. A chubby boy who was rather large for his age and two others who seemed to be his lackeys. Were harassing another boy in the seat in front of them.
The boy they were picking on was short and scrawny, he wore a button up shirt and had square glasses. The larger boy and his lackeys seem to think it would be amusing to pass the time by either smacking the smaller boy upside the head, flick his ears or simply push him from side to side.
The smaller boy simply endured the torment in silence.
Henry thought to himself as he continued to watch the interaction unfold, the boy could probably ask the driver for help although he didn't think that would amount to much. The man would likely only intervene if the situation got severely out of hand, which currently it was not.
Henry contemplated intervening, he had more than enough capability to handle a minor situation like this. however, he decided against it for two simple reasons. Firstly, he did not want to cause a scene and the second reason related to the first he did not wish to draw attention to himself. His overseer had ordered him to go on this trip and he had done as he was told, however he preferred to do things on his own terms.
With one of those terms being having as little interaction as possible with the other teens.
...
It was midafternoon when the bus had arrived to the archway of Camp Chrysalis. Not too long after a second bus had arrived which carried the rest of the campers, in total there were fifty teenagers. The drivers opened the bus doors and the various passengers began filing out of the bus, In a rather unorganized fashion.
Henry had no interest in dealing with a bunch of teenagers attempting to shove past him, so he simply grabbed his bag and waited for everybody else to leave. Unfortunately, his desire to be left alone had unintentionally backfired. Since while he was at the back of his group the other group from the second bus followed not too far behind. It soon became one large group with Henry smack dab in the middle.
Cursing under his breath Henry had decided to simply bear with the minor inconvenience as he thought, the group should disperse shortly then I'll be able to... His thought was interrupted by another camper bumping into him on accident.
Henry considered himself to be a rather common composed person, so he resisted the impulse to elbow the camper behind him in the stomach.
The large group of teenagers made their way into an open area Made up of well-maintained grass, which had natural shrubbery fencing along its perimeter.
The group was greeted by the site of a hairy middle-aged man with a well-trimmed mustache and round glasses. The man was Mr. Matthew the owner of the camp. He wore a long sleeve golf shirt which had embroidery which resembled that of insect like armor. He was accompanied by eight other young adults each wearing a golf shirt with an insect embroidered on the front.
Mr. Matthew began to address his campers in a rather warm and inviting tone, "I would just like to start off by saying thank you all for attending our summer camp. I'm positive this will be an experience which will stick with you in the future.''
He then gestured to the young adults surrounding him before continuing, 'These are the camp counselors they'll be assisting me in running the camp. Things such as activities and various other tasks I'm sure you would find to be rather boring.''
The counselors then proceeded to grab nearby duffel bags. They then began moving through the crowd of teenagers while handing out different colored golf shirts seemingly at random.
Henry examined the shirt he was given; it was a long sleeve which was purple in coloration with a pink butterfly embroidered on the front. while he didn't care about the design, he appreciated that it was a long sleeve. He put it on over his white t shirt. Afterwards he thought to himself, these probably indicate what group will be assigned to. I wonder which group the four I observed earlier are in.
Henry then began looking for the four he had seen earlier. It didn't take him too long to spot them and just like on the bus ride they seemed to capture his interest. Each of the four had the same type of shirt as him, meaning they were part of the same group. Henry found this somewhat coincidental but what really drew his interest was each of their reactions.
The group that the average looking girl with brown hair had acquired seemed to have different shirts than her. She didn't appear to be dejected by this at all instead, she looked around energetically for her new groupmates. When she saw Henry was in the same group as her, she gave him a wide smile. Henry had to restrain himself from pulling a face. He instead responded with a more subdued nod.
Then there was the large chubby boy and his cronies. The boy seemed to be upset at the fact that his underlings were in a different group as him, he also seemed to be annoyed with the type of insect embroidered on the shirt. As the two other boys that had been following his lead in tormenting that one kid seemed to have green shirts with pray mantises on them.
Speaking of the smaller boy who was bullied. He didn't really seem to care about his group placement. Instead, he used his tormentor's distraction as an opportunity to move to the opposite side of the gathering of teens.
Then lastly was the girl with dyed hair, Henry noticed her attempting to sneak off. She didn't get far before one of the counselors noticed her. Henry didn't think the girl was going to get into much trouble It was more likely that she just wanted to be alone. Henry emulated her sentiment while thinking to himself. I've really been dying to get a bit of me time and continue with my book I wonder if I should sneak off. Even with so many eyes I'm fairly confident I could slip away unnoticed.
Henry side and reconsidered, I'd better not that would be a very childish use of my skills and abilities.
...
After a basic orientation Henry and the other campers were taken to the Mess Hall to eat. They were then given a bit of free time before being led off to the cabins in order to turn in for the night.
Henry had trouble falling asleep, he considered himself to be a rather logical person and there was only one reason he had trouble falling asleep. His instincts were warning him.