"Was that the last of them?” Jeremy asked as another group of campers walked out of the meeting hall, quiet whispering amongst them as they stared between each other, eyes wide. Katsuki checked the clipboard he had reclaimed from Ruth, and nodded.

“Considering we don’t need to tell Brian’s cabin what they’re doing, the other remaining Leo cabin and the third Virgo cabin were the last two. Brian can tell his cabin the details, they should have an easier time adjusting to the new information given they were out and about all last night.” Katsuki replied.

“That’s good. God, that sucked.” Jeremy sighed, sitting heavily into the closest chair. His head ached from the tension that had pulled at his brain. The informal meetings had gone about as well as they could have, all things considered. There had been a lot of panic, crying and anger as they revealed what was going on, and even as they left, Jeremy could tell that there were some who still didn’t quite believe them, even with all of the team leaders plus Xavier telling them the truth.

“It was necessary. We couldn’t have kept them in the dark for much longer.” Xavier replied.

Jeremy sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “I just wish we had some good news to tell them as well, keep their spirits up, you know?”

“Given there aren’t any more of those beasts attacking right now, I’d say that’s pretty damn good news on it’s own.” Xavier replied. “Still, I get what you’re saying. We’re in for a rough one.”

“Hopefully this won’t last too long. If this lasts more than a week or so, we’re going to start really having issues.” Yasmina said. Jeremy nodded. It wouldn’t take much to push their tenuous authority over the camp to it’s breaking point. Any more serious incidents and any semblance of order in the camp would break down. Jeremy had read Lord of the Flies in high school, and he’d be damned if anything like that scenario happened here.

“So is everyone clear on what we’re all doing?” Jeremy asked, looking around the room.

He wasn’t too concerned about Xavier’s group with Brian and Arnold, the older man was experienced at working through problems, and despite having an inexperienced crew, Jeremy was sure that Xavier wouldn’t have too much trouble with figuring out his priorities and getting things moving. Even if the man’s list was long and covered a lot of bases, Xavier was proven to have a mind as sharp as a tack, and had never let anything fall through the cracks before. Jeremy was quite sure he wasn’t about to start now, and anyone working with him would just have to keep up.

He was worried about Allison, she had been very quiet throughout the entire meeting since she arrived. Jeremy had gotten the gist of the situation, that Madison wasn’t doing well since they found her, and Jeremy just hoped Allison could put aside her feelings for the moment to get things moving. She still had yet to inform the rest of her lifeguards what the situation was, as well as figure out how to make Andromeda into a more capable and comfortable triage center. The small health center on campus only had a few beds, there was no way they could fit all of the injured there. And keeping them in Andromeda meant that everyone would be centrally located around the meeting halls anyways.

Katsuki’s group was somewhat more of a mixed bag. Having a camper in charge of the dining hall certainly wouldn’t have been his first choice, but after going through and asking each of the other staff members, it was clear they had made the right decision, seeing as none of them had any experience beyond cooking for themselves. He’d have to keep an eye on Natalie though, from what he’d seen so far, her meek personality didn’t seem well suited to leading a group of people very well. He’d just have to hope Katsuki’s judgment was good for now. Hopefully he’d figure out with Doug and Zoe if fishing and hunting were going to be feasible options for gathering food alongside the nature center farm.

“I think we’re all set here. Noticed you haven’t put yourselves with any groups though.” Xavier grunted, eyeing him and Yasmina. They looked at each other, and Jeremy frowned.

“Honestly, I didn’t notice. My whole team is...gone, and we’ve got the essentials covered…” Jeremy hummed to himself as Yasmina came to stand next to him, her hand threading into his own.

“There’s one thing we haven’t covered yet.” Allison said, and all eyes swiveled towards her as she straightened out in her chair. “What’s our plan for figuring out how to get out of this mess? You said earlier we’re not relying on the people outside to do it for us, but I haven’t heard any ideas about what the cause of all this is and how to fix that.” Jeremy frowned as the room went silent.

“I think it’s fair to say that no one here is an expert on...whatever is going on here. Demon bears and mysterious cloud barriers aren’t exactly common, to say the least.” Yasmina said.

Arnold stood from his chair, restlessly pacing between the rest of the group. “True, but there’s got to be some reason why this all happened. It’s got to be connected somehow.”

“Other than the fact that they appeared at the same time, I don’t see any similarities between the two.” Katsuki said, a frown across his face.

“Well, they’re obviously not natural phenomena. That’s another thing in common.” Arnold replied.

Jeremy smirked as Katsuki rolled his eyes. It was difficult to get Katsuki annoyed, but Arnold seemed to be one of the people who could get under the usually unflappable man’s skin. “Other than that. But there’s other questions around that. DId they both happen at the same time, or did one happen before the other? If the cloud wall happened first, how did the bears get in? Or, if it came second, where did the bears come from in the first place?”

“Don’t think that’s much of an issue to figure out. More important is what we can do about the barrier. You guys tested a few things, but how much of the barrier have you actually seen, other than with that drone? Might be a spot where it doesn’t cover.” Xavier said.

“I doubt it’d be that easy, but we’ll put that as a to-do. Zoe and the hunting team could take the parts that go into the mountains while they’re out there, they’re going to be scouring most of that area for anything that might be huntable anyways.” Jeremy replied, nodding towards Zoe, who was sitting by Natalie.

Zoe stood, crossing her arms as she stepped closer to the group. “Any idea how big that area is? Natalie said she didn’t get a good idea of the size of the area by that drone video.”

“We’ll have to take a look again. We’ll need to set some boundaries around the camp anyways, figure out an outer perimeter. I don’t want anyone getting too close to that barrier, it’d be too easy to have an accident and have someone go through it, especially you guys on the boats.” Jeremy nodded towards Doug, who nodded back at him.

“We’ll be careful. Most of the fishing spots I know are closer to shore anyways, the lake doesn’t get too deep until pretty far out, so we might be out of luck for fishing for the bigger ones. We might need to take the rescue boat out to check the depth for as close as we can, safely, to the barrier. We might get lucky and be able to get some trout further down if the barrier is out far enough.” Doug replied.

“In any case, we’ll have to look at it foot-by-foot to see if there’s any breaks. I’d rather not waste power on the drone battery if we can avoid it, plus it wouldn’t be able to get near the ground in the forest anyways. We know we can’t go over it, so finding a break in it might be the only way out.” Jeremy said.

“Is that what you’ll be working on then?” Xavier asked.

Jeremy shrugged. “That, and if that doesn’t work, then figuring out what to do next. There’s got to be some reason why all of this has happened, and if we can figure that out, then maybe we can figure out how to undo it.” He replied.

“That’s kind of a long shot, don’t you think? What could possibly cause something like...this?” Arnold gesticulated airily into the space in front of him, unable to find the words to encompass everything they had seen so far.

“Look, I know it doesn’t look great right now, but trust me, we’ll figure something out. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to ask us for help if you need something. We’re all in this together, and so long as we help each other out, we’ll get through this.” Jeremy said. A few agreeable nods went around the room.

Xavier huffed as he shifted in his seat. “Right then, we should get to it. Don’t want to leave the kids wondering what’s next for too long. Brian, Arnold, go get Finn, and Connor and James. We’ll need to start figuring out our side of things on the double. I suggest the rest of you do the same.” Xavier said, and they watched as Brian and Arnold made for the door.

“Thanks everyone.” Jeremy said, and watched as everyone else stood from their chairs. A low murmur began as Katsuki’s group of people bunched together and headed for the door, followed a few steps back by Allison. Jeremy stretched in place, his shoulders aching as he turned to look back at the blackboard behind him.

Yasmina sidled up beside him, watching them leave for a moment before looking up at him. “Think we got everything?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Hard to say. I’m sure something will come up sooner or later. We’ll just have to hope it’s nothing too serious.”

Yasmina huffed, leaning up against him. “Nothing serious, like being nearly killed, or trapped.” She murmured, and Jeremy put his arm around her.

“Yeah.” There wasn’t really much more he could say to that. As much as he’d tried to provide a sense of calm and rationality to the others, Jeremy couldn’t help but admit that the situation was dire, and he didn’t really know what they could even start with. Despite the plan to inspect the barrier, Jeremy had a good hunch that they wouldn’t find any way out of it. And after that, there wasn’t much left to go on.

“Where do you begin figuring out a mystery like this anyways?” Jeremy asked rhetorically, staring at the blackboard.

“Best place to begin is the beginning.” Xavier replied from his chair and

Jeremy turned to look at him. “What do you mean? We don’t know how this started or anything.”

“We may not know how it started, but we do know approximately when. Could have happened at a better time, but in this case, there’s one person who we know would have been awake when it happened.” Jeremy’s stomach twisted as he understood where Xavier was going.

Yasmina shook her head. “We haven’t seen David since any of this began. For all we know…” Yasmina trailed off mid-sentence, and Jeremy frowned, his stomach twisting into knots. He shook his head. David wasn’t dead. Much as he didn’t like to admit it, his younger brother could be a bit of a coward, especially when something unexplained happened. David couldn’t even handle listening to ghost stories around a campfire. No way would he have stuck around when things started happening last night.

“He’s still alive, somewhere. First sign of those things and he’d have found somewhere to hide. With the radios still down, he just doesn’t have a good way of reaching out to us.” Jeremy said. Yasmina frowned next to him, looking down at the floor.

“Could be that. We’ll work on getting the radios working again ASAP, might help finding him if you’re right. Otherwise, just retracing his route might give some clues.” Xavier said.

“Like what?” Jeremy asked.

Xavier shrugged. “Like Kastuki said, if the barrier happened first, he might have seen something. If radios stopped working at the same time, your brother might have left a message somewhere before investigating. Something like that.”

“If something weird was happening and he saw it, he would have come to tell someone first.” Jeremy said, and Xavier shrugged again.

“Won’t know for sure till you go looking. Somewhere to start with at least. I’m sure you want to go find him anyways, might as well kill two birds with one stone.” Jeremy nodded.

The door opened as Brian and the others returned, and Xavier waved him off. “Get going then. Me and my boys gotta have a chat, and you’ll be more useful out there. We’re counting on you now, Mr. Investigator. We all are.” Xavier said, and Jeremy nodded.

“We’ll do our best.” Jeremy replied, and he passed the group heading into the room as he and Yasmina headed for the door.

Jeremy stretched again on the front porch, watching as groups of campers were huddled around a few staff members outside Andromeda. Many of them still looked shell-shocked, and Jeremy wondered if they fully comprehended the situation they were all stuck in. Hopefully the majority would be able to take the situation seriously and come together to work the problems instead of fracturing and causing chaos and panic around the camp.

“They look scared.” Yasmina murmured, coming alongside him once more. Jeremy nodded.

“And tired. Feels like forever since we got any sleep.” Jeremy replied, a yawn forcing its way out of his mouth as he spoke.

“No rest for the wicked.” Yasmina replied. Jeremy snorted.

“Too much to do, too little time.” He said.

Yasmina nodded. “It’ll be better once we get a good look at how long the food will last. Either way, just having a concrete number to work with will be better than not knowing.”

“Morbid to say, but less mouths to feed means the rest of us lasting longer.” Jeremy hated himself for saying it. Yasmina looked at him, a pained expression on her face. “Sorry, that was insensitive.”

Yasmina shook her head. “It’s reality.” She sighed, leaning against one of the roof supports as she stared at him, chewing on her lip. Jeremy waited for a minute. It was obvious she had something to say, but didn’t quite know how to say it. There was a long moment before Yasmina rubbed at her temples.

“Jeremy, I hate to ask, but...Do you really think we’re going to find your brother?” She asked.

Jeremy nodded. “Yas, you know David. He’s a scaredy-cat. First sign of those bears and he’d have found somewhere to hide until he was sure they were gone.” He replied.

“We made pretty damn sure they were gone, Jeremy, and made sure that anyone else in hiding was aware it was safe. Why else would we keep honking that truck horn for hours?” Yasmina asked.

Jeremy turned to face her, crossing his arms in front of him. “He probably just didn’t hear it. There's a couple places around campus that he could have hid and not heard.”

“Like where?” Yasmina demanded, and Jeremy felt a scowl cross his face.

“Oh, I don’t know, how about the basement of the craft shop? Or the chapel? Heck, he might have run off campus before the barrier went up for all I know.” Jeremy argued.

Yasmina scoffed, looking away from him into the treeline. “Sure, he might have hid, but running away? He’s your brother, he would have come to tell you if he saw something dangerous. Face it, Jeremy, there’s a good chance he didn’t make it.”

Jeremy’s heartbeat echoed loud in his ears as his temperature rose. “Why are you so insistent that he’s dead? My brother would have-”

“Jay, calm down.” Yasmina eyed the campers nearby, who were staring wide-eyed at them from Andromeda’s steps. Jeremy turned, trying to get his anger under control. Like it or not, having an argument in front of the campers was definitely a bad idea right now. He felt Yasmina lay a hand on his shoulder, and he had to struggle not to shrug it off.

“I’m not saying that I think he’s dead, Jay. But I’m worried about you. I..I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” Her voice was quiet, and he heard it shake. Still, he shook his head.

“Sorry, Yas. But I know my brother. He’ll pop out of hiding sooner or later.” Jeremy replied.

Yasmina sighed, and her hand slipped off of his shoulder. “Okay then. Where do we start?” Her voice was low, and Jeremy turned to look at her. Her gaze was on the ground, and his heart sank.

“Look, I'm sorry, Yas. But I know I’m right in this. We just need to find him. I’ve got a good feeling.” Jeremy said, putting his hands on her shoulders.

She looked up at him, a sympathetic smile on her face. “I hope you’re right.” She leaned forwards, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. He breathed slowly as they embraced, letting the world fall away for just a moment.

“Guess we gotta postpone that weekend date.” Jeremy said, and he felt Yasmina laugh. She pulled away, her eyes sparkling as she looked back up at him.

“That’s what you think of right now?” She asked.

Jeremy grinned, his arm coming up to around her shoulders, gesturing with the other towards the lake. “You should have seen the ideas I had. We were going to have a wonderful-”

“Jeremy! Yasmina!” They turned as Joshua ran up to them with a panicked look on his face. Jeremy’s heart dropped as he came near.

“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asked, and Joshua gasped for breath.

“Some of the kids assigned to the dining hall with us ran off!. We think they’re headed towards the barrier!”

Jermey’s heart dropped, and he cursed as he looked at Yasmina, her face pale.

“Let’s go.” Both of them ran for the truck parked around the corner, jumping into it as his heart beat out of his chest.

“No rest for the wicked.” Yasmina repeated, her voice tight as she threw the truck into reverse, spinning the wheel as the truck spun to face the dirt path towards the exit.

Jeremy rolled down the window on his side of the truck, nearly hanging out of the window as he scanned ahead of them. “I expected this, but this soon? Kids are more desperate than I thought. Even if they could make it, it’s ten miles to town.”

“Hopefully they’re just trying to get a look themselves. If they try to go through….” Yasmina gunned the engine, and the truck rocketed forwards. Jeremy jolted in his seat with every bump in the road, his eyes scanning quickly as the truck hit the parking lot, Yasmina swinging the truck wide around the demon bear’s corpse. Jeremy slammed into the door as she spun the truck the other way onto the road.

“There!” Yasmina shouted, and Jeremy’s heart dropped. A group of five kids, far down the road, nearing the barrier. His heartbeat raced.

“Shit, they’re way too close!” The group turned to look at them as the truck raced to catch up with them, eyes wide and panicked as they scrambled off the road. Yasmina turned the truck, the tires screeching as it came to a halt sideways across the road, just a few dozen feet from the barrier. Jeremy pushed open the door, and stepped out to face them.

His heart dropped again as he looked at the group in front of him. He recognized all of their faces clearly, mostly from having worked with them to assemble the gateway into the amphitheater just yesterday morning.

“Jake, Harry, Noah, Corey and Martin. Anyone else with you?” Jeremy asked, and Jake shook his head.

“No, just us. They wanted to take a look at the barrier. I tried to tell them it was a bad idea, but they didn’t listen to me.” Jake said.

Jeremy snorted, gesturing all of them towards the truck. “You should have told someone, it’s only luck that Joshua noticed you were all missing.” Jeremy replied.

Jake frowned, pointing at the rest of the group as he stepped to the side. “I just wanted to make sure they weren’t going to do something stupid-”

“Like walking off of campus, without telling anyone where you were going? After we just finished killing those beasts? You had to have passed the one the two of us killed with nothing but a fucking sailboat mast on your way here, you really think you could have taken one of them on if one attacked you?” Jeremy yelled, and the whole group shrunk backwards.

“It wasn’t like that! We just-” Harry started, but Jeremy cut him off.

“What it was was stupid, and dangerous. We didn’t risk our lives fighting all those things just for you all to wander off and get yourselves killed anyways.” Jeremy fumed. “What were you thinking? We just told you how dangerous this thing is.”

Noah stepped forwards, interrupting him as he gestured wildly around them. “What proof do you have that it’s dangerous? Everything you’ve said is just that things disappear when they go through it. Where do they go?”

“We don’t know, that’s why it’s dangerous.” Jeremy replied, frustration mounting as the other boys rolled their eyes.

“You don’t even know if it’s safe or not. What if we can get out of here just by going through it? Ever think of that?” Martin asked.

Jeremy glared at him. “If it was that easy, we’d have rescue groups here by now. The fact that we don’t means that it’s not safe-”

“Maybe you can only go through it one way! We could all just leave and be on the other side by now!” Corey shouted, and Jeremy’s heart dropped as he saw tears in the younger boy's eyes.

Jeremey sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “Look, the problem is that we don’t know what happens when you walk through it. Peter did, and he didn’t come back. So either you’re right, and he’s fine on the other side and can’t get back, or…” Jeremy trailed off, and Jake’s face paled. Harry and Corey shifted uncomfortably.

“Or he’s dead.” Jake finished the thought, and the rest of the boys looked at him. Jeremy sighed, nodding his head.

“That’s one possibility. Until we know more about this barrier, we can’t discount the possibility that it just...destroys anything that goes through it. We tried it with a branch, and the end just was gone, like it was sawed off.”

“That doesn’t prove anything! You’re just trying to keep us all here!” Noah shouted..

Jeremy shook his head. “Why would I want to keep you all here if I didn’t think it was the best option? If I thought it was safe, I’d be sending everyone through it immediately. Heck, I’d go first just to show you how safe I thought it was. What possible motive could I have for keeping you all here otherwise? I don’t gain anything from this, if anything, it’s a huge problem that we have to figure out how to solve.” Jeremy replied.

“What do you think happens in there?” Harry asked, and Jeremy looked at him.

“Honestly, I have no idea. But we’re working to figure it out. In the meantime, we need all of you to do the jobs we’ve asked of you. Can you do that for us?” Jeremy asked. The group all nodded, Noah and Martin less enthusiastically than the others.

Yasmina clapped her hands, and the whole group jolted, suddenly reminded she was there as well. “All right, in that case, you all get a free express ride back to camp. But don’t think you guys aren’t in trouble, we’re going to have a serious talk with your group leaders about your actions when we get back.” Yasmina said. The group groaned, but obediently climbed into the back of the truck. Jeremy followed them in, sitting against the tailgate as the truck rumbled back to life.

Jeremy rubbed at his forehead again as Yasmina drove the truck back towards camp. Hopefully this wouldn’t become a regular occurrence. Chasing down kids wandering off just to look at the barrier would be a huge hassle, not to mention dangerous if any of them were more serious about trying to go through it. Only the truly desperate would probably make the attempt. Jeremy made a note to himself to talk to Xavier about the incident and what could realistically be done to prevent further attempts.

Joshua met them at the entrance to the dining hall, visibly relieved as the boys piled out of the back of the truck.

“Thank god you caught up to them. I was worried sick about you little twerps!” Joshua ruffled Jake’s hair as he twisted away, complaining loudly.

“Try to keep a better eye on them, all right? Make them scrub dishes after dinner tonight or something. I don’t want to have to talk to you guys about this again, all right?” Jeremy asked, and they all nodded, gazes downcast.

Joshua’s face went serious as he nodded, looking across the whole group. “I’ll make sure they behave, you can count on that.” Joshua replied. Jeremy nodded at him.

“Hey, Jeremy? Are we still going to have Poker club anytime soon?” Jake asked, and Jeremy sighed.

“Probably not tonight. I think tonight is going to be an early night for everyone, given we barely got much sleep last night. We’ll see what kind of free time all of us have later.” Jeremy replied. Jake nodded, his eyes downcast as they were ushered into the dining hall. Jeremy sighed, leaning heavily against the truck.

Yasmina came around beside him. “You all right?” Yasmina asked, and Jeremy nodded.

“Just….tired.” Another yawn forced its way out of his mouth. He looked at Yasmina, the small smile on her face also drooping slightly in exhaustion.

“I think all of us could use a rest after everything that’s happened.” She replied, and Jeremy grinned.

“No rest for the wicked, you said.” Jeremy replied.

Yasmina rolled her eyes. “God, I hope not. I’m ready to fall on my face.” She replied, leaning against him.

“Same here.” Jeremy replied. His eyes threatened to drift closed right there, and it was only through sheer willpower that he kept them open.

Yasmina sighed, her hand twining it’s way through his, the soft fingers a balm in his palm. “He’s right about one thing though. We should plan for some fun events. We’ll need to keep everyone’s spirits up if we’re going to make it through this.” Yasmina said. Jeremy nodded.

“Yeah, we’ll have to think about that. Hopefully we’ll have the time with everything else.” Jeremy replied.

“We’ll have to make time. These kids can’t keep going on sheer willpower. Sooner or later, they’re going to snap. Some are already pretty close from what I saw when we told them what’s going on.” Yasmina said.

Jeremy nodded in agreement. “We should probably organize some kind of memorial service as well. A lot of us lost friends last night.” Jeremy replied, and Yasmina nodded.

“Should that be before or after we take care of all the bodies?” She asked, her voice low and quiet. Jeremy sighed.

“No idea. One thing at a time.” He replied. Yasmina nodded.

“What’s first then?” She asked.

Jeremy hesitated for a moment, his gut churning. “Let’s head back and talk to Xavier. We didn’t get many volunteers to help with digging the bodies out of the cabins, they’ll need all the help they can get.” Jeremy replied. Yasmina shivered, and Jeremy looked at her. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to-”

“Wherever you go, I go. You can’t get rid of me that easy, love.” Yasmina pulled him down for a kiss, and Jeremy closed his eyes, letting everything else fall away for just a moment.

“Love you.” He murmured as they pulled apart, and Yasmina’s dark eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

“Love you too. Let’s get going, or Xavier will have moved on without us. Legs or no legs, he’s not about to slow down.” Yasmina replied, a small smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

Jeremy smiled at her. “Then neither will we.”