Pelham and Roshon practically raced their way to their assigned cabin - like primary school children - while heaving their bags after them as soon as they had gotten their key. Evidently, they were fortunate enough to have had been assigned to the largest cabin - even if it did look as ordinary as the rest. Naturally, Pelham was looking forwards to the biggest bedroom, like Franco Lolan had mentioned. But Roshon was not going to give him the satisfaction, not after Pelham had suggested that Roshon sleep on the floor.

It was clearly a joke. But, owing to the fact that they were best friends - and sometimes best friends took jokes way too seriously - Pelham thought it was more intense than the Hunger Games itself.

Since Pelham was holding the key, he was the first one to admit himself into the cabin. Once he and Roshon were inside, they stared in awe as they revolved slowly on their spots, engrossed by the interior. It was as archetypal and convivial as any cabin should look, and it blended well with the cool atmosphere outside. The main room consisted of a chestnut two-seated couch, an armchair that was placed against a wall facing a window, right next to a fireplace, completed with an ancient Toshiba 27" television sitting on top of a table and a burgundy rug right at the centre. It was as though nobody bothered to modernise the furnitures in there. But then again, Pelham found that he didn't mind watching movies from a thick television. On the other side of the wall behind the sitting room was the kitchen - its fridge and stove visible enough from the entrance.

And three russet doors told the two boys that they shouldn't be wasting any more time admiring the interior of the cabin.

If it weren't for their little competition of getting the better bedroom, they would have had inspected the whole cabin first like any prudent person would, like making sure there was a back door or a fire alarm - to which Pelham's main concern about the latter was put towards Roshon.

Without further ado, Pelham dashed towards the nearest door while Roshon went for the other pair of doors. He opened it and his stomach plummeted; it revealed a bathroom. He cursed under his breath and panicked. He went to hurry towards the other two doors - either of them - when he heard a cry of triumph from the other side of the room.

"CLAIM IT!" Roshon yelled.

Again, Pelham cursed - loudly, this time.

The bedroom was wide. Even if it only consisted an old queen-sized bed, a drawer, an arm chair that faced a small fireplace and a wardrobe, the huge window that brought in the heavenly exterior landscape made the whole interior design pleasingly aesthetic. The colour of earth was everywhere.

"See? Those who stay patient always end up getting the good stuff," Roshon said smugly.

Pelham could only roll his eyes in exasperation. But, being the good friend he was, he gave in and went for the other door. As expected, it was smaller than Roshon's. Though, at least it was better than what he had expected. The same queen-sized bed that faced a window. A wardrobe stood near a door that probably led to the bathroom. There was a rug at the centre of the room, where an armchair stood, facing another ancient Toshiba television - perhaps older than the other model in the main room. A small desk stood just near the bed, along with a high-backed chair instead of an armchair. All of them looked considerably old. But they were there, all right.

Pelham threw his bags into the room - not bothering to check where they landed - and hopped onto the bed, which bounced under his weight.

He gave a low whistle of astonishment when he saw a clock staring down at him as soon as he was settled on the bed. It was a transparent clock - perhaps already built into the ceiling like windows - with neon numbers and hands, so he could see it at night as well as the sky behind it. Right now, it showed that it was half-past four in the evening, and the sky outside was darkening, as it was going to rain soon, just like Franco had stated.

"Man, I could live here all my life!" he heard Roshon say. He got up and saw that Roshon was standing at his doorway with a grin plastered across his face. He was holding a thick, two-layered wooden plane. "Watch this."

Pelham studied Roshon as he unfolded the plane and pulled out sticks that were attached to a pivot. He pulled out the other layer and fastened the rest of the sticks to its sides. Roshon then put it down, and Pelham was now looking at a stool with a small desk.

"Whoa," he said, hopping off his bed. "Where'd you get it?"

"There's a furniture shop just nearby,"

Pelham gave him an exasperated look.

"Okay, it was beside the window,"

Inadvertently, Pelham desperately glanced at the window in the room in case he was provided with the same piece of furniture. But he found none.

Roshon had a smirk on his face. "Sorry, special rooms only," he said.

"Oh, get out,"

"Don't worry. I'm sure they'll lend you an ironing board that you can use as a surfboard," Roshon grinned. "Except that you can't surf."

"Arse,"

"Nit,"

They didn't spend the first night locked up in the cabin and eating all of their snacks - really, Pelham wanted to. Sure, the cabin was adequately decent that it made both boys want to live in it for the rest of their lives. But the pair of best friends weren't the type to stay indoors all day no matter how exhausted they were. Instead, they pored over their schedules for the week's activities and went outside to get a good idea where they were going to be held. They were also searching for shortcuts in case they were late and had to rush. After all, their cabin was the farthest from the main hall.

Their first activity was simply hiking. Pelham had looked forwards to that earlier on. So he and Roshon set out after dinner and roamed the woods. There were also other students roaming around at night in pairs or in groups and simply just hanging out. There were students grouped around a campfire and singing songs while one or two of them strummed the guitars. There were couples walking together.

And there was the pair of best friends.

Pelham and Roshon nearly got lost as they searched around the woods for their hiking area. It was dark, the air biting, but they could see as clearly with only the light from the moon and the lamp posts around the woods.

When they passed the cafeteria, they made sure to grab some meal - despite already having dinner - simply to fill up their bags, which were already full with snacks. It was only then did they know how fatigued they were. So once they were back in the cabin, they flopped down on the couch in the main room and turned on the TV. They only had a few channels, one which included a Latin drama. So they just watched out of boredom, filling their stomach as they did so.

*

It was the sound of Roshon singing at the top of his lungs in the next room that woke Pelham up the following morning. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, and went to check the time from his phone when he remembered that his room had a quite stupenduous window-clock on the ceiling. It was exactly seven-ten, and the pale morning sky behind it was already dense with clouds. It was still bright, nonetheless.

Pelham was just grabbing his clothes to head for shower when he heard the doorbell ring. There's a bloody bell? So he rushed towards the front door. He opened it to find a woman in her late thirties, dressed in that common forest-ranger attire, holding a stack of papers.

"Here's for today's activity - don't forget that we have breakfast in the cafeteria," she said, handing him a slip of paper.

"Don't we already have schedules to refer to?"

"Yes, well, we find it hard to believe students keeping papers," she explained. "Good day to you. And your shirt is inside-out."

Pelham frowned at her as she left before looking down at his shirt. He felt his cheeks flush and closed the door before anyone else could see him.

Around eight-thirty, they were all gathered around a clearing at the bottom of a hill after they'd had their breakfast. They were going to be divided into six groups, as they were going to be located at different areas for certain activities of the day, just to prevent some sort of 'overcrowding'. Counterbalancing, he thought.

Pelham and the other students in his group were going for a hike at a hill just near the lake, which happened to be one of the areas that he and Roshon had searched up the previous night. He recognised a few students from his group; Juliet, a pompous, rather disdainful girl who had claimed to be his ex-girlfriend once during the previous year, and eventually got punched in the jaw by April; Gary, a boy who never wore his school uniform neatly, and whom anyone didn't expect to be a full-time nerd until people saw him on the topmost list of Straight 'A's Students in the yearbook; and Lucio, who simply looked gauche at the attention the girls were giving him. Again, Pelham couldn't blame the girls. Even he was staring.

"Reckon you could race me to that mountain?" Roshon nudged Pelham in the shoulder as they all began to hike.

"I'll pass the Milky Way,"

Roshon snorted. "The only thing you pass over is Mathematics,"

"Like it's not the same for your Chemistry marks,"

Roshon didn't comment.

Pelham smirked. "What're we having this afternoon anyway?"

"I didn't swallow the schedule, Pel,"

"The fact that you've asserted that rather bizarre statement just suggests that maybe you did swallow it,"

"Then you should've followed my technique of swallowing my schedule,"

"But I shouldn't and I won't,"

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm not absurd and I am perfectly capable of keeping my schedule neat,"

"Good to know you have common sense."

"You're complimenting me," Pelham observed. "Again - bizarre. And again, you've probably swallowed your schedule."

Again, Roshon didn't comment.

Things were going smoothly that morning. But later that afternoon, just as they were descending down the hill to head for lunch, an incident happened. At the moment, Pelham and Roshon were playing rock-paper-scissors as they went down the slope. But not when they realised that the rest of the group were still high up.

Both of them turned around to find the rest of their team members crowded at a particular area at the incline. Instantly, knowing that something had gone wrong, they rushed back uphill.

"What's going on?" Pelham asked as they approached the crowd, standing on tiptoes to look past people's heads and shoulders.

A girl to his left heard him and was about to answer when they were parted sideways. "Move along, move along now!" said the teacher, carrying a blond boy in her arms. She was fairly brawny to lift him up like that, Pelham observed.

And she hurried down the hill at such brisk paces that she left the rest of the group to remain fixed on their spot. Nobody said a thing.

"By the way, Pelham, in the schedule, we'll be doing some tent-building activities after this hike," Roshon said to him, his eyes trailing the back of the teacher who was carrying the student as though he was a bride.

Pelham just nodded. His eyes were fixed on the red stains on the ground. He eyes followed the trail of the crimson blood, and soon his attention rested on a snake, which had clearly been knocked dead in the head with a hiking stick by the teacher earlier. He exchanged looks with Roshon, silently praying thay they wouldn't cancel the whole trip for that incident.

Whey were called for lunch afterwards, everyone in their group was chewing over what had just happened; apparently, the boy saw the snake and was trying to scare it away. The snake ended up striking him instead. Pelham snorted when he heard this. Daft, he thought. Who in their right mind would do that?

Pelham didn't refer to his schedule to see what their next activity was going to be. Apparently, he wasn't paying attention to Roshon's words earlier when he told him that they were going to set up tents afterwards. So by the time they arrived at the bank of a river, greeted by bamboos and canvas neatly piled up for each group and a whole other equipment, the first thing that came into his mind was that they were going to spend their second night here. Outside. Exposed.

"What are we doing?" he muttered to Roshon.

"Where were you?" Roshon sighed. "We're building tents using those! You were the one who asked me, man."

"Some people tend to forget what they're actually searching for," Pelham noted in his defence. "The most common thing is when you check your phone for the time but you end up staring at the screen, putting it back and asking yourself 'What time is it?'."

"That's ... irrelevant. But fair point,"

All of the groups were given a brief talk on exactly how to set up the tents using the bamboos, canvas, and tying them together with the provided strings. The boy in the same group as Pelham, Gary Keith, started murmuring some measurements while drawing his finger in the air as though he could set up the tent by just using his forefinger. Either that, or he was simply working out some calculations without the aid of a calculator. They all listened in. Gary was called the "Handsome Nerd" in the school - he was in Pelham's year. He didn't give out the impression that he was a nerd; he didn't wear spectacles, or jumpers over buttoned-up shirts with baggy trousers and dress shoes. He didn't even stick himself into a group of the other intelligent, potential straight-A's students with thick Additional Mathematics books held close to their chests. In fact, his style was more of a hipster; wearing trending hoodies or sweaters over his dress shirt, or dark skinny jeans and Nike Air Max along with his dress shirt. Never a complete school uniform.

When they were released to get started with their work, Gary was instantly encircled by the rest of the group members, as though none of them paid any attention to any of the words the instructor had said earlier on. Pelham thougt building up the tent was relatively simple. But not until two girls in his group rolled down the canvas and started dividing the bamboo sticks and strings did his mouth fall open. For one, it was pretty enormous. He didn't see how they could fit the tent in the area along with the other huge ones.

"Come on, let's build this baby up!" Roshon slapped Pelham's back.