KH-vids: Camp Hope

xD
Sounds sweet.
Now hurry up!
JK lolz

 

Yeah, hurry you really got my interest :3

 

Chapter Five - Fall

A/N: I've posted this both in this message, and on the first page to keep everyone happy. Behind-the-scenes will (hopefully) be coming this afternoon if I can mooch my friend's scanner.

Chapter Five - Fall

"The entire nation demands answers from their government... how could this have happened? Heads will roll, mark my words. I'll stake my job on it."
- Newscaster reporting on Bio-Weapon release, 7 June 2187​

03:56 hours EEST, Libyan Desert (Southwestern Egypt)
26 June 2187

I always wanted to go somewhere. I read a lot, and write even more. But of all the books I've read, of all the adventures I've dreamed up on a lazy Saturday afternoon, nothing could have prepared me for my own adventure.

Adventures are like your best friend's girlfriend; they look great from the outside, but once she's yours, you're in a whole world of trouble. That's the conclusion I have come to regarding my own hell. The author of my life's story (clearly not me at this point, contrary to the beliefs my English teachers drilled into me... I still remember that stupid poster hanging over the chalkboard proclaiming "YOU are the author of your own life story!"... what a joke) must be one sadistic person himself: whether God, gods, or simply the Sovereign Commander; whoever he is, he has one hell of a sense of humour.

My hell has been dubbed "Camp Hope".

With a sigh, Bunterx laid down his pen atop one of his many notebooks and rubbed his eyes. Dawn would come far too soon, he knew, as the faintest stars could be seen fading from the eastern horizon. The young man glanced at his watch; only a few more minutes of peace before the morning bell.

As he shut his notebook and slid the pen through the plastic spiral holding the pages together, Bunterx heard the scrape of cloth against mat and saw one of the others sit up; judging from the silhouette, she was female. "Sorry," he whispered, a small, sheepish smile crossing his face. "I didn't mean to wake anyone."

"It's alright," a female voice responded with a suppressed yawn; from the way she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and her vocal inflection, he knew it had to be K a i r i. "It's got to be close to morning, right?"

"Yeah." The Brit placed his notebook carefully atop duffel. "The uniforms're already here."

"Oh?" K a i r i's hair whipped her shoulders when she turned to look. Four neatly starched and pressed khaki uniforms sat folded in a row against the bathroom's dividing wall. "So they have," she agreed, looking back towards him. "Writing again?"

Bunterx shrugged and offered a half smile. "I think I've really got the opening written well this time."

"I hope so," she shook her head with a low laugh. "You've been working on it since we got here... how long ago?"

That took a moment's thought. "At least three weeks," he decided finally. "We've had three Fridays."

"Mm." K a i r i nodded. "That seems about right." Her blanket rustled as she drew the thin cloth up to her shoulders, staring pensively past him out the window. "I wonder what my parents are doing right now?"

"Well, we dunno what time zone we're in right now, do we? And who really cares about them anymore, anyway?" Surprised and a little ashamed at the bitter tone of his voice, he frowned and snatched his notebook again, flipping to a clean page.

Maybe I'm going mad, he scribbled, pen skating furiously across the page. My adventure seems to be sucking the soul from my every action and word, leaving me hollow and callous, a doppelganger wearing my face with my soul trapped inside. It (my soul) pounds relentlessly but hopelessly against a barrier wrought of fear and desperation, and maybe even a little madness, until this small remnant of the boy I had been a thousand years ago lays down to rest and recover, leaving that ever-increasing barrier to expand, unchecked. I fear it will one day conquer my mind entirely and leave me a bare echo of what I had once been.

Finally, he lifted the pen from the paper and looked past her, unwilling to meet her eyes. "Sorry," he whispered again. "That was uncalled for."

K a i r i nodded to acknowledge his apology, then shrugged in a dismissive so-what? "Another burst of inspiration," she asked bemusedly, pointing to the pen clutched in his hand.

"Oh." He released his death-grip on the pen and let it fall to the floor. "Umm... kind of." He leaned over and slid the pen back into its place in the spiral of the notebook.

"May I read it?"

"Uh-!" Bunterx's mind raced as he tried to figure out a polite way to say 'f- no!'

"Not until you're finished, of course!" she added hastily. "One of my friends back home would never let me see until she was finished. Whenever you're ready."

"That sounded vaguely kinky," another voice mumbled from across the room, and K a i r i blushed.

"Shut up, Forsaken!" She reached over and grabbed her camp-issued boot, whipping it across the room at him.

BONG! rang the great bell atop the closest guard tower, echoed in turn by the other three around the camp.

BONG! "Fu-!" Kitty_mckechnie exclaimed, jolting awake, hair flying into her face and mouth as she bolted up. "I'm never gonna get used to that!" She spat hair and groaned, flopping back down to her pillow.

"If the bell doesn't wake a person, your mouth will," Forsaken Shadow muttered, burying his head under his arms as if to physically ward off the next two belltolls.

By the time the fourth bell had resounded through the camp, Bunterx had already picked his way across the room and was checking the names stamped across the chest of each; he didn't really know why he bothered- his own was always the first one on the left, with the rest following in alphabetical order. "Kitty," he tossed her the bundle farthest from his, "K a i r i." Toss. He picked up the last one and threw it. "Forsaken."

For a second it looked as though the other male would just let the clothes hit him, but he moved his hand and caught it at the last second without opening his eyes. "Another day," Forsaken dropped the bundle beside his sleeping mat and threw his arm over his eyes. "Another day of backbreaking labor without getting a penny for it. And I thought my old job sucked."

Bunterx snorted a laugh but said nothing, tugging his shirt over the tee shirt he had slept in. His false name, BUNTERX, splayed across his left breast in dark block letters.

"Did anyone else notice," Kitty spoke up, her back to them as she pulled off her overlarge tee shirt, "the uniforms have been designed to take out most possible weapons?" She pulled a white tank top over her head and turned to face the other three.

"Instead of lace, our boots have zippers and Velcro straps so we can't choke anyone or hang ourselves. The shirts are fitted so excess cloth can't be caught in machinery, which could do everything from slowing down manufacturing to killing us. No belts for the pants. No pockets to hide anything in-"

"Can't break the window; it's made of some kind of plastic instead of glass," K a i r i added, tapping her knuckles against the grimly, sandblown window. "Also, no buttons to bugger up machinery."

"This is a very morbid conversation," Forsaken spoke up without opening his eyes. "I thought about this days ago. The best thing they gave us that could possibly be used as a weapon is the shower-hose. You can hang yourself or someone else with that thing." He finally sat up with a yawn. "Or you could just bash their head off a wall several times. What's for breakfast?"

-xXx-​

4:34 hours EEST

"Hey, look." Kitty stood on tiptoe to look over his shoulder and point. "Noobs."

"Really?" Bunterx tore open the packaging of his protein square and took a bite. "Disgusting."

"Don't try to pretend you're not interested; that's Forsaken's gig." Kitty tapped K a i r i on the shoulder. "Come on, since they're going to pretend to be all bored." She nodded across the crowded cafeteria to two boys and two girls attempting to look like they knew what they were doing.

Forsaken stood from his spot where he'd been sitting on the floor silently munching his protein square. "I guess I'll come," he exchanged a long-suffering look with Bunterx. "Come on, Bunt."

His eyebrow spasmed. "Bunterx."

Forsaken grinned and set off to pick his way across the cafeteria, giving Bunterx little choice but to follow. Kitty and K a i r i had already made it to the four the former had so eloquently referred to as "noobs". Evidently she wasn't the only one who had noticed; he saw several people gathered around the four newcomers. He joined the circle in time to hear the shortest of them exclaim; "this is terrible!"

"Get used to it... Zexion?" Bunterx held up his matching protein square. "Breakfast of champions."

"Zott," he introduced himself.

"Is this really breakfast every day?" This one's shirt labeled him as Roxasvsriku. "I'm going to draft a strongly worded letter to the Sovereign Commander telling him just how disappointed I am with his food."

"We get a square and a half on Fridays," riku sora kairi own pointed out.

"Yum," he responded sarcastically. "Oh, right... just call me Rvr."

"Risk Own."

"While we're all introducing ourselves, I'm Forsaken." Forsaken draped his arm around the shorter male's shoulders. "And I'll call you Zexy."

"Uh, hell no." Zott pushed his arm away with an expression of disgust.

Bunterx laughed. "He's gonna do it anyway... just ignore him. We all do."

"Owned!" Risk Own stuck out his tongue.

Forsaken smiled calmly as if unaffected by the taunt. "I'll rip your tongue out if you do that again."

"So, you're a martial artist, too?" K a i r i was speaking with the one labeled as Jade. "What style?"

"Tang Soo Do... it's Korean." The female had already finished her breakfast square and leaned over to Zott. "Are you gonna eat that?"

"Yes." He shoved the remains in his mouth at once. "Mooch." Almost choking, he started coughing violently.

She grinned and turned back. "I've been training for almost a year now. What about you?"

"Karate," K a i r i replied with a smile. "Maybe we should spar sometime."

"I'd like that." Jade frowned and glanced to Forsaken, who had echoed her comment. "What?"

He smiled innocently. "Hee... no reason."

"Oh really?" Rvr grinned. "Why do I have the feeling this guy is a class-less, ignorant, thoroughly unsophisticated, lower version of me?"

"Pervert mindlink," Wolf stated bitingly.

"Ah! She spoke!" Rvr jumped up and hugged her. "That makes six words since I woke up!"

She calmly dug her thumbnail into his arm until he let go with a whimper. "I'll hang you using the shower hose," she promised coldly.

"A girl after my own heart," Forsaken sighed wistfully.

Wolf glared scathingly but didn't dignify that with a response.

"What's been going on in the outside world?" Bunterx addressed them all. "The last thing I saw on the news was something about an attempted bombing in some city on the East Coast of America."

A chill fell over the gathering as the four newcomers closed their eyes.

"Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The entire city was destroyed," Wolf said finally. "Thousands or millions were killed."

Jade nodded sharply. "I had family in Philly. It was no attempt. It succeeded." Her fist clenched. "June sixth. I was going to visit them the next week," she added through clenched teeth.

"Wha..." Bunterx numbly felt Kitty grab his shoulder as his knees threatened to buckle. "How...?"

Wolf laughed bitterly. "Bio weapon."

His stomach, already feeling like a block of ice, felt as if he had been punched. "What?" he could only whisper, and he felt Kitty's grip tighten; she must have been using him for support as much as he was leaning on her.

"The scientists were working on it within the city," Zott spoke up, staring at the floor. "Supposedly developed from alien matter-"

"More conspiracy theories for Ashton to use to weave his smokescreen of an unknown threat," Jade interrupted, but waved for Zott to continue.

"It... got loose. Infected most of the inner city within an hour."

Rvr shook his head slowly. "The scientists were among the first to fall victim. It must have killed them almost instantly; there would have been no time to activate any alarms." He snorted. "At least that's what the official government report released."

"By the time word had reached the President, the weapon was spreading through the city like wildfire." Zott didn't or couldn't look anyone in the eye as he emotionlessly spoke. "The Air Force was mobilized-"

"And Philadelphia was bombed out of the pages of history," Jade finished. "Everything within a ten-mile radius of the outermost suburbs of the city was incinerated to a fine ash. Buildings, people..."

"People who never even came in contact with this bio weapon...?" K a i r i asked hoarsely.

"Killed," Wolf stated coldly, but her eyes burned. "Even historical artifacts of our country's history were obliterated. The Liberty Bell, Independence Hall... everything's just a plain of dark ash where there used to be a city."

"And not just Philly," Rvr said, looking straight at Bunterx. "Athens, Bombay, Cape Town, Paris... if not razed to the ground, they were quarantined. The Eiffel Tower looks over an empty city, now. Corpses line the streets."

Risk Own rubbed his arms, shivering. "How could something like that happen?" Goosebumps formed on his skin despite the day's heat. "Aren't there some kind of-"

"Preventative measures?" Rvr finished, shaking his head. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

Jade didn't look at anyone as she spoke. "The conspiracy theory nuts are having a field day. All the vacuum seal and bio-hazard alarms... none of them went off. The weapon escaped from every institution across the world at the exact same time."

"It wasn't released." Zott finally looked up, eyes bleak. "It got loose."

 

Nice new chapter 5 Jade, very detailed and good as always.
Lawl I'm in it ^_^

 

Nice, chapter as always :3

 

Flipping heck Jade, your an amazing writer. I'm so glad i came to read this, you write it in such great detail, i'm only sad i didn't read it sooner (i should really pay more attention in the CC).

I can't wait for the next chapter. :D

LOL, Rvr.

 

Totally awesome.
You really brought out my pervy side ^^
xD

Can't wait for the next one.

 

I love my character ^^ As always your writing style and ability don't fail to amaze, lol I want this to go on forever :D

 

Wow... that was an amazing chapter.

=D
Keep it up~

 

Damn. That's all.
This is really incredible...I must say, this morning I made a threat to strangle someone with a garden hose. So close. xD

And I also love the way you portrayed Forsaken, as we all know that he's rather...special. >_>

Anyway. Keep up the awesome work!

 

Behind the Scenes KHV:CH (Vol. 1)

Thanks to everyone for their kind support! Anyway, on to the main topic of this post:

Every so often I'll be posting special behind-the-scenes information about KH-vids: Camp Hope. Later in the story, as things start to get pretty confusing, these behind-the-scenes looks will make things a bit more legible. (That was a creative use of the word legible, I know; it was never intended to be that kind of adjective.)

Behind the Scenes KHV:CH - Volume 1
Rough Draft​

These are scans of the first draft of Chapter Five - Fall. Normally my rough drafts differ greatly from the eventual posted chapte; this one I like pretty much as-is. Anyway, on to the scans.

By the way, I hate to write in cursive.

Originally intended to be posted at the beginning of the chapter itself, I changed my mind so people wouldn't have to strugle to read my handwriting.
I was going to look up Bunterx's actual age, but I kept forgetting. As I grew nearer to completing the chapter, I simply altered that sentence so I wouldn't have to.
...you get a lovely view here of how I think of better ways to finish a sentence and have to cram them in on the margins.

The ink is lighter here because I lost my favorite pen for a day or two. And also, as you can see, I originally intended to have anniexo be on this team, but changed it at the last second.
Random Idiot and I actually spent a half-hour's worth of phone conversation discussing how I should design the uniforms to eliminate most possible weapons. Zixx took one look at this chapter and said: "You forgot about the thread used for hemming." x_x

As you can see from all the crossouts, I kept changing my mind over who was speaking at a certain time... you can still partially read what it was before being crossed out.
This is the page where the character of Jade is the most like me... I always mooch food. I have no idea if K a i r i spars, but I do, so now the character of K a i r i does as well. xD
Couldn't decide what city I wanted to destroy. Also, June 6th is Zexion Day. xD





And that's it for Volume 1. I promise, the Behind the Scenes will get more interesting! Let me know if you think I should create a separate thread for these.

 

Even before the final going over your writing is brilliant, and you have very nice hand-writing ^^ Putting them in a seperate thread might help, but then again keeping them beside the finished version might also help, so it's up to you (wasn't that helpful........XD).

EDIT: I'm 16 btw ^^

 

I love your handwriting :3
I think it was a good idea to do behind the scenes.
Also I do spar, and fight championships =D after a little over 3 years that would be on it's place. It would be fun to spar sometime irl though that is almost impossible :/.
Great chapter 5 and behind the scenes keep it up <3

 

Your handwritting is pretty nice actually.
Though it looks like you to scribble a lot xD

Heh, I wonder how you're gonna do my character, especially since you hardly know me >.>

Anyway, keep up the good work. I hope you do more behind the scenes ^^
They're fun to look at.


Edit: Oh, I think it would be better if you make a new thread for the behind the scenes.

 

XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDd

Pervert Mindlink

 

Great chapter Jade! I thought it was hilarious, there always has to be at least one pervert doesn't there? Can't wait until I make my appearance!

 

Yeah, sure, make a "Behind the Scenes" thread and copy me again! XDDDDDDDDDDD

 

Shuush, stop being so pushy Zexy >D
XDDDD

 

You're one to talk, ya perv! >)

 

Your handwriting > me trying to write my neatest.
I'll show you a page of my notes from here...it's a whole bunch of scribbles and stuff.

Also, I don't know if you've forgotten or not, but June 6th also happened to be the day I got out of school....

Are you trying to imply something...? xD