Beverly shook me awake and I rolled over, groaning.

"Wake up, Lara. You've got to get ready." she whispered in my ear. I pushed her away. "You've already missed breakfast."

Hearing the word breakfast, I sat up abruptly. My vision distorted and black spots appeared as blood flowed to my head. "Breakfast?"

"Yeah, you missed it." Beverly replied and I flopped back to the floor, groaning.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" I whined.

"Well, you had a pretty restless night last night and I thought you could use the extra sleep. Here, I grabbed you a couple of biscuits." she handed me two biscuits which I scoffed down in seconds, even though I didn't like them much.

"Thanks." I said, my mouth full. The sound of a bell ringing in the distance made me jump to my feet and get dressed, making sure I didn't look like death, before leaving the tent. Beverly walked with me to the centre of the clearing where all the students and teachers had gathered, apologising awkwardly when the teacher glared at us for our lateness.

"Alright, now that everybody is here," the teacher gave a disapproving look in our direction, "I can finally tell you what we're going to be doing today. Make sure you have sturdy shoes on, because we are going to be taking an hour hike north. That's not all, though, because we'll be stopping at these beautiful cliffs where we'll do some rock climbing and abseiling. Everybody will need to help out in carrying some equipment there, so make sure you pick up one of those bags and pitch in." he pointed behind him. "Alright, let's get crackalackin."

Everybody sprung into action, evidently excited about the idea of rock climbing. I, however, could only focus on the hike that I knew would be torture for my already blistered toes. Beverly and I walked over to the pile of bags and I picked up one that was fairly lightweight and seemed to be filled with only a bundle of ropes. However, Eddie, who was opposite me, picked up the last remaining bag and immediately wavered under its weight. Hooks and objects that seemed to be made of metal came spilling out and I couldn't help but giggle.

"Aw cripes! Surely swap with me, Richie?" Eddie pleaded, but his friend shook his head with a grin.

"You snooze, you lose." Richie replied. I would have offered to fill my bag with some of Eddie's load, but I had a feeling that interaction wouldn't go down very well. I kept my mouth shut.

We walked in a relatively wide line, as people do when they want to talk to their friends, as we trekked to along the overgrown bush path. I was striding alongside Beverly and we walked in a comfortable silence.

"Hey Bev, l-l-look at this!" Bill said from in front of us. Beverly joined the Losers Club in whatever they were making such a big fuss about while I trailed behind awkwardly. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Always left out, nobody wanting to talk to me and never really being included? I wasn't unfamiliar with these feelings, but for awhile I thought living in Derry would be different. I guess I was wrong.

"Aw, don't look so glum." Patrick said, appearing beside me. "It's camp, you should be excited!" he put on a fake, over-enthusiastic voice which I couldn't help but laugh at.

"Doofus." I chuckled, my spirits lifting at his presence. He smiled at my change in attitude, pleased with himself.

"Are your friend still being cockheads?" he asked and I shook my head, biting my lip.

"Don't lie." he said seriously, looking at the Losers Club crossly. "I can tell you're lying."

"They didn't do anything wrong. It was our fault." I said. He looked at me exasperatedly.

"You need to stop blaming yourself, Lara! Obviously they did do something wrong, because if they were your real friends they wouldn't be acting this way just because of a hookup."

I frowned, understanding where he was coming from but not quite agreeing with it. "But I pretty much stabbed them in the back by getting with the person who's been bullying them for their whole lives. Don't you understand?"

Patrick stared at me for a few moments, thinking carefully. "Would it help if I stopped, then?"

"I mean, yeah, but I honestly don't see that ever happening."

"Yeah, you're definitely right." he took out a pocket knife from the back pocket of his jeans and switched the blade.

"Uh, what are you doing with that?" I asked worriedly, feeling slightly terrified at the dark look in his eyes.

"Just lightening the load for your friend over there." Patrick replied and crept up behind Richie. I could see the slight movement of his wrist before he quickly ducked back into pace with me. The entire contents of Richie's bag came suddenly came spilling out on the ground.

Richie paused and looked at the bottom of his bag which had a clean slice through it. "What the fuck?!"

"Alright, today the other teachers and I have decided we're going to be picking your partner for you." the teacher said and everyone groaned. I prayed to god I was put with someone I liked. Everybody listened patiently as he called out names, the selected either grinning in delight or groaning in disappointment.

"Eddie and Reginald, Beverly and Bill, Patrick and Greta..." Eddie took out his inhaler when he realised he was paired with Belch. Stan rubbed the small boy's back comfortingly. Bill and Beverly seemed happy with their pairing, although they tried hard not to show it. I waited impatiently for my name to be called out, getting more and more nervous as less and less people remained.

"Richie and Henry, Ben and Victor, and lucky last, Lara and Stanley." I sighed in relief. Stan was nice, even though he may not be the biggest fan of me at the moment. He was definitely on the better end of the spectrum.

I stood at the base of the cliff along with half of the students, our partners at the top. We had our helmets and harnesses on with a rope attached to it which the person at the top of the cliff had to pull and make sure, if we fell, we wouldn't fall far.

When the teacher gave the signal, we started climbing. The cliff was very steep, almost vertical for most of the way until you reached the top where it jutted outwards. I wasn't looking forward to having to lean backwards.

The rough surface dug into my fingers as I climbed. I wasn't struggling as much as the rest of the students, some who had gotten stuck and couldn't find another foothold, while others simply didn't have the arm strength. I was lucky and was climbing in a part of the cliff that had many crevices for me to hold on to. By the time I reached the top, only Patrick and another boy had finished as well.

After everyone had made it to the top of the cliff, the rope was attached to our partner and they abseiled down. I found it difficult to hold onto the rope and make sure I didn't pull it too tight or too loose. By no means was Stan heavy, but he was quite sporadic which made it hard for me to keep up.

After our partners reached the top, we abseiled down again which, despite my fears, was really fun and quite easy to do. As I landed on the ground, Patrick, who was directly to my left, nudged me on the arm.

"I have to say, I got a pretty nice view when you were climbing down." he winked, making me blush.

"Alright everyone, now that you all know the basics of rock climbing and abseiling, I think we'll have a race. However, this doesn't mean you ignore and put aside the safety precautions you learnt today. Don't try and push yourself if you know you can't do something, and most importantly, don't try and interfere with other people who are climbing. Capisce?" the teacher asked and everyone nodded.

I placed my foot on the first foothold of the cliff, having got a good idea of which way to go to get to the top the quickest. I felt Patrick do the same to my left, Eddie to my right.

"Three, two, one.... GO!" the teacher shouted, and we all scrambled up the cliff. I climbed as quickly as I could, almost slipping a couple of times which forced me to slow down. I was a couple of metres behind Patrick and we were way ahead of everyone else. I could see the top of the cliff and was about three metres away from possibly winning, when a loud scream was heard from below.

To everyone's surprise and terror, Eddie was flying upwards at a rapid pace, flipped upside down as the rope on his harness pulled him up. I could hear the teacher at the top of the cliff yelling and I got the gist that Belch wasn't happy with how slow Eddie was going and had decided to take matters into his own hands. He was pulling the rope, using his extreme strength to carry Eddie up the cliff. Some people were laughing, some were screaming, but I couldn't take my eyes off Eddie's flailing body as he approached me.

"Stop! He's going to hit the cliff!" I heard Beverly yell from below me. I looked up to see she was right. The path that Eddie was going on had a large piece of rock sticking out near the top. If he didn't slow down he would ram right into it.

Other students started screaming at Belch to stop, but Eddie's body didn't slow down. Why wasn't the teacher doing anything?

Thinking fast and with no consideration of whether it would work or not, I grabbed Eddie's hand as he zoomed past me, immediately being pulled upwards with him. I dug my feet into a deep crevice to stop our motion and held on tightly to a rock with my other hand.

My arm burned from the strain of keeping Eddie from flying away and I felt the rocks that my feet were under start to crack. Suddenly, the force pulling Eddie upwards ceased and the rope fell limp. Eddie lurched downwards with a scream, tears streaming down his face.

I lost my foothold and gave a shriek of my own, trying my best to hold onto Eddie with the one hand while supporting both our weights with my other. I was slowly starting to slip from the rock it was gripping to, the cliff digging into my fingertips. I felt blood start to trickle down my arm, making me give a scream of my own.

Everything was in chaos. Screams were coming from everywhere and all I could focus on was the pain in my arm and hand. My body finally gave up and I felt my hand let go of the cliff, my arm cracking painfully against the side of the cliff. Eddie and I started falling downwards, but Stan, with the help of others, managed to keep my rope tight and I didn't fall far.

Eddie was sobbing loudly, clutching my hand in a death grip despite the fact he was slowly being pulled upwards himself. I felt the rope holding me start to lift as well and I was pulled up over the edge of the cliff, my body hurting all over.

I couldn't make out the individual voices as people buzzed around me. My vision was starting to spin and blur, probably from the tears, and there was a loud ringing in my ears. The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was somebody holding me tightly, their mouth moving as they said something in my ear that I couldn't understand. It sounded like they were yelling.