Lea -

    My first week in camp is all a blur to me now, I remember first walking into camp, the pure amazement at seeing five huts suspended in the trees above me, strange faces all beaming down at me. Looking back now I know why they all seemed so welcoming and friendly, not that they aren’t, but it was because each one of them knew just how terrified I was. We have all gone through it, waking up in the middle of the jungle with no knowledge of how you got there.
I know how it sounds, but imagine it. The last thing I remember was walking home from a three hour lecture, wondering whether my housemates were still fighting, next thing I know I’m waking up in the freaking Amazon!

    Every time someone new enters camp they are asked the same questions, just as I was. I remember sitting in  Deena’s hut with Eli sitting next to me and Deena and Lena staring at me expectantly. Eli was the one who found me and brought me back to camp. I remember thinking that if he left me alone with all these people I would definitely faint. Deena was lovely, as she always is, but I felt Lena’s instant dislike of me from the very beginning.

    ‘I know you’re afraid and confused and I promise we aren’t going to hurt you’, Deena’s soothing voice took my attention from Lena‘s glare, ‘We have all been in your place and I just want you to relax and when you feel ready, you can tell me what happened, whatever you can remember’. Her slight German accent and airy tone calming me slightly before Lena opened her mouth.
‘This is ridiculous!’ she spat in a heavy Russian accent, flinging her skinny arms in the air in frustration, ‘she will only say what we all said, I don’t know why you bother with all this Deena’
As Lena stomped out of the tiny room, Eli put his warm hand on my arm and smiled apologetically.
‘Please Lea, if there is anything you remember’, continued Deena, ‘it may be of some help to us’.

    We’ve not learned much from what everyone said, my little slither of memory was probably least helpful of all. But one thing did intrigue Deena that day,  on the top of my right cheek, just below my eye, I had a faint scar. A simple line that I would never have noticed and only by chance did she ask about it.
‘I don’t have any scars on my face’ I claimed, my voice faltering in the confusion, ‘or at least I didn’t’
Eli turned my face to look at the tiny scar, before speaking to Deena, ‘It’s not that old, it probably wasn’t deep but its fully healed’
‘Interesting’ Deena mused as she paced around the room, ‘there is no chance that you cut yourself before you came here?’
Shaking my head I touched the mark, I felt the tiny line and tried desperately to remember anything.
‘You think it could have happened when she was taken?’ asked Eli, still watching me cautiously.
Deena answered as she poured me a drink of water into a wooden bowl, ‘If it is true then it means we are not directly transported here. They are holding us before we come here…and possibly treating us’.

    That first day was so strange to me then. Everything Deena said just seemed crazy, but now I know more and these tiny details are all we have. I’ve gone over the last few moments of what happened before the Jungle so many times since then. A year later and I still don’t remember anything new.

    Adjusting to life in the Jungle was difficult at first, I never expected any different. I spent most of my time with Eli and when she wasn’t busy, Deena. Eli was my lifeline for all intents and purposes, he was the one who found me and regardless of what I would have done in normal circumstances I basically clung to him like a terrified cat. Thankfully he didn’t seem too bothered and likes to make fun of me for it now.  I remember walking by the big river with him one day, the first day I agreed to leave camp since arriving, I was so scared I would lose him and have to go running around like a headless chicken. When I think about it now it does seem strange how closely I stuck to him, in my old life I would never have acted like that with a guy who was ten years older than me, but I suppose my old life is irrelevant here. That was also the day I first met Lol, he was fishing in the river, quite poorly, as we went to see how he was getting on.

    I remember the first time I met each person in camp, when I arrived there were only six members. Eli was the first I met, then Lena who met us at Deena’s door. I met David and Sirus two days later in the mess hut, Sirus was our resident chef, to stretch the term, and David was in charge of farming the fruits anyone found in the Jungle. I loved Sirus and David immediately, they were basically the funniest guys you would ever like to meet. Sirus was an American like Eli, and a retired actor and always had the best stories to tell. David was as he put it, ‘a bald, middle aged, male, Barbara Streisand’, and utterly hilarious.
As I said, I met Lol while he was fishing in the big river. Lol was from Australia and was the youngest member of camp at 19 and he certainly looked it. In the blinding sun that shone over the water his messy blonde hair and huge dark eyes made him look like a possessed cherub. I get on well with Lol and to Eli’s disdain we are constantly pranking each other.

    About a month after I appeared, while on a hunt, Lena found Kayle wandering around in the same clearing I had woken up in. I got to experience what camp was like when a new person arrived from the other side then, and to be honest it was the most exciting thing ever. Kayle was 26, an American student who quickly fit into camp helping Sirus with the cooking duties.

    Only three months later Sirus died. It was horrific, he had been bitten by something and had kept it to himself. The bite had gotten infected and by the time anyone noticed he wasn’t looking well it was too late. That time plays heavily on everyone’s mind still, I remember everyone being really quiet and keeping to themselves for a long time. I had never really dealt with anyone so close to me dying before and I spent most of that time hanging out with David in the crop clearing behind camp just talking and keeping busy. We all learnt an important lesson from Sirus, that we cannot keep anything to ourselves. There can be no secrets when survival is the top priority.

    The last two members of camp to arrive were Rose and Holly. Rose is about 40, a teacher from England who helps David and Lol with the farming and fishing. Holly was only 11 when she arrived and according to Deena was the first one of us that didn’t freak out when she woke up.
It’s been about five months since Holly appeared.