The Dog gets more respect

The Night air was wet, its cloud cover light. The fog rolled through valley and the crickets whispered in the darkness. Their wings brought a sound, a melody of the evening, every evening. It sang.

Blue Forest Camp had opened its doors and campers had arrived, Summer was underway. The Children had been sent to their bunkhouses. Sitting beneath a sheet, three boys were telling a story.

It had been passed around the entire Lake.

A Simple ghost story that was quickly interrupted when the sheet was yanked off the the trio.

"What sort of bed wetter b.s. is this? You scared? Want your mommy?" Derek was a lot larger than the others, his hair came down over his ears.

The Camp Counselors were quick to respond to the noise, it was only the second week of Camp and the campers had a tendency to be competitive among the bunkhouses. "Its essential that you all get sleep, I understand competition is common, but get to sleep or I'll have you all on Mascot Duty for the next month."

"Yeah, Miron.. stop telling stories and go to bed" Derek felt the need to be sarcastic.

"That's two weeks of Mascot Duty Derek. Bunkhouse 8, you can thank Derek for all of your extra duties for the rest of the month." Counselor Larry rolled his eyes and shut the door.

The boys all gave sharp looks at Derek, he had been giving them all hell since his arrival. Derek's parents had threatened to leave him at the camp, in front of everyone on opening day. It was pretty embarrassing but everyone laughing didn't help.

The Next morning when the morning announcements brought everyone to breakfast, the Bunkhouse 8 was standing outside of the Kennel.

"Enjoy picking up dog poo jerk, you got us into this, you can do it yourself." Jacob was part of the Bunkhouse but he hadn't been part of the problem.

Sitting in the center of the room was a heaping pile. It still steamed.

To the side, looking like it was bothering its original owner, the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog 'Shortie' held his paw over his nose.

"Shut up Jacob." Derek pushed Jacob down, he skid across the mess from the dog on the floor.

Shortie Barked.

Shortie almost never barked.

"See even the dog is laughing at you.." Derek grabbed the leash from the wall and started walking.

The others helped Jacob up, he took off from the area and ran back to the bunkhouse to change. Thankfully everyone was at breakfast, he didn't have to suffer an audience in the matter. 'What a jerk, a jerk, a jerk.' Jacob changed quickly and rushed back to the group. They would get in trouble if he was missing.

Hiking was allowed but they were told to remain in the zones marked with flags. Moss grew everywhere and the ground was somewhat soft. Running through the woods, he could see the others in the distance. It was just past a large log. Jacob stepped down hard to jump over, there was a crack, and then suddenly there was a space underneath his foot. He was caught, his foot jammed in the broken overlay.

Before he could say a word, more cracks appeared and Jacob fell into the hole. It wasn't terribly deep, maybe three meters, there was mud in the bottom.

'Why is there a damned hole?!' Rubbing his ass, Jacob felt something else. It felt like rock, but it had a different texture than a stone, indentations meant decoration. Pushing the mud aside, he could see small letters and characters that didn't make a lot of sense. Jacob was stuck in a hole, but his interest was elsewhere as he cleared the mud away and revealed the top of what looked like signboard, but it was made of stone and buried in the mud.

"What the hell is this?" Jacob couldn't figure it out, there was still a lot of mud, he could only see a few letters and symbols. None of the writing he uncovered made any sense but he wasn't going to give up.

Jacob called out to the others who were just over the log, he yelled for a few minutes but not one one them replied. 'Shit, Guess they went somewhere else.' He found the broken bits of wood that fell with him and used them to claw his way out.

He was muddy again, returning to the bunkhouse to grab a quick change of clothes Jacob slunk off into the shed to grab a shovel and basket. 'Whatever is buried is a hell of a lot more interesting than some hike through the woods.' Jacob pushed the door open to leave and saw a familiar face.. then a wet feeling swept across his face.

Frowning, Jacob sighed and reached his hand out to stop the overwhelming strokes of the massive dog tongue giving him yet another bath. 'Shortie!' Screaming inside, he was obviously in the middle of mischief. Behind Shortie stood the others from the group.

"What the hell are you doing dweeb?" Derek grabbed the shovel and stared at it with confusion. "What do we have here?" he grabbed for the basket, "What? Are you going on an afternoon picnic?"

Jacob tried to defend himself but was quickly pushed down into the dirt.

"What? You think you can get out of here? Why do you wanna leave anyway?" Derek asked while looking down on Jacob, he saw the mud on Jacob's feet. It was dry outside, somewhat, the appearance of mud meant he had been digging and then there was the shovel. Derek wasn't an idiot, he put two and two together. "What did you find?"

The words were like carving knives into Jacob's ears but he was surrounded by the others and already on his back. Jacob hated this, it happened everywhere he went in life, people always treated him like dirt or worse they'd ignore him entirely like he wasn't even present. "I don't know what it is!" Jacob was pissed off, he tried to hide his anger but Derek knew what buttons to press.

"Where's all this coming from? You try to act hard but you're just going to disappoint us again aren't you. Get up!" Derek pushed the shovel toward Jacob, "Get up and show us this Mysterious thing you've found" Derek wiggled his fingers and made a wooing noise, it made the others laugh.

"Fine, but I am not doing all the digging. Get more shovels and baskets." Jacob wasn't stupid either, "Its big."

Derek was intrigued, "You better not be faking, I'll kick your ass if you are!" He held up his fist and spit to the side. "Hurry up before someone else sees us."

They all grabbed shovels and baskets, Shortie followed behind. "Let him follow, at least we'll know if someone else comes." Manny poked at Derek to gain some favor, it didn't work.

"Did I ask your opinion, besides, who wants to care after a sweaty dog?" Derek looked at Shortie and grimaced, because of his Mother's show dogs even Derek had suffered, he hated dogs. Shortie chugged behind them and kept up with the group.

"Its over here!" Slowly making their way to the hole, the rest of the group saw the stone circle in the mud.

"What the hell is this?" Derek jumped down and splashed in the mud. "This better be worth it. You all better not leave me down here by myself. You, get here and start digging." Derek pulled Manny down into the hole. He didn't splash nearly as much as Derek which really pissed him off, so Derek pushed Manny down into the mud. "Dig you spineless twit. The rest of you, start or I'll kick your asses later too."

The group quickly got to work, Derek took the group by force and had the stone cleared in about an hour. "What the hell his this?" Repeating his words from earlier, he stared at the circle. It had strange lines and designs encompassing it entirely. Every small edge wasn't just filled with the larger design, inside every groove and on every single small lip were more symbols and characters.

"I know what this is." Derek yelled and circled around Jacob. "This is a fucking joke.." Derek pushed Jacob into the hole, Jacob crashed on the stone tablet and cut himself pretty badly, his forearm was bleeding, maybe even broken. Blood poured from the small exit wound near his elbow.

Storm clouds were already hanging in the sky and it was dark. Jacob could hear the others walking off, laughing. Shortie stood by the edge of the hole, rain started to fall.

As it grew wetter, the edge gave way and Shortie fell down into the hole with Jacob. The evening air made it cold and the rainwater had soaked Jacob's clothes, the blood was soaking through. It landed on the big stone circle and a light appeared. Jacob grabbed onto Shortie and a flash of lightning crashed against the oak tree that was nearby, collapsing the hole, burying it entirely.

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