CAMP SEQUOIA — 01. The Invitation (prologue)

This is a slow burn, but it burns hot.

The Invitation

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Julian arrives at the address on the invitation just before 7:30am. 

The night had been spent awake, hunched over a cold cup of tea at the kitchen table, staring at the letter. By the time the first hints of crisp morning light were lapping at the sky, Julian was pulling on a flannel jacket with trembling hands and crunching through the stiff white grass to the car.

Night has a different rhythm and a different set of rules. It has a license to be daring which gets revoked once the sun warms the ground and cars stripe the freeway and life goes on. If he's going to do this, he has to do it now.

He 'd sped away from the center of town as the treetops turned golden.

When he reaches the address on the letter, he shoves the car door open before he even lets himself think. If he sits idle for a single moment, he won’t go in. Crisp, late-winter air hits his lungs and almost wakes him up.

7:30 isn’t particularly early, but this area of the city is quiet. More small parks and carpet showrooms, less city metro. The only sounds across the small flat parking lot are the vivacious conversations of birds and the click of Julian’s hard soled shoes. Still, he keeps his head down. He’s in a precarious state—either courage or stupidity—and he's not prepared to risk breaking it. He doesn’t lift his head at all until his foot hits the bottom edge of the front step, and he looks up.

And up, and up.

“Holy…”

He hadn't known what he was expecting—but it sure as shit didn’t have spires. The building looks like a university hall, all brown stone and arched windows. The only way he knows it’s not a university is that it’s more the size of a church, and nothing else even remotely resembling it stands within squinting distance.

This can’t be it.

Julian double checks the address. He’d spent so long staring at the letterhead that he knows it by heart, and it’s correct. But the venue is grossly not fit for purpose. He takes a step back, tempted to go back to the car and circle the block looking for something he missed, until an engraving on the balustrade at the top of the steps catches his eye.

Camp Sequoia.

He raises the letter, comparing the logo to the neat, deep etching in the stone. It’s a perfect match.

It also means the building is owned, not leased.

Julian’s neck prickles down the nape. It’s too... proper. An abandoned warehouse would have been less unnerving—at least that was closer to what he was mentally prepared for. At least that would make sense. The expectation versus reality is giving him whiplash.

For a moment, he’s trapped—shoes glued to the slowly warming asphalt, hovering between his safe, normal past and a future he's not even sure he can handle yet. A careful breath ghosts into the cold air, and he looks down at the letter, reading it again. Delaying the inevitable—because it is inevitable, and deep down, he knows that. The decision has already been made, ten times over. He made it when he first heard about the camp and couldn’t sleep for three days. He made it when he started putting money aside, way before he admitted to himself that’s what he was saving for. He made it when he filled out the application, slammed the ‘submit’ button, then paced around the city in a panic for hours. 

And he made it when he came here today.

The gates leading back to his old life creak closed, then lock, and then the only possible option is forward.

Julian’s legs shake as he climbs the steps to the building, tucking the letter into his coat pocket—but the words stay etched in his mind like the writing on the balustrade.

Dear Mr Julian Blackwood,

Thank you for your interest in attending Camp Sequoia. We’re pleased to inform you that you have passed the initial screening, and we invite you to learn more about the program and submit an application in person at our headquarters.

Your appointment is set for Tuesday February 6th at 8:00am. Please bring photo ID and this letter of invitation. Unfortunately, due to capacity constraints, appointments cannot be rescheduled.

We look forward to meeting you,

The team at Camp Sequoia