Summary: Raz encounters something horrifying within the camp.


Raz was no stranger to large animals.

Back home he'd helped wrangle show horses, swept heaps of dung from under the feet of stomping elephants, and stared down hungry, shrewd-eyed lions as he scooped meat into their enclosure. So when he heard the low, guttural growling start up from deep within the blackness of an abandoned mine he'd decided to explore, he wasn't too startled.

Of course, his uneasiness ratcheted up several notches when a large, round shadow detached from the darkness, and a… thing came toward him, at a steady but alarmingly quick pace.

His heart clenched, his teeth following suit. His mind flitted back to that tall kid with the overly-huge hat. Where was bear-wrestling Mikhail when you needed him?

The thing in front of him was a bear, of some sort. He could tell that much. But it wasn't like any bear Raz had ever heard of. For one thing, it was floating, which was a little unusual. The tips of its long gray claws barely skimmed the ground. It was huge, taking up almost the entire width of the tunnel in which it presumably lived, and black as a void, making the cave around it positively glow by comparison. Its long teeth dripped with saliva as it bore down on Raz, as if it had one thing on its mind and one thing only: devouring little psychic boys in striking aviator hats and goggles.

Raz ran. He did this instinctively, before his brain could even stop processing the bear itself and assess a sudden new danger, which was the ghostly telekinetic claw that swooped at him from nowhere.

He let out a strangled yelp. The bear was psychic!

The bear let out a grunt of frustration-something between a growl and a cough, it sounded like-and lashed out with a psychic claw once more, its beady black eyes shiny with fury.

"Who let this thing get so close to a camp for kids?" Raz demanded from no one as he dove out of the mine. He swung his own psychic fist, which grazed the side of the bear's face but seemed to only irritate it. A jolt of panic ran down his spine.

He sprang upward, bounding up the stone blocks beside the mine entrance and clambered onto the grassy hilltop above, staring down as the great hulking bear emerged, snorting and glancing around for where he went. Raz sent a weak tendril of telekinesis into his backpack, drawing out the bright red button that Sasha Nein (Agent Sasha Nein! In spite of his situation, his heart beat a little faster at the thought) had given him.

"Well, Coach did say he could kill me with this thing in six seconds," he mused, holding the button aloft. "Hey! Bear!"

The monster whirled around, snarling. Raz held up the button.

"Do you happen to know where Sasha's lab is? I have to see him for special training. You know, learning some powerful moves to really mess up things like you."

As he spoke, the bear dropped to the ground and heaved itself up onto its hind legs, its front paws scraping bluntly at the blocks of stone below Raz, roaring up at him with spittle flying from its jaws. Raz hastened backward several steps, fingering the button in his gloves. He bounced a bit on the balls of his feet.

"All right, here goes nothing," he said. "Go, button!"

With a spin, he flung the button into the bear's mouth and hopped backwards, a feeling like pins in his arms and legs as he waited apprehensively.

The bear growled again. Its tongue lolled, and the button fell to the ground in a puddle of drool.

Raz pulled a face. "Ugh, gross."

Apparently completely undeterred, the bear dropped back onto all fours and lifted into the air once more to slowly ascend toward Raz.

Ah! Time to go.

With nothing else to do, Raz leaped back down to the ground below, snatched up the dripping button, and dashed back down the path toward the main lodge. The bear didn't follow for long, turning back not far from the mine and trundling back home.

Raz didn't stop running until he had jogged up the hill and climbed onto the deck of the main lodge, where he finally skidded to a halt, panting.

"Hey, watch it!" someone called.

Gulping and straightening up, Raz caught sight of two girls staring at him from where they sat nearby, still making friendship bracelets like they'd been all morning. The dark-haired girl, Kitty, seemed especially mad. "What are you doing back here? You almost wrecked our stuff!"

"Sorry." Raz brushed himself off. He still felt slightly shaken.

"Wow, the new kid looks terrible," Franke drawled.

"No worse than usual, of course!" Kitty added perkily. "Just run around like a maniac near someone else's art project, okay?"

"Okay, sorry. Hey!" Raz trotted closer to them. "No one around here told me about floating telekinetic bears!"

Franke snorted. "Well what did you expect in a forest? Beavers?"

Kitty gave a tsk. "Everyone knows not to go wandering around outside the main camp areas. Except you, I guess! Too bad it didn't swallow you whole."

"So the coach and everyone just lets bears run around the camp?" Raz said, aghast.

"Hey, you're welcome to chase them out!" Franke said. "And the cougars, too. Maybe you'll come back fried to a crisp!"

Raz gazed out at the looming pine trees that surrounded the camp. "Cougars?"

"Fire cougars," Franke said, her eyes glittering with malice.

Kitty cleared her throat, looking pointedly at Raz."Anyway, Franke and I are actually doing something important here, so why don't you just go away?"

All right. He could take a hint.

Raz stepped away from them and jumped back onto the springy grass in front of the deck, running his mind back over what he had seen. He'd fully expected to see monstrous nightmare creatures in the mental worlds he had hoped to pass through in this place. He hadn't expected to see creatures like that in the waking world-and so close to a place he would have liked to call home.

What kind of camp was this, really? He recalled Dogen's skittishness, Maloof's belief that the camp was dangerous, Elton's tale of a monster in the lake's murky depths. For the first time, uncertainty gripped Raz's core.

What exactly had he gotten himself into?