It was nearing the hottest day of the year. All anybody wanted to do was kick back and relax, what with it being the school holidays. The air conditioner was working smoothly, and Dad had already sprayed pesticide all around the house and in the garden, so pests wouldn't start creeping up on us over the holidays.

We had all the flavours of ice cream in the fridge, and my two little brothers were usually at their soccer practice, the pool or playing video games, and much too busy with their own lives to annoy me anymore.

But of course, it was all too good to be true.

One lazy afternoon, when I was casually scrolling through TikTok, Dad came up to me. He was grinning mischievously so I knew immediately that something was up.

"What's up, Dad?" I asked. "And why are you smiling like that? You only ever smile like that when we're -"

Suddenly I knew exactly why he was smiling. 

"Camping?" I finished fearfully, staring up at him and clutching my phone nervously.

Dad gave a malicious grin again, and then nodded.

I groaned. "Seriously?" I said, disbelieving. "But there's a severe fire warning! Like, right now, in our state, on the news."

I turned on the television for Dad to see for himself. He sighed, and a bit of the grin faded from his face.

"Listen, Kaycee," he said. "I just want everyone to take a breath of fresh air. So we're leaving tomorrow, okay?"

More like a breath of smoke, I thought.

True to his word, Dad had the whole family in the car by the next morning, at just 6:00am.

"Uh Dad, why do we have to leave the house so early?" I asked, annoyed about being woken so early in the morning. "I thought you were already prepared with everything? Like you always are?"

Dad smiled but said nothing. Mum sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose.

"I smell smoke," she muttered to me. "I wish we could stay home." I couldn't agree more, but keep quiet wisely.

Like all car trips, this one took a long time. And I mean it. A long time. We travelled all the way across mountains and over hills, only taking rest breaks and coffee breaks every thirty minutes or so.

Dad drove very carefully, and kept on looking around for police officers on duty. I knew he was scared that the officers would make us go all the way back home again. And to be honest right now, that's exactly how I felt at the time. We travelled in the car for about seven hours, and got out of the car.

It really was extremely beautiful.

Once everyone was out of the car, Dad beamed at us all. "Isn't it great?" he asked us all. I blinked, and the fog cleared away slightly to reveal a beautiful mountain, complete with a heavenly lake and little dew dropped mountain flowers.

"Yes," we all said, and just like that, the fog whisked back into view like a curtain going down at the end of a performance. Mum sighed, and my two little brothers shrugged at each other and put their handheld video games into their back pockets. I gave a little smile. At least my family is happy! If my family is happy, I thought, then I am too.

Just then, a man's voice echoed from behind us, "You must be new here. It's a beautiful view, isn't it?"

We turned around and saw a very old man, around 76 years old, smiling at us with perfectly aligned and whitened teeth. His cheeks were baby smooth and he was wearing a suit for some reason, but his walking stick and greying hair gave his youthful appearance away.

"Oh, um, we're just here to camp," Mum replied, smiling back. The old man's eyes came to rest on me, and he beamed. I beamed back. He seemed like a nice old man.

The man spared a glance at our car, a Jeep, and then looked at us again. "How would you like to join me and my son for dinner tonight?" he asked politely. "We've got lots of room; you needn't sleep in a tent for any reason," he scoffed. Mum looked at Dad quickly. His expression was unreadable: it was straight and thin.

"Oh, I don't think we can accept that offer," Mum answered, quite giggly. "You see, Moses just -"

"No, no, no, of course we will, Nicole!" Dad exclaimed. He turned to the old man. "We'll come. I do hope it's no bother - we've packed no food." We all stared at him.

ME, MUM, AND MY BROTHERS

The old man chuckled and left us alone on the mountain. Mum rounded on Dad for not packing us any food, and he just shrugged and said, "Must've slipped my mind, sorry, Nicole."

I was excited to go to the old man's house for dinner. Only it wasn't a house.

When we got there, he opened the door as soon as we knocked and greeted us inside. It was a mansion. A really huge one at that.

It was the biggest house I'd ever been in!

Welcome to my mansion. It's not much, but I hope you will be at home here. This mansion here is an ancient family heirloom! Therefore, I advise you to please not break any of the valuables inside of it. Come inside, come inside!

We went inside, and sitting at the table was the old man's son, whose name was Adrian.

"We have the cook, he's cooking dinner," he explained casually, as I raised my eyebrows at the bare table. It was a very long table, like the ones you can see in the Harry Potter movies, in the Great Hall. There were about a hundred or so fancy chairs aligned neatly along the edges of it.

"I'm Adrian Axton, and this is my father, Jackson Axton. It's just the two of us, our maids, butlers, and the cook and a lot of house staff," he said with a grin.

I had to say, the genes of Adrian's father had certainly passed on to him. His eyes were as blue as the sky on a clear summer's day, and his hair was the same shade of brown as mine. His fresh suit gave the him the appearance of a - 

"Prince Axton!" came a far-off voice. It must be the maid, I thought quickly. Right on queue, the maid came tottering into the room in her maid's uniform. I stared, unaware that my jaw was hanging open. Adrian was a prince?

"Oh, yes, and we're royal, I forgot to say," Jackson said.