I did some flash fiction

 Messy first draft, but fun:

We were 14 years old. Old enough to go with our dads on the yearly fishing trip. I helped my dad load the car the night before so we could take off early in the morning. His fishing pole, my fishing pole, beer, tackle box, funny vest and hat, beer, tent.

I was bouncing between my feet in the driveway the next morning, waiting for my dad. That was unusual. Eventually, he came out of the cellar with a stained, beat up cardboard box sitting, the flaps folded over to cover the top.

“Don’t open it until we get to the lake,” he said.

We stopped at 7-11, got some breakfast sandwiches and Slurpees (blue rasberry for him, Coke for me) and drove to the lake. It was about two hours away or, as dad called it, “far enough away that your mom won’t come visit, but close enough I could get home if you broke your neck.”

We were the last ones there. The rest of the guys and their dads had finished unpacking and setting up the tents. The dads were sitting in folding camp chairs, sipping the first round of beers from the coolers, the kids were skipping rocks across the lake.

I drug the box out as the other kids ran over. I opened it up. It was full of books. Hardcover, soft cover, thick, thin. All worn and dinged up, the covers showing dragons, zombies, knights, and wizards. I dug further, finding notebooks and binders, filled with my dad’s almost illegible handwriting, apparently unchanged since he was my age. When I almost knocked the box off the back of the car, I heard dice rolling around at the bottom.

“I figure this’d give you all something to do besides scaring the fish for us,” dad said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

The dads went fishing while we pored through the books, ooh and ahhing at the magic, laughing at some of the weirder bits of art, scribbling notes for characters. We were still looking through when they came back to cook up some fish for dinner, and into the night while they sat by the camp fire.

“Time for bed. I don’t care if you stay up, but keep it down. We’re up early to catch the big one.”

It was a warm, clear, new moon night. We didn’t even put the fly on the tent. We crowded in and made room for the dice in the middle of the floor. We whispered and read the book by flashlight.

“Turn that light out! It’s like trying to sleep in an air raid!”

Dads are weird.

“You can do it without the book. We play all the time.” One of the other kids whispered.

“Yah, you know all the rules. The old ones aren’t that different. Just harder.” Another.

“But how will we see the dice?” I asked.

Looking down, I noticed one set that looked a little brighter than the others. I grabbed the black light flashlight my uncle had given me and shined it at them for a minute. They glowed green.

“Alright, the dragon was in mid air, swooping down to attack you. Fire shoots out of his mouth.” I rolled one of the dice. A twenty glowed on the floor of the tent.