🇵🇸i write sometimes and stand with Palestine🇵🇸

Within the next several hours most of the crowd had filed out, making way for a new wave of soldiers, ones that had just arrived home and were celebrating their life still belonging to themselves. You were once part of that menagerie; the only difference was you had become a marine before the war ever started, and while you were there for the beginnings of the war, your contract with the marine corps ended soon after. It left you feeling apart from both citizens and soldiers – someone who didn't know the horrors of war, but who was traumatized enough that society didn't care to love them anymore.

Unlike many returning soldiers, you did not turn to alcohol to fix your issues. For the most part you distracted yourself with work, working and working till there was nothing in your head but work – there was little else in your life besides work now, the one exception being your friend, Penny. She made sure you ate, made sure you got outside and had human contact. For that you will always be grateful.

Your attention wavers from her only when one of the returning soldiers stands right beside you at the bar, ordering a bottle of beer before noticing you, his posture suddenly changing as he does so. His back straightens out a little, his hips a little more forward, elbows on the bar behind him so as to show off toned forearms and a skinny waist. He stares for a little while – you pay him no mind. When he gets his drink, that's when he actually speaks to you.

"What's a doll like you doin' here?" He says, and you almost roll your eyes. What a typical start.

"Keepin' a friend company," you answer him quietly, taking a swig of your own drink. It's not entirely a lie, although you feel you're keeping less and less of her company the more she drifts off to the side, caught up in the stare of a rather handsome man with a fair amount of scruff.

"Really? You come here often? I'm - jus' curious. I've never been here before," he says, clarifying that he isn't that stupid so as to use that specific line, a clarification you appreciate.

"This is my first time. My friend though, she comes here often, says she likes the atmosphere," you tell him, nodding in the direction of Penny, who is currently in a corner with the stranger. "You're a soldier, right?"

"Yessir," he says with a proud nod, "just returnin', actually."

You nod absently, looking out across the general crowd before you at last meet his eye. In the neon red lights you can barely see him, the shape of his face against the black mass of people, the color of his eyes against long eyelashes that flutter when he scans you up and down. All you can tell about him is his voice – rough and deep, drawling his words and humming his thoughts.

"You meet many marines?" He asks, and you can already tell he's gearing up to tell you some horrid stories of the war. Unfortunately, you don't know him well enough yet to know if he's going to tell you the truth, and a small part of you hopes he doesn't tell the truth. The truth is gorey and dangerous and heartbreaking, and you're not ready to live out such memories and tales again. Not yet.

"I've met a few," you say vaguely, watching the way a grin cracks across his face as he chuckles smooth and low.

"All I gotta say is you're lucky I ain't no army kid, those assholes are weak as all hell," he says, something you fully agree with, and something that has a sweet giggle coming involuntarily out of you. He smiles even bigger when he watches the way you laugh.

"My father was a marine," you say, coming down from your high. "He said the same thing."

"He's right, y' know... me n' my troop, we was out on that godforsaken island in the Pacific, hot as hell every day – humid, too. We saw hell n' back, shootin' at Japs n' gettin' shot at, sitting in all those damn trenches, up to ya knees in mud, and there go the fuckin' army soldiers, prancing around like goddamn deer. Funniest shit I ever seen, though to be fair, I don't think any a' us had much to eat that day," he recalls fondly, but you can tell he's suppressing the worse memories. You don't ask on that – it'd be rude, and it's not a subject you want to talk about. Nonetheless, he continues. "An you know, you're sittin' in mud all day n' night, you're gonna get pretty dirty, right?"

You nod attentively. If there's one thing you're still good at after your time in the marine corps, it's listening well.

"So we're all covered in mud, and they come by in a neat row, with their freshly washed hair and white as all hell skin – I made a bet with this one fella, Burgie, a' said they'd get so sunburnt after a week on that island, they'd be cryin'. I was right, of course," he says, motioning with his hands as he told the story. At the end he rubs his nose and turns back to you, watching for your reaction, and loving the way you still manage to enjoy his story.

"So you're tellin' war stories now?" You ask, leaning in closer and smirking imperceptibly when his breath catches in his throat. "What's your best story, then?"

He doesn't skip a beat, another one of those sweetly impure smiles coming across him as he starts.

"Hell, there's a lot to choose from. I do remember though," his hand comes up to his shirt collar, unconsciously toying with it, "this one Jap snuck into our camp, still don't know how, but he was one a' those damn kamikaze soldiers, the radical ones. He shouted somethin', don't remember what, but everyone went for their guns – I did too, an' we all pointed at his chest, cause it's easier to aim that way, y'know? But the bombs were tied to his chest, so a' aimed at the head. Shot him dead center between his eyes," he tells you with an air of pride and a hint of disgust. You don't blame him.

"That's a good story," you say with a small smile.

Anticipation creeps up on you as you wait till he's done prattling off little details, just waiting till you can watch the light die in his eyes as you tell him your own war story.

"I think my best marine story would have to be when I was flyin' over this active war field, there's fighter pilots everywhere in the sky, and sometimes it's hard to tell which jet belongs to which side in the moment. Everythin' goes by fast, but I saw this Jap flagged plane drop a bomb the size of a whole person. Immediate reaction was to shoot at the bomb, and I got pretty lucky – it blew up midair, and I was far enough it didn't hurt me," you say, unable to stop a grin from coming to you when the man slowly realizes that he's talking to another marine.

"Oh, you're a marine too, ain't you?" He says, but it's not a question – no, it sounds more like a challenge, and one you're completely willing to participate in. "Where you stationed?"

"I was in Hawaii at first," you say quietly, and he immediately gets the implication. Although you both now know what you saw, and the topic is in your heads, neither of you explore that further. "Later got stationed at some place in the Pacific. Like you. Though, I was on the ocean, not an island."

"What's your kill count?" He asks, and he leans forward just a little bit, drawing closer to you.

"Does it really matter?" You ask in return.

"'Course it does. You gonna be out here tellin' me you didn't count?"

"I didn't," you say truthfully. "A bit hard to see how many y' kill from a thousand feet in the air."

"Y'ever do parachute drops?"

"Once," you say. "Did you?"

"Nah, parachute drops ain't nothin' compared to the shit I did," he says, dismissing the notion as if it wasn't important. Now he's trying to impress you – again.

"Really?" You ask, almost sarcastic, but you manage to hold that part back. "What is it that you did then that was so much more terrifying and dangerous than freefalling through the atmosphere?"

"Try carryin' mortars on ya back in searing heat, n' all the while you n' ya company's out takin' a little hike 'cross a whole island filled with Japs," he says cockily, angling his chin upwards in a motion that accentuates his already sharp-as-hell jawline.

"Wow, a whole island," you say sarcastically, but he sees the humor behind it.

"Hey, Japan's an island too an' they big enough that they got the whole nation in uproar," he points out.

"Whatever makes you feel better," you say, taking a sip of your drink.

"What's your rank anyway?" He asks as he puts his drink on the counter, crossing his arms.

"I'm a major," you say, and once again the light dies in his eyes. You almost want to spare him the embarrassment of telling you his own rank, but you are curious, and it's just too fun to let him off. "What's your rank?"

"... corporal," he answers quietly, and you have to hold back a laugh. You try really hard, you really do, just so hard not to laugh, but you end up snorting anyway, and you can't even begin to work on your smile.

"Alright, corporal," you say, still trying not to laugh. Placing your own drink down on one of the bar coasters you turn to him, curling his loose tie around one of your hands and pulling him forward, practically devouring his nervous delight. "Y' really wanna play this game?"

"I'm the one who started it, ain't I?" He says, and you admire his tenacity to talk back to a superior officer.

"What's your full name and title, Corporal?"

"Corporal Merriel Shelton," he answers softly, his eyes suddenly stuck on the words that form on your blushing lips. "Ma' friends jus' call me Snafu, though."

"Mmm," you hum, looking him up and down much like he'd done to you earlier, "the hell you do to earn that kind a' name?"

"Oh, I'm just reckless, baby," he says with a smirk, gaining the confidence needed to lean into your touch more. You can feel his hips almost pressed against yours, the feeling doing nothing but making you pull his tie even more, a smile beginning to tug at the edges of your lips.

"Mind showin' me?"

You stared at the message for a long moment, your thumb hovering. He never said it outright, but all of you knew what the date meant. Almost a year to the day since the night Hannah and Beth disappeared into the snow. Maybe Josh just wanted to feel close to them again or this was his way of honouring them.

The cable car jolted with a loud metallic screech, making your phone slip from your hands and clatter to the floor. You blinked, pulled out of your thoughts, and looked up just in time to see the platform ahead. The car had reached the top. Letting out a breath, you grabbed your bag and jumped out, glad to be done with the rattling machine.

You glanced around, but the area was still empty. No sign of your friends. The snow-covered path ahead stretched into the trees, quiet and undisturbed. Your eyes landed on the numerous footprints. Several of them trailed off into the woods, a good sign that the others hadn’t gone far. You rubbed your arms against the cold, then started walking, following the trail.

The air was still, but every few steps a sound from the forest made your ears perk up. Twigs cracked, branches shifted, and even though you kept telling yourself it was probably just the wind or small animals, your head kept turning toward the noise. You shook it off and kept going, focusing on the prints ahead, trying not to let your imagination get the better of you.

The snow crunched steadily beneath your boots as you followed the trail, head down, breath fogging in the cold. The forest around you was still unnervingly quiet except for the occasional creak of trees shifting under the weight of snow. You kept walking, trying not to think too hard, trying not to look too long into the thick shadows between the trunks.

Then you heard it.

A sound sharp, high, and fast cut through the air. Not a scream exactly, but not an animal either. Something in between. It echoed once, then vanished. Your footsteps stopped. The woods suddenly felt heavier. You stood still for a second, listening.  Then another sound, deeper this time. A scraping? No, more like something dragging across bark. It came from up ahead, off the trail and into the thicker trees.

You turned slowly toward it, brow furrowed, trying to spot the source through the branches. Your heartbeat picked up as you took a cautious step forward.

Then -

Warm hands suddenly settled on your shoulders.

You flinched hard, letting out a scream. You spun around, gasping and there was Josh, grinning, too close, his eyes crinkled with mischief.

“Woah, easy,” he said, laughing softly. “Just me.”

“Jesus, Josh!” you snapped, hand clutching your chest. “You scared the hell out of me.”

He broke into full laughter at your reaction, clearly proud of himself. That only made it worse.

Fuming, you shoved at his chest, hard. “Asshole.”

He barely moved, like he was planted there. “Wow,” he said, grinning. “Is that all you’ve got?”

You scowled, but there was a flicker of a smile tugging at the edge of your mouth.

“I’m sorry sweetheart,” he said, utterly unapologetic. “You had that little forehead-crinkle thing going. It was too tempting.”

Your breath was still catching up with your heart. “I thought you were-” You glanced back toward the trees, then shook your head. “Never mind. Did you hear that noise?”

Josh didn’t answer right away. His smile faltered, just slightly. His hands, still gently resting on your arms, gave a light squeeze.

“Woods are creepy this time of year,” he said after a beat, tone light but not entirely convincing. “They whisper. Crack. Groan. Just nature doing its spooky thing.”

You looked up at him. He was obviously teasing you attempting to scare you. He was watching you carefully, the humour softening in his eyes.

“You okay?” he asked, more gently now. “You seemed… off.”

You opened your mouth to reply but stopped. The wind blew snow down through the trees like falling ash. For a second, everything felt far away.

“I’m fine,” you said quietly. “You just surprised me.”

Josh stepped a little closer, his voice dropping to something softer. “Come on, it’s freezing out here.”

Without needing to ask, he slipped the strap of your bag off your shoulder and swung it onto his own back with ease. You let him. As the two of you started walking, the tension slowly gave way to quiet conversation, light small talk, nothing heavy. It was almost comfortable.

Then a question crept into your mind.

“What were you doing out here, anyway?” you asked, eyeing him. “You weren’t even on the trail.”

Josh shot you a crooked grin. “I was coming down to get you. You were the last to arrive. As usual.”He bumped your shoulder playfully, and you rolled your eyes.

“And you knew I’d arrived?” You raised a brow at him.

Josh grinned to himself like he’d been caught. “Not exactly. I was on my way down to wait at the cable car. Figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

You let out a short laugh. “And stand around in sub-zero temps just in case I showed up?”

“Obviously,” he said, tone casual. “Couldn’t have you walking up here alone.”

The simple answer hit harder than you expected. That quiet thoughtfulness buried beneath his usual sarcasm tugged at something in your chest. You hadn’t expected anyone to meet you, especially not him.

You glanced sideways at him, but he was looking straight ahead now, snow crunching beneath his boots like it didn’t mean anything.

You weren’t really sure what was happening between you and Josh anymore. You hadn’t spoken since the incident. Even before that, things had been... blurry. Pulled apart by time, distance, and whatever it was Josh was going through.

Your vision finally caught the outline of the lodge, rising like a shadowy monument through the trees. Relief bloomed in your chest. The idea of a warm fire, and maybe a beer or two, was already making you feel warmer.

As you and Josh approached the door, he moved ahead to open it. But instead of letting you in, he stopped, one hand on the knob, the other braced against the doorframe, his body angled to block your way.

“Josh,” you groaned, crossing your arms. The cold was slicing through your coat. “Seriously? We’re gonna freeze to death out here.”

Josh laughed at your dramatic pout, eyes lighting up.

He laughed at your dramatic pout, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Still cute when you whine,” he muttered, mostly to himself. His words caused your checks to flush at the flashbacks of him and you appeared in your mind. You rolled your eyes in an attempt to still appear annoyed at him.

“I know, I know,” he said louder, glancing back at you. “I just… wanted to say something before we go in.”

You blinked. The cold stung your face, but you stayed still. He hesitated, his expression softening. His voice dipped, more serious.

“Before we go in, I wanted to say something. I want tonight to be… good. I want everyone to have fun. And I don’t want you here because you feel bad for me.”

You opened your mouth to object, but he held up a hand, gently cutting you off.

“I mean it. I want tonight to feel normal. No grief. Just dumb jokes and too much alcohol and, I don’t know, something that feels like before.”

He looked at you then, really looked. And despite the grin tugging at his lips, there was something earnest behind his eyes. Something fragile.

“I’m really glad you came,” he added quietly.

Your heart tugged. You reached out and rested a hand on his arm, smiling up at him.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” you said. “But Josh, you don’t have to pretend everything’s fine. We’re here because we care. Not out of pity.”

He nodded, looking down at his feet like he needed a second to gather himself. Then he laughed softly, shaking off the moment.

“Okay, okay emotional speech over. Get inside before you turn into a popsicle.”

You grinned. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not letting me freeze my ass off.”

You both laughed as he opened the door, warm air rushing out to greet you. The sound of voices and music echoed through the lodge, familiar and alive. The past might’ve still hung in the corners of the place but for now, for just this night, it could wait.

Hours had passed since you’d arrived with Josh. After the hugs, the “I missed yous,” and the shared glances that said more than words, everyone slowly settled into the lodge. To your surprise, the mood was light. Surprisingly light. Josh had dragged up two crates of beer from the basement to a round of cheers, and now your group was circled around the fire he’d built, basking in warmth and buzz.

You’d lost count of how many beers had been passed around. Mike was deep into a ridiculous story about catching Matt and Emily making out last summer, complete with dramatic reenactments, and the group was in stitches. The alcohol gave you that warm, floating feeling, but even without it, you felt strangely at ease.

Josh’s arm had somehow ended up draped over your shoulders. You weren’t sure when it happened. You hadn’t pulled away. Every so often, you caught him looking at you out of the corner of your eye and when you glanced back, he’d already be looking somewhere else, as if he hadn’t been staring at all. Still, you couldn’t help the stupid smile on your face. You felt like some lovesick schoolgirl with the dumb grin on your face.

While Mike kept rambling, Sam stood up from the couch and stretched.

“Well, my beer bottle’s officially a graveyard,” she said. “I’m going to grab more from the basement.”

You sat up, finishing the last sip of your own drink and blinking at the sudden wave of dizziness.

“Me too,” you said, standing a little too fast. “I’ll come with.”

Your balance shifted, the alcohol tugging you briefly back toward the couch, but you caught yourself and laughed.

“Perfect,” Sam said, falling into step beside you. “Let’s go.”

As the two of you started toward the basement door, Josh’s voice rang out behind you.

“Careful down there, ladies,” he called with a mock-warning tone. “It’s dark. Creepy. A perfect setting for a horror movie.”

You both rolled your eyes.

“Thanks for the PSA, Josh,” Sam said over her shoulder, smirking.

You pulled the basement door open. A cold draft met you, rising up from the shadows below. The stairwell was nearly pitch black. You and Sam exchanged a glance, the kind that didn’t need words. You both pulled out your phones, switching on the flashlights. Narrow beams of white light cut through the darkness as you made your way down, step by creaking step.

“Josh seems in a good mood,” Sam said as you both carefully descended the creaky steps.

You nodded. “Yeah. Honestly? Better than I expected. I thought coming back here would bring everything back.”

It was the first time all night someone had acknowledged it; what happened last year.

“I’m sure he knows it was a horrible accident,” Sam said quietly.

You didn’t answer right away. Another silent understanding passed between you. Neither of you had been involved in the prank. You weren’t there when it happened. But you’d heard the stories, how it spiralled out of control, how no one had stopped it. Whether it was an accident or not, it had still been cruel.

You reached the shelves stacked with beer crates. The cold was more biting down here. Sam turned toward you, voice low and hesitant.

“I know we’re not supposed to bring it up,” she said, “but… I never asked. What were you doing? When it all happened?”

You bent down, grabbed a crate, and handed it to her. It was heavier than you remembered. No wonder Josh had impressed everyone by carrying two at once. No wonder you’d always thought he had some kind of quiet strength about him. You picked up another for yourself, using the moment to stall.

“God, it feels like forever ago,” you said, stalling again.

But the truth was, you remembered everything.

You remembered the cupboard in the Washingtons’ lodge stocked full of booze like some teenage dream. At some point that night, you and Josh had ended up alone. You weren’t exactly sure how it happened. You had your suspicions. Your friends had been nudging you two toward each other all evening, not so subtly.

You reached in and pulled out a half-full bottle of vodka, started pouring shots for the two of you while Josh wandered over to the stereo and flicked it on. Music thumped through the room, heavy on bass, the kind that made your bones buzz.

You were already drunk. Not tipsy, very much drunk. The kind where your vision smudged at the edges and your limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. But it didn’t stop you. You grabbed the two shot glasses, wobbling slightly as you made your way toward him, doing a half-dance, half-strut to the music.

Josh laughed at your theatrics, his smile soft and genuinely amused. “God, you’re ridiculous,” he said, taking a glass from your hand.

You stuck your tongue out at him and handed him his shot.

He raised the glass to the ceiling with mock ceremony.

“To the best night ever.”

You giggled, hiccupped, and clinked your glass to his before downing the vodka in one go. The burn lit a fire down your throat that you welcomed. The beat of the music sank into your skin. You started swaying, hips rolling in slow rhythm. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught Josh watching you. Not pretending. Not even trying to hide it. His gaze moved from your face to your hips, back up. Blatant. Drunk. Honest.

“See something you like, Joshy?” you teased, arching a brow.

He stepped closer, playing along. “Just admiring your insane, once-in-a-generation dance moves.”

You laughed, loud and free. Then, bold with liquor, you grabbed his hands and placed them on your hips. His fingers flexed instantly, tightening just a little. You felt them hook into the belt loops of your jeans, grounding you in place. Your hands slid up around his neck, pulling him closer until there was barely any space between you.

“You know,” you said, one hand toying with the soft hair at the back of his neck, “you’re kind of handsome when you’re drunk.”

Josh leaned in slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Just when I’m drunk?”

You smirked at Josh’s answer, your fingers still lightly playing with the curls at the back of his neck.

“I mean, you’ve always been handsome,” you admitted, eyes glinting. “But maybe the vodka is helping me say it out loud.”

Josh’s hands flexed a little more at your hips, his thumbs brushing slow, deliberate circles over the denim. His eyes stayed on you, not darting away this time, not joking it off.

“So you have been thinking about me,” he said, his tone that perfect mix of teasing and just a little vulnerable. “Kinda wish I knew that before I spent the whole summer convincing myself you hated me.”

You laughed softly, the warmth in your chest blooming outward. “I don’t hate you, Josh. I just didn’t know if you were serious.”

He tilted his head slightly. “About what?”

“Me.”

That answer seemed to hit him right in the chest. His expression changed, still smiling, but quieter now, a little more careful.

“You’re kind of hard not to be serious about,” he bluntly stated.

You blinked up at him, caught off guard.

Josh must’ve felt it too, because for once, he didn’t follow the moment with a joke or a grin. He just stood there, his eyes on you, and you saw something there that hadn’t been in his voice before, something raw, almost uncertain.

Your hand, still curled in the fabric of his shirt, tensed slightly. You weren’t drunk enough to miss what that meant.

“You really mean that?” you asked, your voice barely audible above the low hum of the stereo.

Josh swallowed. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I do.”

Silence stretched for a beat, just the music thudding softly in the background and the sound of both your breaths. Your heart kicked up in your chest. Your fingers slipped from his shirt to his jaw before you could think twice, tracing just beneath his cheekbone.

He didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned into the touch.

His hands were still at your hips, not teasing now but steady. Grounded. His forehead came to rest against yours, eyes fluttering shut for a second like he didn’t want to say the next part but couldn’t stop himself.

“I think I’ve always meant it.”

The tension curled between you, no longer playful. It was charged now. Real. You felt the heat of his body, the closeness of his breath, the weight of everything that hadn’t been said in the months you’d spent dancing around this.

“I didn’t know,” you whispered. “I thought maybe it was just messing around. For you.”

Josh shook his head, just barely. “Not with you.”

Your noses brushed, not quite a kiss.

Your breath caught in your throat.

Josh’s forehead still rested against yours, his hands unmoving, like he didn’t dare risk breaking the moment. His eyes flicked open, searching yours, silently asking a question he’d never spoken out loud.

You didn’t answer with words.

Instead, you leaned in just a fraction. Your lips brushed his once, testing, soft. And then again, firmer this time, like you both realized at the same time that there was no going back.

Josh kissed you like he’d been holding his breath for a year. His hands tightened at your waist, pulling you closer, and you rose onto your toes, arms curling around his shoulders. The music blurred out, the warmth of the vodka forgotten. All you felt was him and his mouth on yours, the way he tasted like liquor and something sharp underneath it.

His fingers moved slow and tentative at first. Sliding under the hem of your shirt just enough for his thumbs to brush the bare skin at your waist. Warm and steady. Possessive in the gentlest way. You shivered under his touch, not from cold but from the sudden awareness of every place your bodies touched.

Then he whispered it soft, like it wasn’t meant to be heard, his lips still barely parted from yours.

“You don’t know what you’ve been doing to me.”

You stilled for a moment, heart thudding.

He kissed you again before you could reply, slower now. Not just urgent, but tender, like he was memorizing it. Like he didn’t want to risk forgetting what it felt like. One of his hands slid up your spine, fingertips grazing each ridge of your back, pausing between your shoulder blades like he could hold you there forever.

Your breath hitched as his mouth found the corner of your lips, your jaw, the slope of your neck then returned to your mouth, almost desperately.

You kissed him back just as fiercely, your fingers tangling in his hair now, your balance swaying. You couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or the heat of him pressed to you or both, but you didn’t care. Not when he was kissing you like he meant it. Like he’d never stopped thinking about it. Like he never wanted it to end.

When you finally broke apart, you stayed close his forehead pressed to yours again, both of you smiling without quite meaning to.

Josh exhaled a breathy laugh. “Wow. Okay.”

“Yeah,” you said, breathless. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

“And I didn’t even have to dance for it,” he joked, the smirk back but softer now.

You grinned. “Don’t get cocky. That was a charity kiss.”

“Right,” he said, nodding solemnly. “Absolutely. No personal satisfaction here at all.”

But he still didn’t let go of you.

You finally shook your head, trying to clear the fog of the moment, and glanced over at Sam.

“I was just hanging out with Josh and we kind of passed out,” you said, raising your eyebrows.

Sam smirked and gave you a knowing look. “Uh-huh. ‘Passed out,’ sure. Sounds legit.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help smiling.

Sam laughed softly. “Sure. Just don’t start ‘passing out’ on me every time we need more beer.”

As you and Sam began making your way back toward the basement stairs, a sudden loud bang echoed through the concrete walls, sharp and jarring. You both froze in place, the sound slicing through the air like a crack of thunder.

Your heart jumped into your throat as you spun around, your phone’s flashlight barely piercing the thick darkness that swallowed the far end of the hallway.

Something moved.

A metallic clatter followed. A tin can, rolling slowly across the floor, its hollow rattle unnervingly loud in the silence that followed.

You and Sam instinctively stepped closer together. Your light caught just enough to see the can spin to a stop then nothing. Just black.

You felt it almost immediately, the drop in temperature, the way the air seemed to press in tighter around your skin. Your breath came out in a visible puff, and goosebumps prickled your arms despite your jacket.

Sam shifted beside you, her voice a whisper. “We should check it out, right?”

You hesitated. Every nerve in your body screamed to turn around and go back upstairs. However, curiosity, or maybe something deeper, rooted you in place.

Wordlessly, you both began inching down the hallway. Your flashlights shook slightly in your hands, casting long, twitching shadows along the walls. The silence was thick, broken only by the soft sound of your footsteps against the cold concrete.

The hallway seemed longer now, like it stretched out with every step. The air grew heavier, pressing against your lungs, and the flickering overhead bulb near the back door offered no comfort, only more shadows.

Just before you reached the rough wooden door at the very end, splintered, old, and slightly ajar. A sudden creak echoed from behind it, like something shifting just out of view.

You and Sam froze again.

Sam reached out, hand just barely brushing the door handle when—

“Hey!”

Both of you jumped nearly out of your skin as Josh’s voice rang out sharply from behind you.

You spun around to see him standing at the top of the basement stairs, bathed in faint light from above. His expression was tight, unreadable, but his voice was firm.

“You two forget how stairs work or something?” he asked, tone light but with an edge. “Come on seriously. That part of the basement’s off-limits.”

You started to protest, “We heard—”

“I know,” Josh interrupted quickly, already descending a few steps. “This place is old, okay? Pipes bang. Stuff falls. It’s nothing.”

You weren’t convinced. His tone was calm, but his eyes darted once, past you toward the door at the end of the hall.

“Come on,” he repeated, this time with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t leave me alone with Mike. He’s started doing impressions of everyone and it’s getting scary.”

You and Sam exchanged a look, unsettled but unsure. Still, you turned, following Josh back up the stairs. Behind you, the wooden door gave one final creaking groan.

Another couple of hours had passed, and the alcohol showed no signs of slowing down. Whatever buzz you'd started the night with had bloomed into full-on drunken joy. Everything felt lighter, funnier, louder. Even breathing felt easier.

Music thumped from the old stereo, something familiar with just enough bass to shake the floorboards. Someone had turned off most of the lights, leaving only the fire crackling and a few warm lamps casting a golden haze over the room.

Half the group was already passed out in corners or curled up under throw blankets, empty bottles littering the coffee table. A couple of your friends were making out shamelessly on the couch like it was freshman year all over again.

You leaned against the wooden beam by the fireplace. For the first time in what felt like forever, the house was full of laughter instead of tension. No whispered concerns, no heavy silences. Just friends being friends. You smiled, quietly to yourself, and scanned the room.

Then your eyes landed on Josh.

He was sitting in one of the armchairs across the room, slouched deep into the cushions with a half-empty bottle dangling from his fingers. He wasn’t talking. Wasn’t laughing. He was watching.

Specifically watching you.

Your smile faltered just a little, not gone but thinned. You met his gaze across the chaos, the noise, the glow of firelight.

He didn’t look away.

Something about the way he was staring made your skin prickle. Like he wasn’t with everyone else in the room. Like, somehow, he was somewhere else entirely and just wearing the mask of this moment.

But then he blinked, and the look was gone. A slow grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He raised his bottle in a lazy toast just for you.

You smiled at him lifted your drink back at him with a small nod, unsure whether you were reassuring him or yourself.

The moment stretched, a beat too long, like the world had held its breath just for the two of you. The fire crackled again, snapping you out of it, and the sounds of your friends filtered back in, someone giggling in the kitchen, a chorus of half-drunken lyrics from the hallway where someone had revived karaoke.

You took a sip of your drink, the taste less sharp now, more like melted courage. Josh was still watching, but the smile on his face softened. Less strange. He looked tired, maybe. But in a way that made him seem honest, stripped of whatever front he normally carried.

You pushed off the beam, feeling the pleasant weight of your buzz in your limbs as you crossed the room. When you reached him, he tilted his head up lazily, still reclined in that deep chair.

“You’re quiet,” you said, standing just close enough to see the pink flush of alcohol on his cheeks.

Josh shrugged one shoulder. “I like watching people when they’re happy.”

“That’s creepy.”

He grinned. “Only when you say it like that.”

You rolled your eyes, but it tugged a smile out of you. He patted the arm of the chair in silent invitation. After a moment’s hesitation, you sat, perched on the armrest, your thigh brushing his shoulder.

His hand rose, like he might reach for your knee but thought better of it. His fingers hovered for a second before dropping again.

“I just… I like this,” he said softly. “Being here. With you. With everyone. It feels like something real, you know?”

You nodded, though something about his tone had shifted again. Quieter. Almost reverent. And behind that easy smile was something you couldn’t quite name, longing, maybe. Or maybe it was regret.

Your voice came gentler. “You okay?”

Josh looked up at you then, and for a second, the grin vanished. “You ever get the feeling that the best nights, the really good ones, always feel a little haunted?”

You frowned. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head like he wasn’t sure either. “Like it’s too good.”

You stared at him. The firelight made shadows dance across his face. You weren’t sure if the chill that crept up your spine was from his words or the thought that Josh saw something coming that the rest of you didn’t.

Before you could ask anything more, he leaned forward slightly, voice dipping low, almost conspiratorial.

“But hey,” he said with a crooked smile, “if the world ends tonight, at least we got a hell of a send-off.”

He clinked his bottle softly against yours.

You tilted your bottle to meet his, the clink ringing faint and strange, like it echoed through something deeper than just the room. You tried to laugh it off, but the weight of his gaze lingered, and so did that feeling, like you were standing too close to something you didn’t fully understand.

Josh was still watching you, his smile quieter now. More knowing.

“You’ve got that look again,” you said, aiming for playful. “Like you’re about to say something stupid and poetic.”

His smile deepened. “Maybe I am.”

He shifted in the chair, his hand brushing your thigh lightly as he moved. Just enough to feel it, to notice he didn’t pull away. His fingers lingered there, warm through the fabric of your jeans, like a question he hadn’t asked out loud. Your heart gave a tiny, inconvenient lurch.

“You’re drunk,” you said, but your voice was soft, not scolding.

He raised an eyebrow. “A little. But not enough to make this up.”

There was a long pause. The fire cracked. Somewhere behind you, someone shouted out the wrong lyrics to whatever song was playing.

Then, deliberately, Josh turned his body toward you. One hand slid up, slow and sure, resting lightly on your waist. His thumb brushed a slow arc just above your hip.

“You’ve been in my head all night,” he murmured. “Hell, longer than that.”

You swallowed, your drink suddenly forgotten in your hand. “Josh…”

“If I’m wrong, tell me.” His voice was low, the kind that made your skin hum. “But don’t lie.”

His other hand came up, knuckles grazing your jaw, then your cheek. His fingers tucked a piece of hair behind your ear like it was the most important thing he’d ever done. You leaned into the touch before you could stop yourself.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.

But you didn’t. Couldn’t.

Instead, you looked at him and saw all the things he wasn’t saying. The vulnerability hiding behind the grin. The way he was holding back, just barely, waiting for your answer.

So you didn’t answer.

You leaned down slowly, heart hammering as your forehead pressed gently to his. He closed his eyes like that one small gesture undid him.

And then, he kissed you. It started careful, almost cautious, like he still thought you might pull away. But when you didn’t, when you kissed him back, your hand curling into the hair at the back of his neck, he deepened it with a hunger that surprised even him.

His hand tightened at your waist, the other sliding behind your neck, anchoring you to him. He kissed like he was afraid this moment might vanish if he didn’t memorize every second of it. You gasped against his mouth, and he paused just long enough to breathe your name like a confession.

When you finally broke apart, the fire flickered low, casting soft, swaying shadows across the room. His lips lingered just above yours, breath warm, his gaze searching, quietly intense, like he didn’t want the moment to slip away.

You leaned in, your voice barely above a whisper. “Can we go somewhere a little more private?”

Josh’s eyes lifted to meet yours. Those big brown eyes, wide and uncertain in the soft light. You could see the question written all over his face: Are you sure?

You nodded slowly, your fingers brushing gently along the edge of his jaw, your thumb tracing the faint curve of his cheek. “Yeah,” you murmured, giving him a soft smile. “I want to.”

A large grin slowly spread across Josh’s face, lighting up his features in the firelight. You couldn’t help but laugh at how easily his mood shifted at your words.

Before you knew it, he slid one arm under your legs and the other beneath your back, effortlessly lifting you out of the armchair.

You giggled, caught off guard by how strong he was as he carried you like you weighed nothing at all.

“Hey, put me down!” you teased breathlessly, but he only tightened his grip, chuckling softly.

Josh started walking toward the door, your laughter trailing behind him. Everyone else was too far gone in their own haze of alcohol and conversation to even notice.

Josh opened his bedroom door without once loosening his hold on you. Before you could even reach the bed, his lips found yours again, fierce and urgent. Pressed against the wall, your body suspended in his arms, you instinctively wrapped your legs around his waist. His hands framed you firmly on either side as you deepened the kiss.

Your hands clutched his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric as the kiss deepened, electric and desperate. Josh’s breath hitched against your lips, and you could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat under your palms.

He pulled back just enough to murmur against your mouth, voice low and rough, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

Your heart hammered as his hands slid from the wall to your waist, gripping you tighter as if afraid you might disappear. Every inch of you burned with the need that matched his.

Josh guided you onto the bed with deliberate care, his hands cradling you as he lowered you into the softness of the sheets. His lips found yours first, slow and deep, before trailing down your neck in a series of lingering kisses. Each press of his mouth was deliberate, savoring the way your breath hitched as he found your sweet spots, sucking just enough to draw a shiver from you. A quiet moan escaped your lips as your head sank back into the pillow, surrendering to the warmth of his touch.

His hands slid beneath your shirt, the initial coolness of his fingers a sharp contrast to your heated skin but the chill quickly melted into pleasure as they traced slow, worshipful paths along your ribs. His palms rose higher, cupping the weight of your breasts with a reverence that made your back arch. A low groan rumbled in his chest as he felt how soft you were, how perfectly you fit against him. His fingers slipped beneath your bra, teasing in slow circles until your nipples peaked under his touch. You gasped, hips shifting restlessly as the sensation coiled deep in your stomach.

He didn’t rush. His mouth followed where his hands had been, kissing along the swell of your breast, his tongue flicking lightly before sucking just enough to make your fingers tangle in his hair. All the while, his hips pressed against yours in a slow, rhythmic grind, the hard length of him dragging against your core. You could feel how much he wanted you, the heat, the tension, and the ache between your thighs grew unbearable.

“Josh… please,” you whispered, voice trembling.

You felt the curve of his smirk against your skin before he finally pulled back, his darkened eyes locking onto yours as his fingers hooked into the waistband of your jeans. He took his time, peeling them down your legs with agonizing slowness, his fingertips grazing your inner thighs just to hear you whimper. When he finally had you bare before him, he paused, drinking in the sight of your soaked underwear, his breath ragged with want.

“You’re so pretty, _____,” he murmured, almost to himself, before leaning down to kiss the inside of your knee, his lips beginning a torturously slow ascent back up your body.

His mouth took its time, tracing a slow, worshipful path up your thighs, each kiss lingering like a whispered promise. When he finally reached your core, he paused, just to look, just to savour the sight of you, your damp underwear clinging to your heat. His breath ghosted over the fabric, warm and teasing, before he pressed a single, deliberate kiss against your clothed sex. The sensation was maddeningly light, just enough to draw a soft, needy moan from your lips.

You arched beneath him, fingers twisting into the sheets, impatience simmering beneath the pleasure. You wanted more, but Josh was in no hurry. He savoured you, his hands sliding beneath your hips as he hooked his fingers into the delicate lace of your underwear. He peeled them away with agonizing slowness, his lips brushing your inner thigh as he did. You barely even noticed when he tucked them into his back pocket, his little trophy, a secret he’d keep for later.

Then, without warning, he buried himself between your thighs, his mouth hot and open against you. The first slow, wet stroke of his tongue dragged a gasp from your chest, your back bowing off the bed. He groaned against you, the vibration sending sparks up your spine as he laved at your folds with deliberate, worshipful strokes. He took his time, tasting you, learning every sensitive curve before finally circling your clit with the tip of his tongue.

Your hands tangled in his hair, not to guide him, but to anchor yourself as pleasure rolled through you in thick, honeyed waves. The room was thick with the sound of his devotion, the slick, sinful noises of his mouth on you, the low hum of his satisfaction, the broken sighs spilling from your lips. He was relentless in his adoration, drinking you in like a man starved, yet every movement was controlled, every flick of his tongue designed to unravel you piece by piece.

“Josh” Your voice was a breathless plea, your thighs trembling around his head. “Please. I’m close.”

He answered with a deep, vibrating groan, his fingers digging into your hips as he held you steady. “I know, baby, I know” he murmured against you, his breath hot. “Let me feel it.”

And then he slowed down. Just to watch you squirm. Just to hear you whimper. Just to prove he could take his time, even as your orgasm coiled tight in your belly, even as your breath came in ragged, desperate gasps.

Then he surged back into you. Hungry, relentless, his mouth claiming you with the same feverish intensity as before. Your body arched, every nerve alight as pleasure crested, overwhelming, unbearable. You fisted your hands in Josh’s hair, pulling, pleading, but he didn’t relent. Even as your orgasm shattered through you, even as your thighs clamped around his head, your breath coming in broken, desperate cries, he refused to stop. His tongue dragged slow, deliberate circles, wringing out every last tremor, every aftershock, until you were writhing beneath him, oversensitive and shaking, his name a ragged gasp on your lips.

“Josh—ah!” Your voice was a broken whimper, your hips jerking away instinctively, but his grip on you was iron. He held you down, his tongue swirling slow, torturous circles around your clit, drawing out the pleasure until it hurt, until every nerve was alight with sensation.

You gasped, your back arching, your hands pushing weakly at his shoulders. “Too much—fuck, please, I can’t—”

He only hummed against you, the vibration wringing another choked moan from your lips. His fingers dug into your hips, keeping you spread open for him as he dragged his tongue through your folds one more time, slow and deliberate, savouring the way your body shuddered in response.

“You taste so good,” he murmured, his voice rough with want.

You barely had time to protest before his mouth was on you again, his tongue flicking over your clit in quick, teasing strokes, coaxing another wave of pleasure from your oversensitive body. Your breath came in ragged sobs.

“No—no, I can’t—” You twisted beneath him, but he held you firm, his lips sealing around your clit, sucking gently just as your climax hit. The pleasure was sharp, almost painful in its intensity, your entire body tensing as you came with a broken cry. His tongue worked you through it, gentler now but unyielding, until you were whimpering, your hands fisting in the sheets, your voice a hoarse plea.

“Josh, please” Your voice cracked. “I can’t take anymore.”

Finally, he pulled back, pressing one last kiss to your inner thigh before lifting his head. His lips were glistening, his breathing uneven, his gaze dark with satisfaction as he took in the sight of you trembling and utterly ruined.

“Fuck,” he breathed, dragging his thumb over your swollen flesh, just to hear you whine. “Look at you.”

You could only gasp, your body still pulsing with aftershocks, your mind hazy with pleasure. And when he leaned down to kiss you, slow and deep, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, you melted into him completely and helplessly his.

Josh let you catch your breath, his fingers working the buckle of his belt, the slow drag of denim down his hips deliberate, maddening. He caged you in, palms pressing into the mattress beside your head, his gaze tracing your face, flushed, dazed, still trembling from his mouth. You smiled up at him, drunk on pleasure, and reached to push his hair back, your fingers lingering against his temple.

"If it hurts." His voice roughened, a sudden gravity cutting through the haze between you. "You tell me. Immediately."

You nodded, biting your lip at the way his concern twisted something warm in your chest.

"Say it." His eyes locked onto yours, unyielding.

A shiver raced down your spine. You swallowed, throat tight with want. "I want you."

His mouth brushed yours, teasing. "To what?"

The words spilled out in a breathless rush, "I want you inside me. Now."

A low groan escaped him, his forehead dropping to yours. "Fuck, you’re perfect."

He pushed into you slowly, each inch a deliberate surrender. His gaze never left your face, drinking in every flicker of pleasure, every sharp inhale as he filled you. Your eyes fluttered shut for a heartbeat, your body stretching to accommodate him, a silent gasp catching in your throat. He groaned, a rough, reverent curse as he sank deeper, your warmth slick and tight around him. God, you were perfect, clenching just for him. He knew it then, with every ragged breath you shared; you were made for him.

He held there for a moment, buried deep, letting you both savour the way you fit together. Then, with a low groan, he began to move. Gentle at first, rolling his hips in slow, deliberate strokes, his hands gripping your thighs like he was afraid you’d vanish. But the tension between you was too much, the need too sharp.

His pace quickened, each thrust driving deeper, rougher, until the room filled with the sound of skin against skin, your breathless moans, his ragged curses. "Fuck, you feel—" His voice was wrecked, his fingers digging into your hips as he pulled you harder against him. "So goddamn perfect. So tight, so fucking sweet."

You arched beneath him, nails scraping down his back, and he growled, his rhythm turning desperate. "Thought about this," he panted, "every night. How you’d look under me. How you’d sound." His thumb brushed your cheek, his eyes dark, possessive. "You’re even better than I dreamed."

And then he was losing control completely, his thrusts turning erratic, his mouth crashing onto yours in a kiss that tasted like sweat and sin. He didn’t slow down, didn’t stop not until you were both trembling on the edge, pleasure coiling too tight to bear.

He didn’t let up. If anything, he drove into you harder, deeper, his grip on your hips ironclad as he pinned you beneath him. Every snap of his pelvis sent a shockwave through you, the slap of skin echoing like a drumbeat, relentless. You gasped his name, broken, pleading, but he only growled in response, his voice gravel and flame.

“Tell me,” He demanded, fingers pressing into your flesh. “Does it feel good? Fuck, tell me how much you love it.”

You could barely form words, your moans fracturing with each punishing thrust. He didn’t wait for an answer, just swore under his breath and pushed you further back into the bed, his mouth searing a path down your throat. “Yeah, you do,” he rasped, teeth scraping your pulse point. “Can feel how bad you need it. How fucking perfect you take me.”

His rhythm turned brutal, primal, the bedframe slamming against the wall as he chased his own release, dragging you with him. You clawed at his shoulders, his name a sob on your lips, and he groaned like the sound wrecked him. “That’s it—come on ______, let go. Wanna feel you come apart on me. I’ll take care of you.”

At his words you were coming apart, your spine arching like a snapped bow, a scream ripping from your throat as pleasure split you open, white-hot and brutal. His name wasn’t a prayer anymore, it was a filthy, shattered demand, raw as the fingers digging bruises into your hips, holding you down as you thrashed beneath him.

He fucked you through it, relentless, his own release slamming into him like a punch. A guttural groan tore from his chest as he buried himself to the hilt, pumping his cum so deep inside you that you felt it claiming you. His forehead dropped to yours, panting, your sweat and his mingling, the air between you sticky with sex and sin.

For a heartbeat, neither of you moved.

The bed was a wreck of tangled sheets and the heavy scent of sex, but neither of you moved to fix it. He had rolled onto his back beside you, one arm draped over his forehead, his chest rising and falling in slow, satiated rhythm. The heat between you had settled into something quiet, something tender.

You turned your head to look at him, the sharp line of his jaw, the sweat-damp hair at his temples, the way his lips were still slightly parted as he caught his breath. As if sensing your gaze, he shifted, turning onto his side to face you. His fingers found your hip, tracing absent circles there, feather-light compared to the bruising grip he’d had on you earlier.

"Come here," he murmured, voice rough but warm. He didn’t pull, just waited, leaving the choice to you.

You shifted closer, and his arm curled around you, drawing you in until your head rested against his chest. His heartbeat was steady under your ear, strong and sure. His other hand brushed your hair back from your face, tucking a loose strand behind your ear before his fingers trailed down your shoulder, your arm, as if relearning you in the stillness.

"You’re shaking," he said softly.

You hadn’t even noticed, just the faint tremble in your limbs, the aftershocks of pleasure and the slow return to earth. His palm smoothed over your back, steadying.

"I’ve got you," he murmured, lips pressing against the crown of your head. "Always."

There was no urgency now, no hunger demanding more. Just the quiet between breaths, the way his thumb traced idle patterns against your skin, the way his body curved around yours like he could shield you from everything.

"You know that, don’t you?" he asked after a moment, voice low. "That I’m not letting you go."

It wasn’t a question, not really. It was a vow, wrapped in the dark and the warmth of the bed, in the way his fingers laced with yours.

“Should we head back down?” You asked him.

He shook his head, eyes fluttering open just enough to look at you with a lopsided grin.

“Go back down? And risk someone walking in on us with bedhead and judgment in their eyes? No thanks.”

You snorted. “So you’re staying in bed forever?”

“Exactly,” he said, settling deeper into the pillows. “Tell my friends and family I’ve retired. Full-time blanket burrito. Part-time cuddler.”

You cringed at his corny response, and he leaned in, pressing a kiss just behind your ear.

“Besides,” he murmured, “why would I leave when you’re literally right here being all soft and gorgeous and mine.”

You felt your cheeks warm as he pulled the blanket higher around both of you.

“Wake me up in five to seven business days,” he whispered.

You closed your eyes, let the weight of him, the scent of him, the safety of him, sink into your bones. Before you knew it, the sound of his heartbeat lured you to a deep sleep.

Something in the house stirred you awake.

You let out a quiet groan and buried your face into the pillow, trying to cling to the last threads of sleep. Your head throbbed with a dull ache at your temples, the unmistakable consequence of too many drinks and too little water. You immediately regretted everything you had consumed that night.

Still half-asleep, you stretched your arm across the bed, expecting to feel the familiar warmth of Josh beside you. But your fingertips brushed only cool sheets. You blinked, confused, and lifted your head slightly, letting your eyes adjust to the dim light filtering in through the curtains.

Josh was gone.

Frowning, you sat up fully, pushing the blankets aside as you glanced around the room. His clothes were missing from where he’d left them. The space where he had been lying was already cool to the touch. He hadn’t just gone to the bathroom.

You rubbed a hand over your face, trying to make sense of it. He hadn’t said anything about leaving, and there was no note or message left behind. You knew he was the host tonight. Maybe someone downstairs had needed something, or he was helping clean up the inevitable chaos. Still, you couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy that he had left so quietly.

The house had gone unusually still. No music. No voices. No footsteps on the creaky stairs. Just the low hum of silence pressing against the walls.

You grabbed your clothes from the floor and quickly dressed, your ears straining for any sign of movement, footsteps, voices, laughter, anything to suggest someone else was awake.

But there was nothing. The silence felt unnatural, like the house was holding its breath.

You hesitated at Josh’s bedroom door, hand on the knob. You wanted to call out, but something about the stillness made you stop. You didn’t want to be the one to break it.

Maybe everyone was still asleep. Maybe it was early. You had no idea what time it was, your phone was still somewhere in the chaos of the night before.

You opened the door slowly and stepped into the hallway, every creak of the floorboards beneath your feet sounding ten times louder than it should. The air was colder out here, biting at your skin.

You made your way down the stairs, the wood groaning softly under your weight, and entered the main room where everyone had been drinking and laughing just hours ago.

The fire had long since died, leaving only a faint smell of smoke in the air. Empty beer bottles and red plastic cups littered the tables and floor. A few blankets were still bunched up on the couch, but no one was under them.

A quiet, creeping urgency bloomed in your chest.

You moved faster now, checking the kitchen, the side room, even peeking down the hall toward the guest bedrooms. Nothing. No signs of anyone. It was like they had all just vanished.

Your heartbeat pounded faster, the silence around you growing heavier with every second.

They wouldn’t have gone outside, not in weather like this. You turned toward the front windows, where snow fell in thick, relentless waves, burying the world in white. The storm had only intensified since nightfall. No one in their right mind would leave the safety of the cabin now.

But your friends hadn’t been thinking clearly. The drinks, the laughter, the stupid jokes. What if one of them had dared the others to step outside? The thought sent a jolt of panic through you, your breath catching in your throat. You couldn’t just sit here until morning, pretending everything was fine. Not when they might be out there, lost in the freezing dark.

Hands trembling, you jammed your feet into your boots and snatched your jacket from the hook. Every second wasted was another second the storm swallowed them whole. You had to find them before the mountain had them forever.

As you shrugged on your jacket and turned toward the front door, something caught your eye. The bathroom door stood slightly ajar, swaying with an eerie, rhythmic creak. The wind, you told yourself. It had to be the wind, someone must’ve left the window open. But the logical explanation did nothing to stop the icy prickle of dread crawling up your spine. Your mind conjured images of shadowed figures lurking just out of sight, watching from the darkness.

Swallowing hard, you forced yourself toward the bathroom. The floorboards groaned under your weight as you inched closer, each step too loud in the suffocating silence. With a shaky breath, you pushed the door open.

Cold air rushed over you. The window gaped wide, snowflakes swirling inside like spectral fingers. Your gaze darted across the empty room, searching for movement, for anything. Then you saw it.

The mirror.

Dark, crimson letters smeared across the glass, still glistening wet. Your hand flew to your mouth, stifling a gasp. The metallic tang of blood hit your nostrils. Your lungs locked. A scream clawed at your throat, but terror had stolen your voice. All you could do was stare, frozen, at the words staring back at you:

WELCOME BACK

The words were scrawled across the mirror in dark, dripping red. You couldn’t stop staring. The letters were uneven, smeared like they’d been written in a hurry or by someone who wanted them to look that way. Blood slid slowly down the glass, a thick line breaking through the last word.

Your body locked in place, fear rooting you to the spot. Every hair on your arms stood up. You didn’t need to touch it to know it was real.

Whoever wrote that they were here. And you were alone.

Your breath hitched as the cold from the open window bit deeper into your skin. The storm outside no longer felt like the danger, it felt like the only way out.

You turned and ran, the sound of your boots pounding on the floor loud in the silence. The walls seemed to close in as you sprinted through the hallway, adrenaline numbing your fingers as you grabbed for the front door.

Your hand was just about to touch the knob when you heard it.

A muffled scream.

You froze.

It was distant, but unmistakable. Ragged, broken, and coming from somewhere deeper inside the lodge. Someone was here and they were screaming for help.

Your body shook as dread gripped you tight. You knew exactly where the scream had come from, the only place you hadn’t checked.

The basement.

Every instinct screamed at you to run. To get out, to find help, to survive. But you also knew it would be too late. Help wouldn’t come fast enough. And if someone was still alive, every second mattered.

Without giving yourself time to reconsider, you turned and headed for the basement door.

You opened it slowly, trying not to breathe too loud. When you and Sam had been down here earlier, it was dark, but now, it was pitch black. A suffocating kind of dark. You cursed under your breath and fumbled for your phone, the small flashlight beam flickering on as you started down the stairs.

The silence followed you. Heavy. Oppressive. The kind of silence that didn’t feel empty.

At the bottom, your light skimmed across the floor, revealing overturned beer crates and broken furniture scattered across the basement. The old wooden chair Josh used to joke about being haunted now lay on its side, splintered.

There had been a struggle. No question.

You tried not to gag at the thought.

Then your flashlight caught it. The door at the end of the hallway. The one Josh had told you never to open.

It was open now. Fully.

You swallowed hard, a tight knot forming in your throat. The scream had come from there. You knew it.

Steeling yourself, you stepped forward, crossing the basement and slipping through the open doorway. What you saw on the other side made your skin crawl.

It wasn’t just a room.

It was another section of the basement entirely. Narrow hallways branched off in different directions, lined with doors, storage rooms, utility closets, you couldn’t tell. The space felt hidden, secret. Like it wasn’t meant to be found.

That’s when you heard the scream again.

This time it was louder, clearer. Raw and panicked, echoing off the walls. And this time, you could make out the voice.

Ashley.

This time, your body didn’t freeze. Adrenaline surged like a current through your veins, propelling your legs into motion. You sprinted toward the sound of her scream, heart hammering, breath shallow. As you rounded a corner, the screaming doubled. Ashley’s voice now joined by Chris’s, both echoing in distorted waves through the concrete walls.

Your fear didn’t slow you. It sharpened you.

You turned the final corner and there they were.

Ashley and Chris were backed against the far wall, their faces bone-white in the dim light. Between you and them stood a mountain of a man, his silhouette swallowing the space. The grotesque Halloween mask leered at them, the eye holes black and depthless.

He didn’t notice you enter.

He was focused entirely on them, moving in slow, deliberate steps. In one gloved hand, he held a damp cloth, soaked with something dark and unidentifiable. You didn’t want to guess what it was meant for.

Chris and Ashley’s eyes snapped to you then widened.

You lifted a finger to your lips and silently begged them not to speak.

The masked man kept advancing.

Silently, your gaze swept the room. A weapon. Anything. Sweat stung your eyes as you spotted it, an empty beer bottle, half-hidden under a toppled crate. You snatched it, the glass slick in your palm. You clutched the neck tightly in your hand. Every muscle tensed as you crept forward, the floorboards mercifully silent beneath you.

You were close now. Just behind him.

Ashley’s eyes flicked from him to you again.

That did it.

The man’s head twitched, he sensed it. He sensed you.

You screamed and brought the bottle down with everything you had. Glass exploded against the back of his head. He roared in pain, stumbling forward, one hand clamped to his skull. Blood seeped from under the mask, but he didn’t go down.

The mask had taken the worst of the blow.

“Run!” you shouted.

Chris grabbed Ashley’s wrist, dragging her toward a side exit that led deeper into the basement halls, avoiding the path blocked by the man. You turned, ready to bolt back the way you’d come.

That’s when you heard it.

A voice.

Deep. Warped. Distorted through some kind of voice modulator.

It said your name.

Your name.

Your blood went cold. He knew who you were. You ran harder, crashing through the basement door and sprinting into the hallway beyond. Behind you, you heard the thundering footsteps of boots hitting the floor. He was up. And he was coming. Now, he was after you.

Your feet pounded the floor as you tore down the hallway, your breath tearing through your throat like fire. The air was thick, damp, the walls closing in as the thunder of boots echoed behind you, closer with every second.

You flew up the stairs two at a time, nearly slipping on the top step. As you burst back into the main floor of the lodge, you didn’t stop. You couldn’t. You knew the layout. You had seconds, maybe less to think.

You grabbed the nearest hall table and flipped it onto its side, shoving it hard across the floor. It scraped loudly against the wood and crashed down at the top of the basement stairs, blocking the entrance. It wouldn’t stop him, but maybe it would slow him. You ran again, past the flickering firelight of the main room, dodging fallen chairs and discarded beer bottles.

He was coming.

You could feel it. That awful, unrelenting presence behind you like gravity itself.

You turned sharply into the back hallway, eyes searching for any door, any place to hide. Your chest burned, your legs already heavy. You stumbled into a guest room, slammed the door shut, and pressed your back to it, hand clamped over your mouth to muffle your breathing.

A long moment passed.

Silence.

Then the crash of wood splintering. The table at the top of the stairs had been obliterated. The makeshift barricade hadn’t bought you more than a few seconds.

He was inside. He was hunting you now.

Inside the guess room you immediately scanned the space. A bed. A closet. A dresser. No time to think. You dropped to the floor and slid beneath the bed, pressing yourself flat against the cold, dusty boards, forcing your breath to stay silent.

The moment stretched endlessly.

Then, the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs echoed through the lodge. He was already upstairs, and his heavy footsteps thudded against the floor as he moved through the halls, methodically checking rooms one by one.

The hallway creaked under his weight. Then the doorknob turned, slowly.

The door opened with a soft groan, and his boots stepped into the room.

He stood there for a moment, perfectly still, and you could almost feel his presence filling the space. Your heart pounded so loudly you were convinced it would give you away.

Then his voice filled the silence, low and drawn out, distorted through the modulator.

“I seeeee you…”

Your breath froze. His boots shifted slightly as he stepped forward.

“You always had to go and help them, didn’t you?” he said, voice calm, almost amused. “Couldn’t leave the lodge like the rest of them.”

He crouched down.

From under the bed, you saw his gloved hand press to the floor just inches away from your face. He tapped his fingers slowly, rhythmically, like he was thinking, maybe savouring the moment.

“Hiding… really?” he murmured. “You’re smarter than that.”

Your entire body tensed. You didn’t move, didn’t breathe, barely blinked.

“I could drag you out right now,” he said, tone almost playful. “But where’s the fun in that?”

He stood again.

His boots turned and walked back toward the door. As he reached the hallway, his voice drifted back, distorted and singsong.

“I’ll give you a head start.”

Then the door clicked shut behind him.

You stayed frozen, still flat against the floor, too afraid to believe he was gone. The house had gone quiet again, but you knew the silence didn’t mean safety.

He was still here.

And now he was hunting.

You stayed pressed to the floor, waiting until your breathing slowed and the roar of your heartbeat dulled in your ears. Your hands were still shaking, the weight of what had just happened sinking in fully now. Somewhere in the house, that masked man was still moving. Still searching.

You couldn’t stay here. Not alone.

A plan began to form through the haze of fear. You had to find Chris and Ashley. Being together gave you a chance, splitting up would only make you easier targets. If you could get back down to the basement quietly, carefully, maybe you could all find a way out together.

You crawled out from under the bed and rose to your feet as slowly and silently as possible. Every creak of the floorboard made your skin tighten, but the room remained still. Just the low hum of the wind pressing against the lodge.

You slipped the door open a crack and peered into the hallway. Empty.

The hallway stretched out in eerie silence, every shadow too long, every corner too dark. You slipped out, closing the door behind you with barely a click. With each step, you kept low, your body tense and alert, listening for any shift, any breath that wasn’t yours.

You reached the staircase and paused at the top.

The darkness below yawned open, wide and waiting. Somewhere down there, Chris and Ashley were still hiding hopefully. You swallowed hard and began to descend, one step at a time, your hand trailing the banister to steady yourself. The wood creaked faintly beneath your weight, but you couldn’t stop now. You had to keep moving.

At the bottom of the stairs, you stopped to listen again.

Still nothing.

You turned down the hallway, the one leading toward the section of the basement where you last saw them. The silence pressed harder now, as if the air itself didn’t want to breathe. You reached a closed door, one you hadn’t checked before.

Maybe they were hiding in here. Maybe they’d found another way through.

You curled your fingers around the handle, turned it slowly, and eased the door open just a crack.

And froze.

He was there.

Standing on the other side, just inches away.

The masked man.

You stared straight into the empty black eyeholes of his mask. He didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He was just standing there as if he’d been waiting for you.

Your breath caught in your throat.

He tilted his head.

Just a little.

Like he was smiling.

The eyeholes of the mask stared through you, and for a second, your brain refused to believe it was real.

Then he moved.

Just a shift of his shoulders, a slight step forward but it was enough.

You screamed.

The sound tore out of you before you could stop it, sharp and panicked, echoing off the concrete walls. You stumbled back from the door, heart in your throat, breath ragged.

Your first instinct was to turn and run upstairs. Just get away. Put space between you and that thing, that man, whatever he was.

But you stopped yourself.

Chris and Ashley were still down here. Hiding. Waiting. Maybe bleeding.

You couldn’t leave them.

You spun and ran, not back upstairs, but down the hall, toward the far side of the basement. You didn’t hear him behind you at first, but you felt him. The floor seemed to vibrate with his footsteps as he gave chase.

You didn’t have a plan, just instinct. You turned hard at the first junction, then another, ducking into the maze of back corridors and storage rooms, trying to loop him, trying to shake him. You ducked through a low doorway, dodging a hanging pipe, nearly slipped on a damp patch of concrete but caught yourself just in time.

Behind you, the sound of his boots grew louder, closer.

You ducked into another side room, one filled with shelving and crates stacked high. You moved fast, pushing through the narrow gaps, weaving your way to the far side and slipping out just as he entered the opposite end.

You heard him stop. Then nothing.

You held your breath, pressed against the cold wall, heart hammering so loud you thought it might echo.

Had you lost him?

No. Just bought yourself seconds.

You had to get back to that side room where Chris and Ashley had gone. If you could loop through the utility corridor on the left, you might just beat him there.

You slipped back into the corridor, keeping low, your footsteps barely audible. You took a sharp left, cutting through the old utility passage with its rusted pipes and exposed wiring. Your chest burned, your legs ached, but you kept going, convinced you’d looped around fast enough to get ahead of him.

The hallway was still. Empty. You moved quietly, hugging the wall, ears straining for any hint of footsteps, breathing, anything.

Nothing.

You reached the intersection near the room Chris and Ashley had fled into, just a few steps away. Your heart lifted slightly.

Maybe you’d actually lost him.

But the moment you turned the corner -

A hand clamped down on your arm like a vice.

He’d been waiting.

He yanked you back hard, and you barely caught yourself before slamming into the wall. You screamed, twisting in his grip, but it was like being held by a wall of stone. His mask was inches from your face now, close enough to see the cracks in the paint, the dried blood on the chin. He was tall. Taller than you’d realized. Broader. Inhumanly still.

Panic surged through you. You flailed with your free hand, scrambling for anything and your fingers closed around something cold and smooth on the shelf beside you.

A vase.

Small. Decorative. Useless, until you smashed it into his forearm.

The glass shattered, sharp pieces slicing across both of you, but it did the job. He grunted and recoiled, grip loosening just enough.

You ripped free and stumbled back, your arm throbbing, tiny cuts stinging along your hand. He lunged for you again, but you ducked low and bolted toward the door.

You ducked under his arm and bolted, lungs burning, but your foot caught on a jagged piece of wood jutting from the floor. You hit the ground hard, the impact jarring up through your elbow and into your shoulder. Your scream echoed through the corridor, loud and raw. Pain exploded in your arm as you rolled onto your back, instinctively trying to push yourself up, but it was no use. The shooting ache froze your muscles, and your breath hitched in panic.

Then you heard it. The slow, deliberate sound of boots. He was coming.

You turned your head and saw him advancing through the shadows, unfazed, unhurried. The mask gleamed faintly in the dark, its hollow eyes fixed on you like a predator that already knew it had won. You scrambled backward on your elbows, dragging yourself over the cracked concrete, ignoring the sting of every movement, the burn of broken skin against the floor.

Your voice broke into a sob. “No—please—!”

But he didn’t stop.

You kicked at him, flailing, your heel catching his thigh. It barely staggered him.

His hand shot down, grabbing your ankle so tight it sent another jolt of pain shooting up your leg. You screamed again and kicked harder, clawing at the floor, reaching for anything to hold onto. But there was nothing.

He began to drag you backward, your body scraping roughly along the floor. You felt every bump, every uneven groove in the concrete biting into your spine and hips. Your jacket bunched at your shoulders as you were yanked faster now, your free leg flailing wildly.

Your screams were deafening, but they went unanswered.

You reached toward doorframes, toward corners, your fingertips grazing the wood but not catching. The further he pulled you, the darker the hallway seemed to grow, like you were being dragged into a void that existed only for you.

He turned a corner sharply, and your head hit the floor. Dizzy, disoriented, you barely registered the next motion until he stopped moving.

Then he reached down again.

With effortless force, he hoisted you into the air and slung you over his shoulder. Your stomach flipped as your body was lifted and twisted, the world tilting upside down.

You thrashed, fists pounding his back, feet kicking helplessly behind him. Your voice cracked from screaming, but you didn’t stop, not for a second.

“PUT ME DOWN! LET ME GO!”

You could barely breathe from the pressure of his shoulder against your ribs. His arm locked around the back of your legs, holding you in place like you were a bag of supplies, not a person. You felt the way his body barely shifted under your weight. You were nothing to him.

He walked forward, steady and sure, moving through the lodge like he knew it intimately.

He kicked open the front door with one brutal slam of his boot. A rush of frigid wind blasted against your face, snow catching in your hair, your lungs seizing from the sudden drop in temperature. The night outside was blindingly white, the blizzard fully alive now, howling through the trees like a pack of wild things.

You blinked through tears and snow, and there, across the yard, past the warped fence and buried stepping stones was the dilapidated shed.

The shed door groaned as he pushed it open, the blizzard’s howl immediately muffled as he stepped inside and shut it behind him. The space was small, walls lined with old tools and crates stacked with forgotten gear. It smelled of damp wood and rust. Overhead, a single hanging bulb flickered to life with a sharp click, casting the room in a pale, sickly glow.

He turned, one arm still braced around your legs, and with the other hand reached back and twisted the bolt lock on the door. Click. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the cramped space.

Then he moved toward the center of the room and dropped you unceremoniously onto a wooden stool. Your body jolted at the impact, your injured arm screaming in protest. The cold bit at your skin through your torn jacket, and the fear tightened around your throat like a rope.

“Please,” you gasped, “leave us alone.”

He didn’t respond.

He just stood there, towering, unmoving. The mask stared at you, eyes black, mouth stretched into that grotesque, permanent smile. You tried to steady your voice, but it cracked as you rambled, desperate.

“We won’t tell anyone, okay? I swear. Whatever you did, whatever you want, we won’t say a word. Just let us go.”

Still nothing.

He watched you with eerie stillness, and something about that silence made the fear even worse. You couldn’t read him. Couldn't predict him. Couldn't understand what he wanted.

Your voice broke again. “Please—”

Then he tilted his head.

“God, you’re so cute when you’re freaking out,” he said.

The voice was no longer filtered. It was familiar.

Your breath caught, eyebrows pulling together in confusion. That voice. That tone. You blinked up at him, heart pounding in your ears.

“What?” was all you managed to whisper.

Slowly, with deliberate ease, he reached up to the side of his mask. His gloved fingers found the edges, hooked under the jaw. And then he peeled it off.

The mask came away in one smooth motion, revealing a face you knew.

A face you trusted.

Josh.

Josh stared back at you, face flushed, hair damp with sweat, but his eyes weren’t the same. They were wide. Lit. Burning with something manic, something far too close to pleasure.

“Josh?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he began to laugh.

Not a chuckle. Not a smirk. A full, sudden, jarring burst of laughter that came tearing out of his throat like it had been trapped inside for too long. It echoed off the walls of the shed, too loud, too sharp, bouncing around the space like it didn’t belong.

His eyes were wide now. Wild. Glassy with some combination of adrenaline and obsession. He barely blinked as he stared at you, drinking in every flicker of your expression like it was his favorite thing in the world.

You sat frozen on the stool, confused, panting, injured, trembling, exactly how he wanted you.

“Oh my God,” he said between laughs, shaking his head with theatrical disbelief. “Wait, you thought this was real? You seriously thought this was like - some psycho in a mask coming to get you? You? Come on.”

His voice dropped low, mocking, almost sing-song.

“You of all people should know me better.”

You didn’t respond. You couldn’t.

Your mouth opened, but nothing came out. Your brain was scrambling to connect dots that refused to fit together. The blood in your ears was too loud. Your pulse thudded painfully in your temple. Your injured arm throbbed with each breath.

Josh took a step closer, casual now, like this was all some kind of joke between friends. His body relaxed, but his grin didn’t fade. That grin, so wide it looked painful, so forced it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

You blinked rapidly, trying to process what you were seeing.

His clothes were wrong.

Underneath the bulky jacket and mask gear, he wore layered thermal shirts and torn snow pants, mud-stained, blood-streaked. But it was the harness strapped around his torso that caught your eye. Wires. Hooks. A device clipped at his hip. A remote?

A part of you recognized the setup immediately. It was meant for effects. Speakers. Smoke. Movement. All tools to orchestrate fear.

He’d planned this.

All of it.

“Josh,” you finally managed to whisper, your voice hoarse. “What… what the hell is going on?”

He didn’t answer. Just smiled.

Then he leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing, voice low and gleeful.

“I’m just putting on a little show for our friends,” he said. “You wanted to relive the past, right? Well, welcome back to Blackwood.”

You stared at him, still trembling, your entire body screaming to move, to run, to understand. But nothing made sense.

“What are you planning, Josh?” you asked, your voice uneven. “What is this?”

That grin didn’t leave his face. But something behind it shifted. Hardened.

“I’m giving them what they deserve,” he said, stepping back just slightly, pacing in a lazy half-circle like he was warming up for a monologue. “After what they did last year. After what they did to Hannah and Beth, did you really think they were just going to get away with it?”

His voice turned bitter. Tight with anger. “They laughed. They joked. They filmed it. They watched them run out into the cold and none of them stopped them. None of them even cared.”

Your stomach twisted. You could barely breathe.

“I know,” you said quickly. “I know what happened, Josh. But you have to understand, they are sorry for what happened. They all regret it every day. You know I didn’t have anything to do with it. I wasn’t part of it.”

Josh stopped pacing. He looked at you, and, for a second his expression softened. Not sympathy, exactly. Just recognition.

“That’s true,” he said, nodding once. “You weren’t. You never would’ve gone along with that.”

Then his grin returned, sharper now.

“That’s why I was really hoping,” he continued, voice lowering, “that after our little activity earlier, you would’ve just passed out for the night. Slept through the whole thing. Left this to them.”

You stared, horror blooming slowly.

“But I guess that’s not like you,” he added, tilting his head with mock admiration. “Always poking around. Always trying to fix things. The brave one. The smart one. The one who makes it to the end.”

He leaned in again, eyes shining.

“The final girl in my prank.”

You swallowed hard, fighting the tremor in your voice as you pushed through the pain curling in your chest. “Josh, this isn’t fair. None of this. This is torture. You’re putting us through, it’s not justice. You’re scaring them to death. You’re scaring me. This isn’t the way.”

His eyes flickered, something like pain or frustration, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by the same manic fire that had never really left. He took a step closer, the cold light casting sharp shadows across his face.

“You don’t understand,” he said, voice low, raw with something like desperation.

His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I have to do this. I have to make them feel it. All of it. The fear. The pain. The helplessness.”

He laughed bitterly, a sound that cut sharper than any blade. “They have to feel what my sisters felt that night. The night they were broken, left to freeze and scream until everything inside them shattered.”

You shook your head, tears mixing with snowflakes melting on your cheeks. “Josh, this isn’t them anymore. People change. They’re not the same. You’re punishing us. This isn’t justice, it’s revenge twisted into something worse.”

His grin faltered, but only for a moment. “No. You don’t get to decide what this is. I’m giving them what they deserve. ”

You felt the cold tightening around your heart, realizing that no words could reach him, not now. Not when his mind had spiraled so far down that the lines between justice and vengeance, love and hate, had blurred into something dark and terrible.

Your breath hitched. “Josh, please. Please stop.”

Josh’s eyes locked onto yours, and for the first time, the fire in them wavered. Just a flicker, but it was there. A fracture in the madness. Maybe it was your trembling, the way your injured arm cradled uselessly against your side, or maybe it was the tears clinging to your lashes, too thick and heavy to hide anymore.

He faltered.

His posture shifted. The manic tension in his shoulders loosened, and his expression, still split by that horrible grin, sagged at the edges.

And then, just like that, the mask of vengeance cracked.

“Oh, baby…” he murmured, voice softening as he took another step forward. “Fuck, it hurts to see you like this.”

You didn’t respond. You couldn’t. Everything in you was screaming to run, to scream, to fight but your body had folded into itself, too stunned by pain and disbelief.

Josh crouched down in front of you, the shift sudden and intimate. His gloved hand reached out slowly, almost reverently, and he brushed the damp strands of hair from your face. His fingertips were cold, but his touch was gentle, terrifyingly so.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, voice dipped in something sickly sweet. “I didn’t want it to be like this for you. You weren’t supposed to be awake. I just needed to make it real for them.”

You shook your head, a sob crawling up your throat. “I don’t want any part of this.”

“I know, I know.” He nodded quickly, like agreeing made it better. “It’s not forever, okay? Just tonight. It’s just for tonight, and I promise, I promise, no one’s gonna get hurt. Just a scare. That’s all.”

You flinched when he tried to touch your cheek. He paused, hurt flashing through his eyes.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I’d never hurt you. You know that, right? You’re not like the others. You’re the only one who ever saw me.”

The words should’ve comforted you, but they felt like chains tightening around your chest.

He leaned closer, voice barely audible now. “Just trust me. Please. After tonight, it’s over.”

You opened your mouth to speak, to plead with Josh one last time but the words died on your tongue as a voice cut through the cold night like a blade.

“He’s lying, ______.”

Your head snapped toward the sound. Josh’s did too, slower, tighter, like something in him already knew what was coming.

Mike stood at the edge of the clearing, barely upright. His face was a bruised and bloodied mess, one eye nearly swollen shut, blood dried in streaks across his temple and jaw. His clothes were torn, muddied, and soaked in crimson. In his trembling hands, he held a gun, aimed straight at Josh.

“Michael…” Josh breathed, the name dry on his tongue, like dust.

You stumbled to your feet in a daze, confusion knotting in your gut. “Mike, what…?”

Mike didn’t look at you. His eyes were locked on Josh, wild with fury and grief. “Get away from him, _____,” he said, his voice low but shaking. “He killed Jessica.”

The world dropped out from under you.

Silence rang louder than any scream could. Your breath hitched, chest rising too fast, too shallow.

“Wh… What?”

Your voice was barely audible, but it cracked like glass.

Josh didn’t move. His smile was gone now. In its place was something far more disturbing: stillness. A kind of dread that sunk deep into his bones.

“He’s lying,” Josh said, shaking his head slowly, like if he denied it gently enough, it wouldn’t be real. “No, _____, please, he’s twisting this. I didn’t touch Jessica. You know me.”

You took a step back. That one step felt like a mile.

Your eyes flicked down, finally really seeing him. His clothes, soaked through in dried maroon, his gloves, the sticky sheen around the seams. You hadn’t noticed before, or maybe you had and refused to let yourself see it.

“No…” you whispered, but it wasn’t denial anymore.

It was the beginning of understanding.

Josh's voice cracked now, desperate. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill her. He’s setting me up. You can’t believe him over me. Not after everything, not you.”

“Jessica’s gone,” Mike said, stepping forward, the gun trembling in his hand but his aim steady. “He snapped. It wasn’t just a scare, it never was. I watched her get pulled out of the cabin.”

You staggered, bile rising in your throat. “Josh… please tell me it’s not true.”

But he didn’t answer.

His jaw clenched. His shoulders pulled tight. And for the first time, he looked… cornered.

Not wounded. Not misunderstood.

Cornered.

You saw the truth then not in words, but in the silence. In his refusal to deny it again.

Your voice was a whisper. “You said no one would get hurt.”

Josh’s eyes filled with something like sorrow. Or maybe it was regret. It was too late to tell anymore.

You stepped, slow and unsteady, but deliberate, past the cracked earth and stopped behind Mike.

Josh’s eyes followed your every move, widening with disbelief. His face twisted, something sharp and fractured passing through it.

“No…” he said, barely audible. “No, no, no.”

You stood behind Mike, not because you wanted to, not because you fully understood what was happening but because you had to. Because whatever this was, Josh had become something you couldn’t reach. And now someone had to stop him.

Josh’s jaw clenched so tightly you could hear his teeth grind. The sorrow was gone in an instant, swallowed whole by something darker.

His lip curled. “So that’s it?” he spat. “You pick him? After everything we’ve been through, you take his side?”

You didn’t speak. You couldn’t. Your breath trembled in your throat, but you didn’t move away from Mike.

Josh stepped forward, just one pace, but it was enough to make Mike raise the gun higher.

“Oh, of course,” Josh sneered. “It’s Mike, the golden boy. The hero. Always showing up right when a lady needs saving.” His eyes locked on yours.

You flinched.

Josh’s voice pitched upward, fraying at the edges. “You think he cares about you? He didn’t even care about Jessica!”

“Shut up, Josh,” Mike snapped, the gun steady despite the tremor in his jaw. “This isn’t about me.”

“Isn’t it?” Josh roared, taking another step, wildness flashing across his face. “Everything is about you, Mike. You act like some noble protector, but you’re nothing. You’re just a coward hiding behind a gun and a pretty face.”

You swallowed, eyes darting between them. Josh was unraveling.

“You twisted her,” Josh hissed, voice low and venomous now, eyes never leaving yours. “You filled her head with lies. You turned her against me.”

“No one turned me,” you finally said, your voice shaking but firm. “You did that yourself.”

Josh stopped.

He looked like you had slapped him. For a breath, his rage cracked, like the wind knocked out of a storm. And then it all burned away.

His fists clenched, shaking. “You don’t mean that,” he said, voice cracking. “You love me.”

“I don’t know who you are now.” you whispered.

Mike shifted slightly, keeping the gun raised but edging closer to you. His voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible above the wind.

“Go. Get back to the lodge,” he said, eyes never leaving Josh. “The others are there. You’ll be safe with them.”

Your mouth opened in protest, but no sound came. You didn’t want to leave Mike here, not with him. Not after everything. But Mike didn’t give you a choice.

“I’ll keep him here,” he murmured. “I can hold him off until help comes.”

Josh didn’t speak. His breathing had gone ragged, chest rising and falling like he was on the edge of either collapsing or exploding. His eyes flicked between you and Mike, wild and lost.

You hesitated.

Your feet felt like stone, like moving them would take everything you had left. But you forced yourself to turn slowly, still feeling the weight of Josh’s gaze on your back like ice along your spine.

You stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked back one last time.

Josh was staring at you, broken and furious all at once. His mouth was trembling, the muscles in his jaw twitching like he wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words.

It was the look of someone watching their world fall apart.

You wanted to scream at him. To ask why. To tell him that none of this had to happen. But you didn’t. Because no words would change what had already been done.

So you gave him a look. A look filled with everything he had shattered: trust, hope, and something that might have once been love.

And then you turned, and ran.

Behind you, the cold wind swallowed the last of Josh’s voice as he finally shouted after you.

“Don’t leave me!”

The wind howled through the trees like a scream torn from something ancient and dying. You pushed forward along the snow-covered path, heart thundering in your chest as if it were trying to rip its way out. Every shadow flickered with menace. Every gust of air seemed to whisper your name.

You had to get back to the lodge.

You had to warn the others.

Josh had killed Jessica.

The words echoed in your skull, a sick chant that refused to fade.

Your boots crunched over frozen earth, the snow thick and unforgiving beneath your feet. Your breath came in ragged bursts, pale clouds vanishing into the icy night. But it wasn’t the cold that made your hands tremble.

It was something else.

Something watching.

Something hungry.

A noise pierced the night.

Not behind you.

Above.

It was faint, like bones clicking together. Deliberate. Wet. Wrong. You stopped cold. A primal instinct roared through you, warning you to be still, to not look up. But curiosity was a curse stronger than fear.

Your gaze rose slowly.

Perched in the skeletal branches above was a thing born of nightmare. Its gaunt limbs clung to the bark in a grotesque mimicry of a spider, joints twitching with broken rhythm. Its skin was pulled taut across a sunken frame, a death mask of muscle and sinew. Where eyes should’ve been, there were only hollow pits, black, soulless voids that somehow saw you all the same.

It tilted its head.

Its mouth unhinged, peeling open wider than anything human, revealing jagged teeth stacked in rows, each one serrated like shattered glass. Then, it screamed, a shriek that pierced the night and ripped into your skull like barbed wire.

You ran.

Branches tore at your arms as you sprinted through the trees, stumbling, gasping, slipping in the snow. Behind you, the creature leapt from the tree. Its movements were wrong, too fast, too fluid, like time bent around it.

You could feel it gaining.

You didn’t dare look back.

Your foot caught on a root buried beneath the snow. Time slowed.

You pitched forward with a strangled cry, arms flailing, then the ground gave out beneath you.

A hollow groan. A crack like thunder.

The earth opened like a mouth.

You fell.

The world tilted and you were tumbling, flailing through a shaft of crumbling soil and ancient stone. Snow and ice scraped along your arms. Rocks tore at your legs. Then impact.

You hit the bottom with a soundless cry, the air driven from your lungs. Pain exploded through your ribs, sharp and searing. For a long, breathless moment, you just lay there, blinking into the dark.

Then came the silence. It wasn’t peace. It wasn’t still.  You were somewhere beneath the world now.

The hole you fell through was far above, just a jagged mouth letting in the faintest hint of moonlight, dust falling like snow through the beam. Everything else around you was dark stone, old timber, and silence thick as oil.

You tried to stand, your limbs protested, joints trembling. You bit back a scream as you leaned against the icy wall. Your flashlight was gone.

You were in the mines.

The old ones. Abandoned decades ago after the collapse. Everyone said they were haunted.

The darkness swallowed everything. You stood there, ribs aching, heart pounding, unable to tell how deep you’d fallen, only that you were far from the surface and farther still from anything safe. Cold sweat clung to your neck, your breath rising in shaky clouds that quickly disappeared into the black.

You had to move.

Every instinct screamed it. You weren’t alone down here. Even if the Wendigo hadn’t followed you, something in the air felt… wrong. Like the earth remembered pain. Remembered blood. And it remembered you now.

You ran your hand along the wall, slick with condensation, and took one slow step, then another. The ground was uneven, gravel and wet stone crunching beneath your boots. Your hands scraped along crumbling wood supports, fingers brushing the splinters of a beam so old it sagged like tired bones.

You blinked into the dark, willing your eyes to adjust. Shapes teased the edge of your vision, broken mine carts, shattered rails snaking like ribs across the floor. Crates rotted and half-collapsed under the weight of years. The scent of old oil, rust, and wet ash clung to the air like something still burning beneath the skin of the earth.

A glint caught your eye. You stumbled forward, heart leaping with cautious hope.

There half-buried beneath a tarp and a collapsed helmet, was a handheld torch. One of the old mining ones. Your hands trembled as you pried it free, the plastic cracked, the switch stiff with age. You held your breath and flicked it on.

Click.

A flicker. Then a dim orange beam cut through the dark, casting long shadows against the stone. Relief punched through your chest. It barely reached ten feet in front of you, but it was something.

Light.

You turned in a slow circle, the beam catching more remnants of the past. Pickaxes leaning against walls, their handles warped. A dusty boot lying on its side, the other nowhere to be seen. A broken lunchbox, rust flaked off like dead skin.

You kept going.

The tunnel forked, left into a deeper corridor choked with fallen beams, right into a narrow shaft where the air seemed colder still. You chose the right, dragging your fingers along the wall to stay balanced.

Every sound made you freeze. A pebble falling. Water dripping into a hidden pool. Once, the torch flickered and your heart stopped with it.

Then something moved ahead. You froze.

No, it was just a curtain of hanging roots, trailing down from the cracked ceiling like veins. You pushed through, brushing them aside as the tunnel widened.

More signs of death littered the space. Scraps of clothing. Fingernail gouges in the wall. Symbols scratched in the stone. A helmet with a long-dead head still inside.

Panic tightened in your throat.

You had to get out.

This place wasn’t just abandoned. It had been left behind. Sealed away for a reason.

And now you were in it.

And something else might be, too.

You’d stopped keeping track of time. Down here, hours bled together into a slow, gnawing ache of cold and silence. Your legs burned. Your throat was raw from breathing dust and fear. The dim beam of the old torch flickered more often now, the battery fading like your hope.

You had climbed over collapsed rails, crawled through gaps barely big enough for your body, and descended into shafts where the walls whispered in the dark. There was no way to tell if you were deeper or closer to the surface. It all felt the same: cold, tight, endless.

At one point, you sat down, back against a support beam, the old timber groaning above and let the torch rest in your lap. You stared at the wall across from you, blank and close, like a tombstone pressed against your nose.

Maybe this was it. Maybe you’d wander forever, slowly fading away until you were just another lost story these mines refused to give up.

Your fingers trembled. Your stomach had long since stopped growling. You leaned your head back, eyes fluttering shut. Just for a second. Just to breathe.

Then you heard it.

At first you thought it was your mind cracking, like a hallucination surfacing from the dark. But then it came again.

Mumbling.

Soft. Erratic. Human.

You froze, heart snapping to attention. The sound drifted faintly through one of the side tunnels, like someone speaking just out of earshot, voice fractured and low, words tangled in themselves.

You didn’t know whether to scream or cry.

But you rose. You kept the torch low, your steps cautious, almost silent. The air grew thicker, fouler. A rank, sweet stench clung to the stone like something dead had been soaked into it. As you rounded the corner, the sound sharpened. Words now. Rambling. Repeating.

You crept forward and then -

There he was. Josh.

Standing alone in a wide chamber, barely lit by the flicker of a dying flame from an old miner’s lantern. He rocked on his feet, arms wrapped around himself, clothes torn, hair wild and matted. His skin was pale, streaked with dirt and dried blood. His lips moved constantly, whispering to someone who wasn’t there.

“They took her. But they laughed... it wasn’t funny, I told them. I told them not to laugh!” He scratched his arms, as if something crawled beneath the skin.

Your stomach twisted. He wasn’t just lost. He was gone.

“Josh,” you said, stepping into the light.

He didn’t react at first. He kept talking, muttering about the prank, about Hannah, about the Wendigos. Then he turned slowly, eyes glassy and wide.

“Do you see them?” he asked, voice childlike. “They’re still here. They’re everywhere. I can’t sleep, not with the chewing. They’re in my head.”

“Josh… it’s me. Look at me.” You stepped closer, voice gentle but urgent. “It’s over. You're not alone.”

He blinked, face twitching, as though some part of him recognized you but didn’t know how. His lip trembled. “They’re mad at me... They’re all mad at me.”

You reached out and grabbed his shoulders. “Josh. Stop. You need to come back.”

His breathing hitched, the tension in his body wavering like a frayed wire ready to snap. He stared at you, confused. Scared. And then his eyes welled with tears.

“I just wanted it to be funny,” he whispered. “I just wanted them to feel what they felt.”

You nodded slowly, trying not to let your own fear show. “We’ll talk about it. We’ll get help. But not here. Not in this place.”

Josh’s breath hitched as the tears spilled over, tracking through the grime caked on his cheeks. For a moment, he stood trembling. Then something shifted behind his eyes. Clarity. Recognition.

His wild gaze locked onto yours, and it was like watching a storm pass through him, leaving only ruin and something fragile in its wake.

“________?” His voice cracked. “Is it really you?”

Before you could answer, he lunged forward and threw his arms around you, clutching you like a lifeline. He buried his face in your shoulder; his body wracked with sobs.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of it. I didn’t. ”

His voice broke. “I didn’t kill Jessica. It was the creatures. The creatures. But she is still alive! I swear, I tried to stop them, but, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do anything—”

You tightened your grip around him, grounding him. “I believe you, Josh. I believe you.”

He choked out a breath, clinging to your jacket like a child. You let him cry. Let the years of guilt and horror pour out of him into the quiet.

“I didn’t want anyone to die,” he murmured into your chest. “It was supposed to be a joke. A dumb joke. I just wanted them to feel what my sisters felt. But it all went so wrong.”

You pulled back slightly, lifting his face. “You’re not alone anymore. But we have to get out of here, Josh. This place, it’s not going to let us go easy. You have to tell me. How did you get into the mines?”

He blinked, sniffled, then nodded, wiping at his face with a dirt-smeared sleeve. “There’s a passage. It’s not far. It leads out past the western cliff. I can show you.”

He turned and pointed to a narrow cave mouth behind one of the rusted mine carts you hadn’t thought to check before, half-buried by rubble, almost invisible in the dark.

You swallowed your nerves and wrapped your arm around his. He flinched at the contact but didn’t pull away. Slowly, the two of you began walking toward the hidden tunnel, your footsteps echoing off the stone walls, the weight of the mine pressing in behind you like a final warning.

The torch sputtered but held on.

One way or another, you were getting out of this place.

You moved through the narrow tunnel, Josh’s arm barely resting on your shoulder. The air was stale but less suffocating than the open mine chambers behind you. For a while, the only sound was your own breathing and the scraping of boots on stone.

Josh broke the silence, his voice low and rough. “I don’t even know how I got this far gone. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I could fix everything. But it just... fell apart.”

You glanced at him. The exhaustion in his eyes was something you’d never seen before. “You didn’t lose yourself, Josh. You were caught in something you couldn’t control. You fought, even if it didn’t feel like it.”

He gave a humorless laugh that barely hid the pain. “Fought? Felt more like drowning. I was supposed to keep everyone safe. And I failed you. I couldn’t keep you safe.”

“No one could have stopped this,” you said, voice steady. “Not alone.”

He looked down, voice barely audible. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

You squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. We’re not done yet.”

You kept walking, the faint light from the tunnel’s exit growing stronger.

“What happens when we get out?” you asked quietly.

Josh hesitated. “I don’t know. I just want to stop feeling like this. To get some kind of normal back.”

You nodded. “We’ll get there. First, we get out.”

The faint glow at the end of the tunnel grew steadily brighter, each step forward carrying the promise of fresh air and escape. The stale, suffocating atmosphere of the mines seemed to thin with every meter, and for the first time in hours, you dared to imagine the end was near. Your lungs burned with the effort, but hope flared in your chest like a fragile flame.

Then, shattering the fragile silence, a scream ripped through the darkness ahead. It was a gut-wrenching, agonized howl that clawed its way into your bones and refused to let go. The sound was raw, unearthly, filled with pain and primal hunger, echoing off the jagged stone walls with an eerie resonance that made your skin crawl.

Your breath caught, heart hammering so loudly you feared it would give you away. You froze in place, every muscle taut with dread. Josh’s face was pale and drawn in the flickering light of the torch. His eyes widened, reflecting the same terror clawing at your throat.

Out of the blackness stepped a monstrous shape, tall and impossibly thin, its limbs twisted at grotesque angles, scraping the tunnel walls as it moved with an unnatural, jerking grace. The Wendigo.

Its skin hung tight over its bones, a patchwork of grey, stretched like old leather. Its empty eye sockets burned with cold, malevolent intelligence, and the faint glow of the torchlight caught on its razor-sharp claws as they scraped against the rock floor, producing a sound like nails dragged over a coffin lid. The thing blocked the only exit.

Your breath hitched. Terror gripped you like icy fingers squeezing your heart.

You pressed a finger to your lips, voice barely more than a trembling whisper, “Josh… be quiet. Maybe if we move slowly, we can slip past it without it noticing.”

Josh’s gaze was fixed on the creature, and something fierce flickered behind his eyes, a desperate resolve that didn’t belong to the broken man you’d found in the depths of the mines. He shook his head slowly, his voice low and strained, “No. There’s no way we can both get past it.”

His eyes locked on yours, an unspoken understanding passing between you in that heavy, silent moment. You could see what he meant, he wasn’t just admitting defeat, he was telling you he would do whatever it took to protect you, even if it meant sacrificing himself.

His shoulders tightened as if bracing for something unbearable. “I can’t do this. Not if it means you’ll get hurt.”

Your heart pounded violently in your chest, a mix of fear and fierce determination flooding through you. You shook your head vehemently, your voice raw but steady, “No, Josh. We both get past this.”

You grabbed his arm tightly, burning eyes searching his face. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

The Wendigo snarled, a chilling sound like dry bones scraping together. It took a step forward, closing the gap, its presence suffocating and filled with ancient, insatiable hunger. The cold, dead weight of its stare pressed down on you, a living nightmare poised to strike.

But you stood firm, your pulse raging in your ears, the flickering torchlight casting monstrous shadows on the walls around you.

Josh’s hand suddenly shot out and gripped your wrist, yanking the torch from your grasp. The flame wavered, casting wild shadows that danced violently along the rough walls. His eyes, so fierce moments before, softened, filled now with a tenderness that cut through the terror like a knife.

“Stop,” you whispered, voice trembling but steady. “Don’t do this. Not like this.”

You stared back, breath shallow, heart pounding louder than ever. The weight of the Wendigo’s presence was still heavy behind you, but in this fragile moment, it all felt distant, like a fading nightmare you were both desperately clinging to.

Josh stepped closer, his hands trembling as he held the dying torch between you, the flame flickering dangerously low. His gaze locked onto yours, the softest, most vulnerable look you’d seen from him all night, like he was finally laying down the last pieces of himself.

“I had the pleasure of telling you how I felt about you all these years,” he said, voice breaking with a fragile honesty. “Just for that…, I’m the happiest man on earth.”

For a heartbeat, everything around you stopped, the darkness, the fear, the endless mines. There was only him, and you, suspended in a moment that felt impossibly real and impossibly fragile.

Then, slow and deliberate, Josh leaned in, brushing his lips against yours with a gentleness that startled you. The kiss was soft, almost hesitant, like the first tentative step after a lifetime of silence.

It was delicate, fragile, but full of something fierce and true hope, maybe, or love caught in the ruins of everything else.

“Now go,” Josh whispered, his voice barely audible, but filled with a quiet urgency. Without waiting for a response, he stepped forward into the dim tunnel, the dying torch held out in front of him like a fragile shield. This left you away in the dark, away from the deathly eyes of the wendigo.

You barely had time to react before Josh began sweeping the torch wildly through the air, the flickering light carving frantic shapes against the cold stone. The Wendigo’s head snapped toward the sudden movement, its empty eye sockets burning with cruel awareness. A low, guttural growl rumbled from deep within its throat as it started to shift forward, drawn by the wavering flame and the presence of Josh.

You didn’t even notice your feet moving, pulled by some primal instinct, inching silently toward the exit. Every step was heavy with fear and disbelief, your hands trembling as you fought to hold back the sobs rising in your throat. The cold air brushing against your skin was a cruel reminder that the outside world was still real, that you might still survive this nightmare.

Your eyes never left Josh, who now stood alone between you and the monstrous creature. Gone was the wild, broken figure from earlier. In his place stood the boyish man you had fallen for, flawed, fragile, but fiercely brave.

As you reached the rusted gate marking the mine’s mouth, you forced yourself to pause, turning your head for one last look back. The torchlight illuminated Josh’s face, worn but resolute, a faint, sad smile curling his lips. His eyes locked onto yours, and though he didn’t speak, you saw him mouth the words:

“I love you.”

A quiet sob slipped free from your lips as the weight of everything crashed down. Then, steeling yourself, you turned back toward the exit, pushing open the gate and stepping into the cold night air.

Behind you, the darkness swallowed Josh and the Wendigo, leaving you alone. Alive, but forever marked by what you had left behind.

It had been a month since the night that shattered everything and somehow stitched it all back together again.

You sat on the edge of the park bench, a cup of lukewarm coffee cradled in your hands, the distant noise of traffic and laughter drifting in from the nearby streets. The world kept moving, as if it didn’t know what had happened on that mountain, what you had seen, what you had lost. And maybe it didn’t. Maybe it couldn’t. But you did. Every single second of it was etched into you like scars beneath the skin, invisible but permanent.

Your friends, Mike, Jessica, Sam, Ashley, Chris, Emily, Matt, they were all alive. Shaken, bruised, changed, but alive. That alone felt like a miracle. After everything, it could’ve gone so much worse. It should have.

In the weeks that followed, the group had become something closer than you’d ever expected. Weekly dinners, game nights, long texts sent at 3AM when sleep wouldn’t come. No one said it out loud, but you could all feel it: that need to hold on tight, to not drift apart again. That night had done more than just haunt you, it had tethered you all together with something stronger than fear. Something like survival. Something like love.

But even with the laughter, even in the light of day, Josh lingered in the back of your mind.

His name was never far from your lips in the aftermath. You’d told the police everything, about the mines, about what he’d done, and what he’d tried to undo. About the Wendigo. You left out no detail, hoping someone would understand, someone would look. And they did. At first. But when the terrain turned too dangerous, too unmapped, too strange, the search began to slow. Then stop. And in the end, the only answer they gave was a silent nod and a promise to "keep the file open."

You knew what that meant. You weren’t going to get him back.

Still, part of you couldn’t accept that. You dreamed about the way he looked at you in those final moments, like he’d finally found peace, even in the face of something monstrous. Sometimes you woke up certain he was still out there, alive somehow, hiding in the shadows. Other nights, the dreams were colder. The mine, the scream, the torch’s final flicker. You always woke up before the end.

You took a shaky breath and looked down into your coffee, watching the ripples settle. If there was one good thing to come out of that horror, it was this, these people. Your people. You had nearly lost them, and now you knew better than ever how fragile everything was.

You stood slowly, coffee in hand, the air sharp against your cheeks. The park was nearly empty now, and the soft crunch of leaves beneath your boots felt grounding. Familiar. With each step away from the bench, it was like you could finally breathe again, like you were learning how.

Then, a roar of tires shattered the calm.

A black sedan tore around the corner, engine screaming, the frame rocking slightly as it jerked to a stop just a few feet ahead of you. Your breath caught, heart already leaping into your throat. Instinctively, you took a step back, the coffee sloshing over the rim of the paper cup.

The engine cut off, and the driver’s door burst open.

“Sam?” you called out, confused.

She rounded the front of the car, sprinting toward you. Her face was bloodless, eyes wide with something that looked almost like panic. Or disbelief. She didn’t say anything at first, just stood there in front of you, chest heaving, trying to catch her breath.

You opened your mouth to ask what was wrong, but before you could speak, she reached out, clutching your arm.

“It’s Josh,” she said, voice hoarse and shaking. “They found him.”

Every now and then the rooms would switch up – more often you'd get placed in a communal room, shaped like a large hallway and filled with six or so patients in their beds. It freed up space for emergency patients and nonpermanent ones, but that didn't stop your bedmates from complaining. Most of them were old, and those who had good care were privileged, and did not understand nuances of the modern world. A good deal of them weren't even aware they were in the modern world, and though it was sad to most others you found it interesting. They were practical gateways to different times, time travelling without ever leaving the hospital, learning new things without ever attending school.

Recently you were moved to a room fitted for two people, though for the most of that time it was only you in there. It was almost nice – the quiet, the privacy, and an indicator that the hospital wasn't overloaded. All things end though, and all things change, and one evening you awoke to find Elliot in the bed across from you. He was passed out, the curtain around him drawn only to hide him from the glass wall leading to the corridors. You could fully see him – the cuts on his head indicative of a concussion, the bruised eye most likely a result of a fight, the rough breathing caused by bruising and breaking of the ribs.

It took several days before he woke up from his coma, constantly under the surveillance of nurses who flitted in and out of the room. They ignored you for the most part, knowing you were a steady patient, and that you could handle yourself in this environment.

Your condition, while it couldn't kill you, was extremely unpleasant and often barred you from leaving your bed most days. Now you had little reason to otherwise – Elliot was... interesting. Just to watch. The way he stared up at the television, his fingers tapping against his leg and how the clamp around his forefinger made a heavier sound than the rest. A chronic fidgeter – a bit like yourself in that aspect, but the way he spoke was what really got you going. Rough and low, an almost monotone voice that lilted only in the most dire times. Still you kept your distance, reminding yourself that people like him did not like people like you. Restrained and disabled. Stupid and weak.

It had to be sometime in the middle of night. There were no clocks in your new room, but it was pitch black outside, the only light being the streetlights and cars busying themselves far below your floor. To your left, the hospital halls remained nearly empty. Most nurses and doctors had gone home, replaced by those in constant night shift, a job you did not envy. While you were nocturnal for your own health, working during the night seemed like an awful fate.

No matter – you pushed the blankets off your legs, hoisting yourself to sit up and soon stand tall on your feet. You hardly noticed Elliot still in the corner, at least not until the world began to black out, a cold tingling swarming over your head as you lost vision and feeling in your legs and arms. Only when you didn't hit the ground did you notice him. You felt the arms around you, the touch of warm skin against your freezing forearms, and his panicked breathing against your exposed neck.

"Thank you," you said rather dumbly, empty of any other reply. Wordlessly he helped you into your wheelchair, only returning to his bed when he trusted you were fully situated.

"Be careful," he mumbled.

Those were the first words he said to you, and though you didn't know it at the time, they were only the beginning of the many words and emotions he would communicate with you.

When you returned that same evening after your trip to the break room and bathroom, he was still awake, watching as you opened and closed the door behind you, waiting till you hauled yourself back into bed before he spoke.

"I've seen you here a lot," he said in that low voice that had your heart picking up. Thankfully, you were not connected to a heart monitor.

"That's probably because I live here," you said, chuckling softly, halted only by the expression he gave you. Unreadable but shocked – maybe mortified that he'd asked that question. Many people were. To them, you were glass.

Instead of apologizing, he asked, "why?"

"Neural condition. First of my kind," you said with almost a hint of pride – the first to have your type of disease. No cure, no shared misery, nothing. "Makes me have pain all the time and shuts off some of the networks in my brain. Body too, sometimes. 'S why I faint a lot when I stand."

He thought for a moment. At least that's what he looked like he was doing, staring at the blue blanket over his legs as a silence came between you.

"That must be difficult."

"Sometimes. I don't mind it so much though," you said, only a half lie. "It's all I've ever known. What are you here for anyway?"

He didn't answer. Instead he shifted onto his side, closed his eyes, and went to sleep. A sigh left you – of course he wouldn't tell you. He didn't even tell the doctors, so in his absence you pulled one of the books from your side table, turned on your reading light, and immersed yourself in a story for the remainder of the night.

In the daytime he continues to fidget, playing with his nails or his lips, running his hands through his hair – you love when he does that. You know you shouldn't love anything about him, considering he still hasn't shown any taste for you, but you find yourself admiring it despite that. Beautiful things can exist without reciprocation, and to be fair you aren't beautiful in most people's eyes. You’re broken, but you don't think on it much, and you don't imagine what you could've been. He's a wonderful distraction from that.

One evening he tells you – out of the blue he looks to the side of your head (the closest he's ever come to actual eye contact) and he just tells you. You hardly believe it, believe him, but he speaks as though he's sincere. Besides, you're not here to doubt him. You're here to listen.

"That's rough buddy," you said quietly when he finished. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"Who fuckin' knows," he grumbled, shifting his position to look out the window, where the edge of dusk faded over the horizon.

He gets better, eventually. And eventually he leaves the hospital – you tell him as he leaves, pulling on his clothes behind the curtain, that you enjoyed his company. That every horrible thing will have a place in his life, but that it's important to have a place for good things too. He doesn't really say anything. He mumbles something you can't hear, something you aren't fully meant to hear, and then he leaves.

Without a word.

He visits the hospital a couple more times, each time with the same injuries as before, and usually the same cause, but the only person he divulges the causes to is you. Quietly, so the doctors won't hear. Sometimes he sits at your bedside, even when you don't share a room, and he tells you about everything going on, everything in his life, every horrible thing he's stopped, every person he's inadvertently killed, every regret he's had, and he's had a lot of them. He's so broken, so tired of what he does – it's evident in the way he almost touches you. Softness fills his eyes when you smile, and the thought of it has tears brimming in your eyes.

You did that.

You made him happy.

It's worth it for that. He deserves happiness, has a better chance with it than you do – you have no say in your life other than the ability to roll yourself into an elevator and fling yourself off the roof of the building. But he has friends, albeit few of them, and he has work. Hobbies, too. When he talks about his hobbies (which you'd refer more to as hyper-fixations) you can almost see him smile. He gets more animated, he talks and talks and talks for ages and you listen. You listen well, even though you can't understand, and you ask questions in hopes of clarifying despite the fact you know you'll never understand. Again, you're not smart like he is. Not after all your medication.

Eventually his trips to the hospital begin to change in their meaning. He comes for check ups every now and then, and each time he visits you. He brings food from the world outside, new books, trinkets, things that might remind him of you, and each time he plays it down like it's nothing. But you have nothing left, no parents or friends, so the 'nothing' he gives you amounts to everything in your head.

Eventually his trips to the hospital become meaningless. He doesn't even check in – he just makes a beeline for your room, sometimes asking the front desk where you are if the rooms change, but for the most part he ignores everyone else in the hospital but you. It shatters and rebuilds your heart. This man who has lost so very much, gone through so many terrible things finds solace in you. He visits the hospital just for you.

No one does that.

You're a hard friend to have. You can't go out, you can barely walk, every now and then a shot of pain will interrupt a conversation to the point where you're writhing on the floor, pounding your fists against your head or anywhere where it might hurt as the nurses rush in and put you under anesthesia. You're embarrassing, and your whole life feels like a detriment to those around you.

Elliot holds your hand, and he hums. Quietly, and a tune you can't identify, but it stirs you out of one of those breakdowns, your dizzy vision focusing to see his silhouette against the city skyscrapers, the plush of his lips in the fluorescent lights, the scarce comfort in his eyes that appears only around you. To him you are safe, and to him you are his. To you, he is love, and to you, you are his.

Uncommon people band together, protect each other from the world meaning to do them harm, and there is no greater example of this than when he hides himself in you, and you let yourself live in him. A strange connection indeed, and not one anyone else would understand. You hardly understand it yourself, but when he smiles for the first time, a wide smile, followed with a laugh that comes from his chest as his eyes shut and he falls back in his chair – you hardly feel your pain. It's just him.

Your home had always been a sanctuary for you, the air cold and crisp on your lungs. The sounds of your clan talking, cooking, and preparing medicine were your favorite, a familiar chaos that told you exactly where you belonged in the world, even when your thoughts were jumbled.

But now, it seemed your focus had frayed. For three suns, you had lingered near Teylan, not quite gaining the courage to talk to him, but watching him kept you entertained enough. Today, the grinding of your pestle felt like a chore to keep you busy. Your eyes drifted back to where the Sarentu boy was standing more than was necessary. It wasn't that you viewed Teylan as a threat; in fact, he was often the quietest and kindest soul in the clan since his arrival. It was that very nature that drew you to him.

From your seat, your eyes settled on him yet again. You watched through the gaps of hanging herbs as his face scrunched in deep concentration, slouched over a small, disassembled piece of Sky People metal that you found confusing and vaguely off-putting. Each of his movements was precise. Incredibly careful. You weren't sure when it started, but you began tracing the lines of his stripes, counting the bioluminescent dots that littered his face in a way you found mesmerizing.

SCRAPE. SCRAPE.

The repetitive sound of the other herbalists diligently at work was a sudden reminder of the duty you were neglecting. You looked down at the bowl in your lap; the stone pestle was still clutched in your hand, despite you sitting idle for minutes. But then, Teylan let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair. Everything else, the herbs and the other Na'vi chattering around you became background noise yet again. You found yourself wondering how that tiny box could be giving someone so much trouble.

"If you stare any harder, I think you may set the Sarentu’s hair on fire."

The voice was quiet but held obvious humor. It was startling enough that you dropped your pestle, which clattered into your bowl with a dull thud. You turned to meet the dancing eyes of Nira, her own hands pausing their work to tease you. Your ears pinned back instantly, and a heat more intense than the communal fire flooded your cheeks.

"I—I am not staring," you stammered, embarrassed to be caught. You reached to pick up the fallen pestle. Seeing the way Nira leaned back on her heels with a knowing look, you finally admitted, "I was... curious about that strange little box he is holding."

Your friend let out a short laugh, her head tilting. "Really? Because from where I am sitting, it looks like you are trying to count every single stripe."

You looked down at your bowl. "He seems frustrated and tired," you countered, trying to find a more healer-like reason for your wandering eyes. "He has been hunched over that... thing... for ages." You tried to maintain an air of nonchalance, though your tail gave you away with a nervous twitch.

"Maybe you should do something about it," Nira suggested, her elbow nudging your side as her teasing melted into something more encouraging. "The Sarentu are our guests."

Nira continued her work, leaving you to sit there for a long moment considering her words. That gnawing curiosity finally provided the push you needed. Food. Food was the perfect way to approach him.

You excused yourself, and Nira only smiled, motioning for you to go. You weren't the most skilled cook, but you knew enough to get by. You prepared something simple but filling; hopefully a comfort for this boy you had yet to learn. You used the time by the cooking fire to steady your nerves, breathing in the warm scent of spices to calm you.

Teylan didn't look up as you approached. He was hunched so low over that small metal box that his hair draped over his face like a curtain. The box itself was a mess of tiny grey plates and wires that you likened to vines, though you truly had no idea what you were looking at. You stopped just shy of his little "bubble." The strange device looked even more odd up close. This Sky People metal felt like an affront to your beloved Great Mother, a poison to all Na'vi.

Pushing these thoughts aside, you spoke. "The elders say a hunter who forgets to eat will eventually become the prey."

Teylan jumped, his hands jerking from his radio in surprise. He scrambled to catch a little silver screw that skittered across the stone floor, nearly upending the rest of his radio in the process. When his head snapped up to look at you, he looked completely lost for a heartbeat, confused by the sudden interruption.

"I didn't hear you," he breathed, his chest heaving slightly. "I was so caught up on fixing my radio."

"Maybe food will help you figure... this... out," you said, crouching down to his level. You glanced at the strange contraption with a weary expression as you set the bowl in front of him. "Tsu'lo says the spirit needs fuel, even if the mind is busy."

Teylan looked at the food as if he had forgotten such a thing existed. He reached out, hesitant for a moment before accepting it. "Thank you," he muttered, that endearing shyness returning. "I guess I did lose track of time."

You watched him take a bite and finally decided to voice the questions floating in your head. "This box I have been watching you struggle with for hours now. What is wrong with it? Is it sick?"

Teylan paused, a bite halfway to his mouth. He looked between the radio and you before a genuine laugh escaped him, a sound that was surprisingly light. "Sick? No. It is a radio. It is a tool the RDA and Resistance use for communication purposes. It is how I talk to Tamtey when she is out there fighting." He poked at the thing with a sigh. "But it is not working right now. I am pretty sure it has something to do with the mountains messing with the frequencies. My signal with Tamtey keeps dropping, or breaking up."

The radio sat between you, and if you were being honest, you had no idea what he was talking about. Signals and frequencies made no sense to you, but as Teylan took another slow bite of the food, the air between you seemed to soften. You watched him chew, noticing how he kept his eyes downcast and his shoulders pulled in tight.

"You are so quiet," you observed, your head tilting to the side. "I say a quiet person is either a wonderful scout or a very worried soul."

A rush of dark purple heat ran up Teylan's neck. "I am used to eating in silence. It is something all of us are used to... I think. The rest of the TAP kids, that is."

"TAP?" you repeated. The word held no meaning for you. Living in the spires, you had been sheltered by the elders from the Sky People and their relentless push to consume Pandora. "I thought you were Sarentu? What is this TAP? A clan?"

Teylan only shook his head. "It is a school. Or it was. It was supposed to create good relationships between Na'vi and humans. To share technology, medicine, and knowledge." It was a phrase he had recited since childhood. His ears went back, and he set the now empty bowl down. "At least, that is what Alma and Mercer always taught us."

A pang of sadness and something almost protective stirred in your chest. You leaned in a fraction closer, the scent of the salve you had been working on drifting into the space between you. This "school" sounded like a nightmare. A confusing, unbearable cage.

"To share medicine? The Great Mother has given us all we need. To share knowledge? We have the stories and teachings of our ancestors." You realized your voice had sharpened, so you pulled back a bit, your tail giving a sympathetic flick. "I am sorry. The Sky People... They are always taking. Turning life into something it does not need to be."

Teylan's ears pressed even flatter. The mention of "taking" struck a chord he wasn't ready to face. He looked down at the radio, his fingers tracing the edge of the metal casing. To him, it was a connection to all he’d ever really known. He went to speak, but the radio suddenly sputtered. A voice cracked through the static, breaking up.

"Tey—I think—RDA—LAN?"

"That was Tamtey," he frowned, moving closer to the device again. His voice carried that familiar frustration as he tried to click the parts back into place. "She is out there in the wind and the rain fighting, and here I am unable to even fix this radio so we can communicate."

You leaned back instinctively, the disembodied voice making your skin crawl. But seeing the distress on Teylan's face, your weariness warred with the growing curiosity inside you. "Tamtey... they are lost out there?"

Teylan said nothing at first, completely focused as he twisted a few components.

"—Teylan! The mountains... too much interference... I am going to try the—"

With a final pop, the radio went dead.

"The signal..." he muttered, more to himself than to you. His ears twitched and he scrambled to his feet, nearly flipping the empty bowl. "I have to go," he said, his voice tight. "If I can get to higher ground—much higher ground—I might be able to catch a strong enough signal to get through to her."

He looked toward the exit of the cave with a look of pure trepidation. The confidence he had while explaining his "technology" evaporated the moment he faced the physical reality of a climb.

"I know a spot," you suggested softly, standing up to join him. "It is high enough, but it is quite the climb."

He looked at you, his tail giving a nervous, low twitch. Finally, he gave a slow, shaky nod, his amber eyes meeting yours with a fragile sort of trust.

"Okay," he whispered, clutching the radio tightly. "I guess all I can do is hope I do not die."