Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A deafening silence is broken by a single cry, a harsh, guttural screech cutting through sterile, winter air. The sun’s just rising, pale, snowy sky peeking above bundles of white trees and loops of bark and pine. A dense forest surrounds the girl, her dress tattered and stained with greying dirt, her feet bare and bloody against the snowfall on the ground beneath her. She takes a sharp inhale of breath, throat dry, but her breath cold, and hands frozen solid. 

She’s filthy, covered head to toe in blood, possibly her own, possibly not; her legs are stretched out behind her as she runs helplessly, scrambling for cover beneath the forest and bleak, watercolor sky; her feet are smeared with blood and an open cut along her exposed heel; and her matted hair covers a suntanned face, now drained from color and only lightly speckled in the dusty, white morning glow of winter. 

Yet, she prevails. The frostbite around her splintered heels does nothing, and she continues staggering onwards with the grace of a wounded fawn, screeching for help, sick in her own mind, and dizzy with something she cannot control. The wind howls, along with the horrid screeching growing closer in the distance. It mimics chanting, like some ritualistic surrounding you’d never meant to stumble upon. The girl pauses hesitantly, just to listen, twisting her neck back and forth, staring at the endless snow before her as the cries only grow stronger. 

She crumbles upon herself, spitting and coughing up blood, her hands wrapped around a clothed stomach, her dress fluttering gently in icy wind. The frightened girl picks up again, dashing through snow, her footprints patterned crookedly behind her in the breeze; and just as she cranes her head over her shoulder, the cries abnormally loud and splintering, she falls, and screams.

The forest falls silent. The very snow had taken away so much before, claiming another life, with broken bones and puncture wounds decorated all over her slim body; blood pooling at her sides and staining her thin white nightgown; and dark hair breaking off in clumps upon the spears of sharpened sticks impaled through her skin and bone. 

A shadowed figure looms over the hole, watching curiously, with a masked face and layer upon layer of tattered, worn in clothing. They hesitantly back away, their footprints following the girl’s in the snow, tracing back in circles to the place they’d learned to call home.

It’s eerily silent. The masked figure returns, this time with another shadow at their side, kneeling over the side of the hole and staring with the hardest of covered eyes, darkened by the morning mist of sometime in winter that nobody else had deciphered yet. The two figures exchange a glance, then back away, never to be seen again in proximity of the hole that took yet another life. 

The next time they’re seen at camp, dinner is being served, with ash caked hands and flurries of snow falling like birds from the sky, they all gather around a weak campfire. The trees serve as a clear backdrop, only surrounded by bark and pine and white, all around, coloring the endless forest plains in something other than the bleak autumn greens and burnt oranges they’d all been so accustomed to. 

There’s a mysterious, somewhat haunting antlered figure sitting curiously over the slab of meat before them, watching through fish-netted vision, streaks of pink, morning light just barely visible overhead. They say nothing, but the fur-clothed butcher nods, and the antlered figure reaches out for the first bite. 

It seems more like a gift than anything else. Just barely raising the holey cloth over their shadowed face, blank from the darkness and mouth wide open, they eat, messily, with blood smeared over teeth and lip and cold skin. They all repeat, over and over, tearing viciously, eyes closed in pleasure, hands ripping and tearing and tongue and mouth tasting. They each swallow, then reach for more, digging through the flesh and meat like a barbecue, dirty teeth each covered in blood and pieces of broken meat, lips savoring the taste, and the hunger fading from each desperate stomach. 

The feast goes on like this, just as the sun peeks carefully over the white pine trees swallowing them each whole. Nobody says a word, but the teenaged Max Caulfield pulls back her fur hood, just to watch, even with cold, freckled skin as cold as ice in the wintery morning, and her barely gloved hands as stiff as boards against the guilt of it all. The figure beside her gives Max another odd look, but she ignores it. 

The winter wind brushes through matted hair, worn down and weathered by time, each face colder and slightly older than however they last saw the world; tongues are different, in every way, and people have grown. But as Max hesitantly watches the antlered figure, an overseer of sorts, with a grease-smeared face and red, frostbitten fingers peeking through the cloth around their bloody hands, she keeps silent. And the wind carries on. 

————————————————————

May 15, 2014

An auditorium buzzes with people, ages ranging, dressed neatly with hands folded in laps and such. A line of Blackwell students stand across the stage, now nicely decorated with polite streamers and decor and folded chairs behind them. Principal Wells goes on some prolonged speech about how proud he is of the students he’d raised up from the ground, and how Blackwell Academy signifies a new beginning of something great. 

Pieces of photography are all strung behind them on a screen placed at center stage. Nobody is really looking other than Max Caulfield, artsy and shy, with ruffled hair kept down from her eyes and a bouncing leg as Wells continues on. And nobody listens, either, with Chloe Price hunched over herself and mocking and mouthing off Wells without anybody other than Max and Rachel Amber noticing.

“...So, one more round of applause for Blackwell Academy’s Advanced Photography students,” Wells cheers, and the crowd copies him. There’s clapping, some vague cheering, and a few names called out, but nothing sticks. He goes on, still, even with the agitated group on stage pacing endlessly, “We are so incredibly proud of all of the hard work you’ve all accomplished. And, as you know, every year Blackwell hosts a competition for our photography program. And with that, each student is rewarded with a trip to our very own Seattle, with their art put on display.”

The crowd seems to care, at least. Warren Graham can’t stop smiling, apparently, and Stella Hill beside him has her hands knitted before her to keep herself from trembling like a leaf in the wind. Wells keeps talking, despite half of the stage already tuning him out, rambling about accomplishments and the struggles that come with growing up, and so on. The speech finally stops, and with the crowd cheering like it's an inauguration and bleak, harsh stage lights heavy in everybody’s eyes, they each hurry off stage without bursting out into laughter. 

Victoria Chase is giddy. She says something to her posse about being in Seattle with Mark Jefferson, and Taylor Christensen gives her a wave as they all hurry backstage. The auditorium clears out, streamers and colors still hanging loosely from the ceiling as everything gives out before them. Max and Chloe stand by a full-length mirror in the wings, watching their neat reflections with a sort of disdain (being forced to dress up and all, they admit) and watch as the lonely Nathan Prescott shuffles off stage with clenched fists. 

He isn’t angry, but judging by his white knuckles and hard face, he’s only frustrated. It tends to happen, and everybody watches him storm off into the empty hallway through the stage’s back doors. Victoria goes to follow, but Rachel Amber shoots her a look and chases Nathan out. 

Nobody says anything. It’s oddly silent, and Chloe crosses her arms and leans against the back wall with a grudge. Max rubs her neck, and Warren bites his cheeks awkwardly. Kate Marsh picks at her painted fingernails, the color wearing off with teeth marks along her skin, but she pays no attention. On the outside, Nathan anxiously paces back and forth as Rachel glides over to him, watching with judgy eyes, though she doesn’t mean to. 

“Nate, come on,” she says quietly, as to not disturb Principal Wells across the hallway with Jefferson behind a door. She glimpses between the two shadows on the wall, then back to Nathan as his face grows redder. “It’ll be fine… it’s just one photo, anyways. And you get to pick.”

He sulks. She places her hands kindly on his shoulders as to comfort him, but he doesn’t seem any less disturbed. 

“I… I don’t know, Rach,” he mumbles under his breath. Tears go to sting his eyes, but Rachel pats his back, and it disappears. But the sinking in his stomach doesn’t quite fade. “I don’t know if I can do it. They’re not even that good, and everybody just thinks I’m a fucking freak.”

“Hey, listen to me, Nate.” Rachel’s hands grow slightly sturdier, with tense eyes and her nails firm on Nathan’s sweater. “You’re an amazing photographer. And you’re incredibly talented, I mean… even I get jealous, okay? Don’t push yourself. It’s a great opportunity, you know.”

“I know,” he says meekly, avoiding Rachel’s eyes on his brighter ones. “I know it is. But I just…”

He chokes. Rachel brushes his curls from his eyes with a smooth palm, her skin warm like the sun, her eyes sparkling like the ocean against sunlight and everything else in between. Without a cloud in sight, she’s perfect, with a glowing halo of energy radiating from her very presence, and sometimes Nathan wonders how he got lucky enough to have a best friend like Rachel Amber. 

“Nate, c’mon…” She says with a small frown. He starts to cry, and she hugs him by his shoulders, her clothes like hugging cotton, her hair like silk over his shoulders. Nathan sniffles, and she continues, “Don’t be so hard on yourself, kid. Please, Nate, it’s really sad. Your sadness makes me sad. Do you wanna see me sad? Do you wanna see my frown?”

When she pulls back, she forces a large, tight frown, still, somehow, looking so beautiful and radiant. Nathan wipes his eyes with the edge of his wrist, only slightly laughing, and she dramatizes it to get a stronger reaction out of him. Finally, Nathan’s smiling, and she returns the gesture with another quick hug around his back. 

“I mean it. You’re really talented, okay?”

“...If you say so.”

“Nathan, I really do mean it,” Rachel continues with another gentle, concerned smile. “I love your stuff. And Mr. Jefferson does, too, so don’t be a sad sack like you always are.”

She gives a light punch to his arm. He rubs it with a shy grunt. “I’m… not a sad sack.

“Uh, yes you are,” Rachel says. “It rubs off on me. Maybe I should stop hanging out with these photo-geek losers and go chill with the babes in the real world.”

“What? Don’t say that,” he replies, and she laughs. “...I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“That’s the spirit,” Rachel says with a wink. “You know, you should really smile every once in a while. It’s a good habit to have, y’know, being happy. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that before.”

“No, I haven’t,” he replies sarcastically. “God, Rachel, do you take me for a retard?”

“Sometimes I do, yeah.

“That’s really… God, fuck you.”

She giggles. “Come on. Let’s go back in.”

Nathan rolls his eyes with a reluctant groan. “Like anyone gave a flying fuck. It’s almost like… fuck, like… if some tweaker fucker pulled out a glock on stage, probably, like…”

“What’re you talking about?” Rachel cocks her head to the side.

Nathan rubs the red from his eyes. “Forget it. Let’s just go. It was nothing, anyway.”

“No, no, go on.” She raises her eyebrows. “It sounded interesting.”

“I don’t know, I was just gonna say… if I were to die, I mean… I don’t mean to sound like a twat, but…”

Rachel presses a hand to his shoulder and gives him a gentle, but strong shove. He stumbles backwards and laughs it off, but his shoulder aches from her fingernails digging into the muscle beneath his sweater. 

“Don’t be like that.” Is all she says. Rachel goes to open the heavy double doors, and Nathan just sulks in his own embarrassment. 

When they return, Victoria Chase is still talking her face off, rambling on and on about what to wear and what to see and who to see and what to do. Courtney Wagner looks infinitely more interested than Rachel will ever be when it comes to Victoria, as she nods her head and stares with the most focused of widened eyes. 

When they each spot the two returning, it goes quiet. Victoria stands up with the grace of a swan, her long legs straightened over her tights, and she seemingly forces another smile. “Nathan,” she says, but he stands awkwardly in place. Somehow, his eyes find Warren Graham beside Kate Marsh, with her hands folded as if she were about to pray for him, and Warren’s face too dark to make out in the backstage light. 

“Sorry,” Nathan mutters. Rachel folds her arms across her chest. “I’m just… I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?” Max asks. It all feels much too like an unusual stab to the heart, or an axe to the face. Something along the lines of blood, gory embarrassment, dripping with brain matter and red blood and gutted screams. Max has this sort of pathetic, shy and artsy smile, and it makes Nathan feel a bit more twisted about himself. He wishes he had the ability to make people cheer up just with a smile and a pat on the back, like Rachel.

Under his breath, he replies, with stands stuffed into his pockets, “I don’t know.”

Rachel takes over for him. “It’s nothing. We’re gonna go outside for a smoke, anyone wanna join?”

Nobody replies. Chloe perks up, with senses like a dog and pointed ears like one, too, but Max tugs her sleeve and holds her back.

“Suit yourselves,” Rachel says as she digs into the pockets of her pants. “See you all at the party tonight, then. Bring the booze, ladies.”

“Shut up, Rachel. We’ve got it covered,” Victoria says with distaste on her tongue, like a rotten meal. 

She shoos Nathan out the same doors they came in, and everybody separates and scatters off into different directions to leave. Victoria mindlessly grumbles, distracted by Rachel and Nathan disappearing through the back doors, “God, what a slut. And all she cares about is the alcohol. Jesus, she’s gonna be dead by 30.”

“Oh, for sure,” Courtney says in an attempt to please Victoria, but nothing happens.

Kate leaves with Max at her side, Chloe lagging close behind; some of the Vortex Club members all fit into Victoria’s car, paid for by her parents, but Taylor sits politely in the front seat; and the more artsy outcasts all find their rides and drive off with excitement for the night’s party buzzling through the atmosphere. 

Rachel and Nathan sit on the front steps of the school; Nathan, with his head tucked between his knees, and Rachel, lowering herself down to his level with a cigarette in her hand. She offers him the lighter, and he takes it reluctantly, his thumb against the wheel, and it sparks in front of her. 

When she takes the lit cigarette out from between her teeth, it’s followed by a cloud of smoke, then an offer to Nathan. He almost shakes his head, but she gives him puppy eyes, and Nathan caves. He takes the cigarette. 

“So. Thoughts on tonight?” Rachel straightens out her shoulders, brushing loose strands of hair from her face, perfecting her mascara, etc. 

“I… dunno,” he says with a shaking voice. He stares at the cigarette for some time, and when he feels Rachel giving him eyes, he hesitantly brings it to his lips. His chest rises, then falls, and he explodes into some sick coughing fit, with Rachel hiding her laughter as he passes it back to her. Through his wheezing, he chokes, “Is it supposed to do that?”

“What else? It’s called a cancer stick for a reason, Nate,” she says thoughtfully. He looks off into the distance as he tries to contain himself. “What? What’s that?”

“Nothing,” he mutters. Rachel shrugs, taking another effortless drag. “Sooo… party… um, I don’t know… it’s just a party.”

“Yeah, but it’ll be killer,” she explains through hazy smoke. “Y’know, the whole sha-bang.

“What’s that mean?”

“A little sugar, spice, and everything nice, ya’know,” Rachel says. She offers the cigarette back to him, and this time, he shakes his head. “What? Scared?”

“No,” he says, firmer, trying not to waver. 

She laughs. “I’m kidding. It’s okay. I’m not gonna pressure you or anything. Just thought it’d help a bit. Sorry.”

“No, um. Don’t be sorry,” he says, then silently looks back at the cigarette in her fingers. “...I’ll take it.”

“That’s more like it,” she says cheerfully. She pats him on his shoulder again, and he lowers his head as he puts it back to his mouth. “You excited?” 

He tries not to cough. It doesn’t work, though, with smoke coming from his nose and chapped lips. “Oof. U…Uh, I guess…ooof…

“It’s fine,” Rachel tells him kindly. “You’ll get used to it. You just have to… kinda… I dunno how to explain it. It comes naturally, ya’know?”

“Uh-huh…” Nathan hands it back to her. “Anyway, oof. I guess.”

“I heard you,” she says. “Sorry, I’m not trying to sound like a piece of shit.”

“I… know you’re not,” he says. “and you’re not a piece of shit, Rach. You’re my best friend. Asshole or not.”

“Aw,” she hums with a smile, then her palm to her cheek. She hugs him from the side, his shoulders easing their tension, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “You’re too nice to me, Nate. I’m a bad influence.”

He’s laughing, though it sounds more forced than he intended. “No, you’re not.”

“I feel like one sometimes,” she admits. “But not to worry. I know how to handle myself. No need to fret. Especially with a part-tay tonight.”

“Uh-huh.”

Rachel rises from her spot on the chipped stone steps of Blackwell. She drops the bud of the cigarette onto the pavement, crushing it under her sneaker, the soles worn down by weather and life and such. “You ready?” She asks, and just nods awkwardly.

————————————————————

Rachel Amber spins elegantly across the dirt, gliding like a figure skater, cigarette between two fingers and boys on either side. Nathan watches, back pressed against his parked truck, the music blaring not fifty feet away from him, and a red solo cup in his hand, half-empty, but just enough to get him through the night. He takes a slow, shallow sip, still watching as she shines through the blackened night, fires all around, and people celebrating whatever Nathan did to earn a trip to Seattle. 

She motions towards Nathan, though, it’s too messy to make out what gesture she’s trying to make. He scoffs, taking another slow sip, and she continues twirling around and running her soft hands through butterscotch hair, her feather earring dangling from her ear, her jasmine smell awfully apparent when mixed with beer and smoke. 

“Nate, c’mon, why aren’t you dancing?” She asks, upbeat, but Nathan shrinks. 

He forces an awkward laugh. “Don’t make me.”

“Fine. I won’t,” she says, then flashes her white smile. “Maybe when I’ve had a few more drinks.”

He scoffs again. Before she can say anything else, he shuffles back over to the keg for another drink, watching as Victoria studies him and the way he crookedly wobbles over curiously. She crosses her arms and faces him fully, Taylor and Courtney by her side, Courtney trying to look much tougher than she actually is, and Taylor with a concerned face. 

“Nathan,” Victoria calls out. He raises his head and stares with wide, frightened eyes, like he’d been caught in the act, or maybe, he just hates talking to people. Something along those lines, he guesses. Instead, Victoria drops her arms, drink in one hand, asking, “Are you alright? I saw you storm out after the assembly, and I just…”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly, eyes flickering between the two girls on either side of Victoria. “Vic, I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”

“Is it Rachel?” She asks with a judgement, downwards glare. Nathan shoots his head up, face stern, and his hands suddenly trembling into fists at his side. “God, she’s such a suck up. I mean, I see the way she treats you sometimes. And it’s totally fucked. She makes you do everything for her, doesn’t she?”

“What?” He says, unaware of the rage bubbling up behind his forehead, and the heat growing in his face. “Don’t say that about her. She doesn’t make me do anything.”

She scoffs. “Right.”

“No, I mean it, Vic. Don’t say shit you don’t mean,” he says loudly. “She’s my best friend, and if you have a problem with that, you can go shove it up your fucking ass.”

…Followed by silence between them. Victoria stares, eyes wide, jaw unhinged and mouth open, with Taylor and Courtney just as startled by her sides. She raises her eyebrows angrily, clenching her fists. “What did you just say to me?”

“I said,” he starts, the anger blinding him, the adrenaline morphing his perception. “if you have a fucking problem, you can go right ahead and shove it right up your fat fucking ass!”

Nathan lunges forward, bearing his velvet knuckles and watching as Victoria tries to scramble away. He grabs her by the front of her sweater, her cup falling from her hand and onto the front of Courtney’s blouse with a curse that doesn’t quite land like it’s supposed to. He doesn’t punch her, but the proximity and adrenaline is enough, and Victoria screeches as she falls backwards and into the dirt. 

“Hey!” Rachel’s voice rings through Nathan’s ears, the eternal buzzing in his head dormant, just for a time. Victoria stays on the ground, staring in disbelief, watching carefully as Nathan turns his head towards her growing closer. “What the hell is going on over here?”

“He started it!” Victoria shouts from the ground. Rachel glimpses down at her, then back to Nathan, with his cup on the ground and his face awfully red, even in the midnight darkness. 

A few of the others from Blackwell hurry over, including Max and Chloe, then Kate and, in the distance, Warren, watching through sips of his solo cup and squinted eyes. 

“Jesus, Victoria, what’s got your panties in a knot?” Chloe asks with a snort, then a glare from Max. She hides her face behind her cup. 

“It’s Nathan, not me!” She says sternly. All eyes fall on him, and he hangs his head from shame, face flushed, and knuckles tucked away into his pockets where he can’t use them. “He just went all psycho on me! Don’t tell me you were actually going to punch me, Nate!?”

“...No,” he mumbles. “...I wasn’t going to do anything.”

“Like hell you weren’t!” Courtney shouts. “He totally jumped on her! It was freaky!”

“What?” He shakes his head, vision clouded by uncontrolled anger, but Rachel steps in before it can get any worse. “Rachel, please, I didn’t…”

“I know you didn’t,” she says as she drops her cigarette into the dirt and crushes it under the heel of her Doc Martens. “Jesus, guys. Can we have one normal day? Please? How do you expect us to behave in Seattle if we’re all psychos here, too?”

Nobody says anything. Nathan stares at the soles of his sneakers, tattered, but not enough to be cheap. Rachel stands lopsided with her arms folded over her chest and eyebrows raised in alert, waiting for somebody to speak, but it never comes. 

“Just… here.” She rubs the sleep from her eyes. Maybe it’s plain drunkenness, maybe not, but either way, her face is too blank in the coming dark for comfort. “Let’s all just… line up and say one nice thing about each other, okay? One. Everybody. You, too, Warren Graham! I see you hiding back there!

Warren kicks an absent pebble in front of him, groaning as he goes and lines up beside Nathan towards the end of the line. They exchange a glance, Warren’s of anxiety, and Nathan’s of something not even he himself fully understands. 

“Any volunteers?” Rachel offers, but it’s deafeningly silent. She grumbles. “Fine. Guess I’ll go first, then.”

First in line is Max, with her hands anxiously tucked behind her back and a shy smile plastered upon her face. Rachel studies her for a time, looking from her Converse to her dress to the coat slung over her shoulders.

“Max Caulfield, I love how you don’t care about what anybody thinks,” she says. “And you’re so talented and sweet and I love how you care for others and put your friends before yourself.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” she replies shyly, her cheeks slightly red. 

Rachel moves onto Chloe, who gives her an odd look that she decides to ignore. “Chloe Price, I truly admire your resilience. You never give up, and I love that about you. You’re the strongest, most persistent person I know.”

She continues down the line. Next is Kate, with her hair in a messy bun over her head, but it’s just enough to make her look like the gentle rabbit she may as well be inside. 

“Kate Marsh, I admire your faith,” she says. Kate’s smiling shyly, just as she always does, with her sad eyes squinted and head slightly lowered. “And you’re so beautiful and kind and always there for others, even if you aren’t doing the best yourself. I commend you for that honor.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” she replies quietly. Kate Marsh’s voice is never above much of a whisper, nor does she ever make a scene. She nods to her with a small, polite smile, and Rachel thoughtfully returns it. 

Next is Victoria, whom Rachel herself isn’t entirely fond of, but she does possess the right qualities, she just is lost on how to use them for good. 

“Victoria Chase,” she says with her eyebrows raised, and Victoria’s face is colder than a December night. “your photography is incredible. I have to say, I’m a bit jealous.”

Victoria’s face lights up with shock, though she hides it with another disdainful glance. Rachel can see right through her and her act, though, and that’s one of the many skills Rachel Amber herself possesses. 

“And, I guess, you aren’t a total bitch.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Victoria asks with an edge, her face scrunched up in discomfort. 

Rachel waves her hand in front of her. “Nothing, oh, nothing, sweet Victoria. I was just kidding. You’re not a bitch.”

Victoria stays awfully silent, her face growing redder as time goes by, only scoffing and adverting her eyes, “Thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah, pleasures all mine,” Rachel says.

Courtney and Taylor stay behind Victoria in line, watching as Rachel shuffles to Warren beside her. Nathan is on the other side of him, hands still tucked into the pockets of his dress pants, and Rachel is watching the two of them with the same, squinted eyes she uses when matchmaking randoms around campus. 

“Warren Graham,” she begins. He prepares for impact. “Unrelated, but I love how nerdy you are. You don’t really see that a lot around here.”

“Oh. Thanks,” he says, only partly surprised. Nathan watches, though he never meant to stare. “I kinda thought you were gonna start insulting me. I don’t know.”

“What? No,” she says. Rachel puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a small, awkward pat. “Nah, I like you, Warren. I like how you don’t care about what anybody else thinks, kinda like Max over there. Y’know, you’re actually really cool. People don’t give you enough credit.”

Warren blushes. “Thanks,” he says as he scratches his neck. “That actually… wow, thanks, Rachel, I’m serious. That means a lot to me. I mean, I don’t really try to stick out like a big, fat sore thumb around here, ya’know, I like to be invisible and all, but… sorry, am I talking too much? Sorry. It gets out of control sometimes.”

He ducks his head. Rachel draws her arm back to her side and shakes her head, her face in her hands, choking back laughter as she looks back to the dizzy and unfocused Nathan Prescott, lost in his own head again. 

“No, you’re okay, Warren,” Rachel says. “I mean it.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She moves onto Nathan last. His eyes are locked on the ground past her, lost and distorted. 

“Nathan Prescott.”

He looks up at her. Slowly. “Rachel Amber.”

“Are we cool?” She asks quietly, drowned out by the small chatter behind her in line. Nathan shudders, even if she isn’t all that drunk, and he’s feeling awfully lightheaded. But it isn’t like his dizziness is unusual. 

“I dunno. You still haven’t said anything nice about me.”

Rachel laughs, throwing her head back, and Nathan notices how her hair falls over her shoulders and back like some golden waterfall, drenched in sunlight and heaven and the smell of jasmine. Sarcastically, she remarks, “Nathan Prescott, you are a fucking riot.”

He shrugs, giving another awkward, yet sincere smile. She nudges his shoulder and continues on. 

“Okay, fine. Well, for starters, you’re a terrible dancer, and I mean terrible. Like, every time I try to get you to loosen up a bit, you just look like a crippled fish out of water—” Nathan laughs, and that’s how Rachel knows she’s doing well—“and you have seriously questionable taste in music and clothing… not to mention, you can’t hold your liquor for shit… you’re also the smartest person I know and the only one who’s always been there for me. You're the best friend I’ve ever had, you know that, right?”

He smiles pathetically. “Yeah. I know.”

“I’m always here for you, y’know,” she says quietly. “I care so much about you, and I don’t need you going savage on some chick because she ticked you off. I know how hard you have it.”

Nathan doesn’t take his eyes off of his sneakers. They were a gift from Rachel, actually, for his sixteenth birthday. She’d grown tired of hearing him complain about the blisters his church shoes gave him from time to time, and she’d cared too much to have him suffer like that. She always knew that Nathan suffered beyond sore feet and ugly shoes, and that was obvious. But Nathan’s her best friend, and she’s the only person who truly knows what it’s like to live in his head. 

“I know.” His voice cracks. He slowly meets her eyes, hazel, with a spark of ambition and thrill for life behind her irises. “Thanks, Rach.”

“Hey, don’t thank me, Nate,” she says. She smiles thoughtfully, then hooks her arm over his shoulders. “Now let’s get you home, okay?”

————————————————————

A sleek charter plane sits idle in the docking station, shaking slightly as the Blackwell students enter with the carry-ons. Dana and Juliet crowd the back, shuffling back and forth between seats, watching as Victoria and her posse enter. Taylor says, “I can’t believe your parents paid for a private jet,” and Victoria just laughs. 

“Seriously? These are the same people that bought a three year old a pony,” she says as hurries down the aisle. Courtney laughs a bit too harshly, and both Taylor and Victoria shoot her a look. 

Some of the others like Stella Hill and Brooke Scott board next, bags slung over their shoulders and excitement, yet anxiety plastered over their faces. They’re all chatting the whole time, even when the adults come striking down the aisle and scouting out their spots like vultures. 

The others board, carry-ons in the overhead bins, and seatbelts buckled into each other. Nathan and Rachel sink into their seats, Rachel by the window, and Nathan towards the aisle. When he looks beside him, Warren Graham is sitting alone in the next window seat over, his backpack, adorned with pins and patches, is occupying the seat beside him. They lock eyes, just for a brief moment, and Nathan looks away. 

Rachel settles in for the flight. Nathan’s looking awfully pale, though he hadn’t noticed in the foggy rearview mirrors. Rachel spots it, though, like she does whenever it comes to Nathan, and nudges his shoulder. “Hey, you okay? They probably have, like, puke bags, or something.”

“I’m fine,” he says, though the anxiety stirring in his stomach doesn’t agree. “...I think I’m afraid of flying.”

Nathan glances around the cabin nervously. Meanwhile, Rachel pulls out a sheet of tissue paper from the pocket of her coat, unfolding it before him, flashing two small pills in front of his eyes. 

“Thought you’d need ‘em,” Rachel says with a smug grin, and Nathan graciously takes one. “Valium. Swiped ‘em from my mom’s medicine cabinet. She’s got, like, this never-ending supply, so she’ll never notice.”

“God, you’re a life saver, Rach,” he says with a relieved sigh. 

“I know, I’m basically the best,” she declares, and Nathan laughs dryly. 

“I seriously don’t know where I’d be without you,” he says. “...Probably in a morgue. So, thanks for that.”

“See? Sad sack.” 

“Whatthefuckever,” he groans. 

Rachel glances around, then unclips her signature feather from her ear. She takes Nathan’s shaking, white hand into her own, pressing the feather into his palm and smiling cheerfully when he gives her a confused look. 

“Good luck charm. Now, nothing can touch you.”

“You wear this shit everywhere,” he points out. “How can you even bear to part with it?”

“Shut up,” she says. “Consider it a kind gesture. You’re my best friend, Nate. I wouldn’t want you horribly paranoid the entire time… like you always are.”

He hides his face in his flannel. Rachel just laughs and hands off the earring to him. Then, the intercom hums, and the pilot speaks, though Nathan’s far too out of it to hear by then. He and Rachel both take the Valium, dry, and straight up, and Nathan thanks her by tucking the feather into his pocket and leaning his head back against the vinyl seating. 

And with Kate’s arms arched over Nathan’s head like antlers, he fades between conscience; Rachel beside him with droopy eyes and a valium-induced brain and her hands stretched out in front of her. He closes his eyes, vision fuzzy like fur in front of him, dots and specks of sleep and exhaust behind his eyelids. The colors dance and swirl for a time, then it all goes black. 

Rachel stirs for a time. He hears her, with heavy breath and air sucked in through her clenched teeth and the intercom of the flight overhead. He hums, and she drops her mouth open with her head pressed against the side of the plane’s window. When it all stops, Rachel goes quiet, and Nathan is asleep. 

He dreams that he’s in a field of daisies with Rachel, prancing about like fawns; Rachel, twirling along the tall, dewy morning grass with a smile stretched over her face and her big white smile present on her pretty, pale face. Nathan’s sitting on his knees in the dirt, face shadowed by sunlight and the grass above. The wind tussles through their hair, Rachel spinning and leaping around like a deer, and Nathan just watching while choking through fits of uncontrolled laughter. 

She says, backwards, “You should join me. I like it better this way, you know.”

He replies, in normal time, “What?”

“The woods,” she says with a wide smile. “and the trees. God, the trees. They’re everywhere. Isn’t it beautiful? Can you remember the smell?”

Nathan looks around curiously. There are no trees around—only sunlight and daisies as tall as he is. Rachel’s body moves backwards then, butterscotch hair twisting in reverse, her eyes closed, then open suddenly, and he’s suddenly feeling eerily disturbed. 

She continues cheerfully and backwards, “I mean, I’ll be no help. I’m just not made for that.” Rachel laughs. “But if you joined me, maybe it’d be better. Maybe then, that way, I wouldn’t be such a fucking doe.”

“What’re you talking about?” He laughs anxiously. 

“You know, you’re my best friend, Nate,” she says suddenly, and her voice is as clear as a broken radio. Rachel’s frozen, pausing as the grass grows longer and longer around her, and her face melts into a disfigured version of herself, colorless and blueish, with darkened eyes and tattered, matted hair and frozen skin.

He starts to scream, but he’s awake—bolted forward by the sound of a raw screech, then the smell of fumes and smoke and fire, followed by something like rusting metal combined with vomit. 

The sound grows louder as he wakes up in a blur. The dream is long gone now, like it had never happened in the first place, and Rachel is still slung lifelessly over the window. His vision shakes, harsh rattling and screeching rumbling somewhere deep inside of the vessel, then a compilation of different screams and feet pattering down the aisle. Colorless shapes move before him, one of them hurriedly pressing an oxygen mask to his mouth, then repeated with Rachel beside him. His heart is beating up his throat, the speed making him sick, the rhythm repeated through his drum set ears.

He goes to shake Rachel, but she’s barely awake. She lets out a muffled groan, and he begins to repeat the same synchronized scream from his dream, where Rachel had disappeared into grass and daisies taller than her, then faded into the cloudless sky ahead, never to be seen again—but here she sits, asleep, dreaming a better dream, with her lips in a thin line and her tired eyelids just beginning to flutter open like a cocoon. 

The plane continues to rattle with aggression—he can’t make out any of the voices or faces other than Rachel’s blurred one beside him—and it ducks in the sky, dipping and disappearing behind clouds and stormy weather, maybe. His anxiety just gets caught in his throat, lodged between his thudding heartbeat and the pain growing somewhere deep in his chest. Then, he reaches over Rachel for the window, lifting it up to see an endless greenery ahead, bundles of trees and rocks and mountains below them, growing closer much quicker than he’d like to admit. 

The plane comes to a panicked crash, metal ripping free, trees and branches and rock tearing open the back, a fire ignited somewhere behind them—Nathan drowsily undoes his seatbelt, struggling free from pieces of crushed iron and earth from over him. His ears are ringing, and all he can hear are the frantic screams of the others on the plane, and then nothing at all. 

Chapter Text

He starts to scream, but he’s awake—bolted forward by the sound of a raw screech, then the smell of fumes and smoke and fire, followed by something like rusting metal combined with vomit. 

The sound grows louder as he wakes up in a blur. The dream is long gone now, like it had never happened in the first place, and Rachel is still slung lifelessly over the window. His vision shakes, harsh rattling and screeching rumbling somewhere deep inside of the vessel, then a compilation of different screams and feet pattering down the aisle. Colorless shapes move before him, one of them hurriedly pressing an oxygen mask to his mouth, then repeated with Rachel beside him. His heart is beating up his throat, the speed making him sick, the rhythm repeated through his drum set ears.

He goes to shake Rachel, but she’s barely awake. She lets out a muffled groan, and he begins to repeat the same synchronized scream from his dream, where Rachel had disappeared into grass and daisies taller than her, then faded into the cloudless sky ahead, never to be seen again—but here she sits, asleep, dreaming a better dream, with her lips in a thin line and her tired eyelids just beginning to flutter open like a cocoon. 

The plane continues to rattle with aggression—he can’t make out any of the voices or faces other than Rachel’s blurred one beside him—and it ducks in the sky, dipping and disappearing behind clouds and stormy weather, maybe. His anxiety just gets caught in his throat, lodged between his thudding heartbeat and the pain growing somewhere deep in his chest. Then, he reaches over Rachel for the window, lifting it up to see an endless greenery ahead, bundles of trees and rocks and mountains below them, growing closer much quicker than he’d like to admit. 

The plane comes to a panicked crash, metal ripping free, trees and branches and rock tearing open the back, a fire ignited somewhere behind them—Nathan drowsily undoes his seatbelt, struggling free from pieces of crushed iron and earth from over him. His ears are ringing, and all he can hear are the frantic screams of the others on the plane, and then nothing at all. 

He shakes Rachel, over and over and over, shouting, “Rachel, get the fuck up!”

Dizzily, her eyes are open, and there’s a point where they’re moving in time without any thought behind it. The smoke envelopes the back of the plane, with screaming and all, then the fire only howls louder. In the back is Juliet, screaming her throat raw, with orange light and fire fierce behind her head. She barks out a plea for help, and as Nathan scurries over to free her from her seat, Rachel tugs the sleeve of his flannel. 

“We have to leave her!” She shouts, her voice hoarse, but Nathan pulls back. Juliet is scrambling free from her seat, the buckle slung over her lap and the smoke tightening her lungs, but she doesn’t give up. The last time Nathan sees her, her face is caked with ash, and she’s sobbing like a newborn baby. “Nate, come on!”

Rachel and Nathan shove their way out of the torn metal, a broken latch full with those scurrying out, then they wrap around the back of the plane, just to catch their breath. A million different scenarios fly through Nathan’s head—maybe there’d be one where he’d been able to save Juliet, maybe not. She was always so kind to him, anyways. 

The backend of the plane explodes, only partly, with gunpowdery-smoke and exhaust let out from the engine, then another low hum, followed by an obnoxious screeching as it finally fully falls against the ground. The cockpit is smeared with blood and dirt, broken glass everywhere, and the windows blacked out by bodies and torn papers from handbooks and manuals. 

Nathan stumbles back to his feet. Rachel is panting, her face horribly pale and covered in grime, and her eyes wide in horror. He barely hears her voice as she slowly creeps closer, sweaty palm to her forehead, saying, “What the actual fuck just happened?”

He says nothing. She paces back and forth, watching the tree roots on the ground below her morph with the dizziness and the adrenaline. There’s still screams echoing in the distance, signaled by birds flying overhead and back through the green above, like an ocean of forest, stuck between soft, blue daylight and white cotton clouds. Nathan stands with his feet planted in the dirt, sneakers caked with the very ash that had taken out Juliet Watson, he guesses, and splattered with something else—blood, maybe, he thinks, then he stuffs the thought back down. 

Nathan slowly looks back at Rachel as her face finally begins to focus. “Let’s go, she’s still inside—”

Rachel sternly grabs him by his trembling shoulders. “No. No. Nate, stop. She’s gone. There’s nothing we could do.”

“But—” He chokes, just as Dana flies by, her walk crooked and limp, and her hair a mess. It all hits him. The crash, the bodies, the blood and the smoke and the forest and the fire, everything. “Fuck, Rach… I’m…”

“Shh… shhh… no, Nate, it’s okay,” she whispers. “We’ll be okay. We’re gonna be okay. Don’t think about it.”

Nathan begins to panic. He can feel his throat tightening, his heartbeat still rapid and uncontrolled like the sea during a storm, his hands trembling like the thousands of windy leaves above—suddenly, it isn’t so blurry anymore, and he isn’t numb enough to shield himself from this. 

“Rachel,” he starts to cry. She holds him closer by his shoulders, barely clinging onto him as he begins to weep. “...oh my fucking God.”

Dana is still running around screaming her throat dry—“Has anyone seen Juliet?”—and the adults are nowhere to be found. Nathan is crying, and Rachel is shushing him as the chaos carries on around the mangled wreckage. Chloe and Max whizz by, running somewhere, and Kate is digging through the rubble for her luggage. 

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Nathan sobs. Rachel shakes her head, back and forth, her silky hair still so smooth over her shoulders, like it’d been poured onto her like melted silver. “Rachel, what are we gonna do?”

“Shhhh, Nate, come on…” She endlessly rubs his shoulders, trying with everything in her to not snap like he had, to not let the focused vision get to her or anything. “Nate. Look at me.”

He looks up, face wet with tears, his lips quivering and hair a mess in his eyes. She raises her eyebrows, and he wipes the faucet from his eyes with the edge of the wrist that steadies his trembling fingers. 

“It’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay,” she says with a wavering voice, but it’s just strong enough to sound convincing. Nathan is desperate, anyways. “We’re gonna be alright. Okay?”

“Okay,” he sniffles. “Okay. Okay, okay.”

“Just…” She looks around helplessly, maybe for some sort or sign or guidance or something. “close your eyes and count to ten, okay? You’ll feel better.”

“Shutting my eyes and counting to ten isn’t gonna do shit, Rachel,” he says frantically, his heart beating like an intense drum in his ears.

“Jesus, Nathan, what else do you want me to do!?”

“I don’t… I don’t know…!” He returns to crying. “Oh my fucking God, Rachel, we’re gonna die out here.”

“Nathan, stop! Don’t say shit like that!” She tightens two hands around his shoulders and forces him forward. “Come on. Please, Nate. Just stay with me here.”

He seems much more like a skeleton than anything else. His eyes are unfocused, ears ringing with the repeated drowning of screams, then the cockpit crunching against the trees surrounding them. There’s chaos buzzling everywhere, people running and screaming, rushing by and digging through rubble upon rubble for belongings. 

“Okay,” Nathan whimpers. Rachel hugs him closer, and he pathetically claws up her back and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared,” she says calmly. Nathan really doesn’t know how she’s so put-together, so calm, so herself, even after something like this. His breathing is uncontrolled and frantic, and hers is slow and calm, though his head is stirring with fear. “I’m scared, too, fuck, Nathan, I’m horrified.”

Dana comes hurrying over again, panting and gasping for air, shouting, “Has anybody seen Juliet!?”

“She was sitting in the back,” Max calls out from a pile of rubble. She’s crouched over the side, her hair sticking up in different directions, and her hands caked with blood pooling from below her. “She… I don’t…”

“Well, no shit, she was in the back,” Dana cries, fists clenched at her sides, staring with wide eyes as Max lowers her head in pity. “I don’t… did she come out?”

“I don’t know,” Max replies. Tears are bleeding down her face. “I didn’t see her, or anything… I don’t… I’m sorry, Dana.”

Dana presses her dirty palm to her sweat-streaked forehead, panting still, and spinning on her heel and running back into the chaos of the wreckage and trees leaning over the plane. Stella Hill is sprawled on the ground a few hundred feet away from Max, her arm slung over her face, and Brooke Scott is sat beside her with a tattered, blood-stained backpack besides her. 

Nathan tries to control his breathing, but it’s no use. “Is this my fault?” He asks through tears, and Rachel shoots him a terrified look. 

“What? Nate, why the hell would this be your fault?” She sort of laughs in disbelief, but the color is completely drained from Nathan’s still face. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I-I don’t know,” he stammers, panicking, his breath quicker than before, “maybe I… I don’t know… maybe I did something wrong and now we’re all paying for it.”

“What could you have done?” She laughs again, voice strained, with an anxious face and grime-covered skin. 

“I don’t know,” he says firmer, clenching his jaw and his tight fists by his sides. “...I thought maybe God struck us down or something… and I’m sure Kate fucking Marsh will agree.”

Rachel stares in disbelief. “Nathan, I can’t believe you’d even say something like that.”

“Well, I did. What’re you gonna do about it? Tell me to close my fucking eyes? Count to ten? Rachel, our plane just fucking…crashed… in the middle of no where, and I’m rightfully terrified for my fucking life. Aren’t you?!”

“Of course I’m terrified, Nate! God, do you see me?” She shouts, her voice drowned out by the slow roaring of the engine behind them, then the sound of scrapping metal and the creaking of the vessel between the ground and the forest above. “We’re all scared, Nate… I don’t… where is this coming from?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats through tears, hanging his head with his tear-streaked face in his trembling hands. Rachel stands there and watches, carefully studying the way he snaps like a cable under pressure. He rubs the waterfall from his eyes with his knuckles, and Rachel returns to hugging him. “I really don’t know, Rach… I’m just so fucking scared.”

“It’s okay,” she soothes, her voice like a soft whisper in a gentle breeze, accompanied by birds chirping overhead, then the low hum of whatever remains of the plane wreckage and the cries in the distance. “Shhhh, Nate, it’s okay. We’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna get outta here and get the hell home.”

The dam breaks open, and Nathan begins sobbing. He clings tighter onto Rachel and her flannel, one that they’d shared for years, weeping into the side of her shoulder with tears stinging his eyes and fists trembling along the fabric. “What if we’re here too… too long… and… and what if I… fuck, Rachel, what’s gonna happen to me? What’re we gonna do?”

“Hey, hey, calm down, please,” she whispers. “What are you talking about?”

“What if I can’t find my meds? Rachel, what the fuck is gonna happen to me?” He continues. Rachel’s face goes pale with realization. “I’m just—” He sniffles. “—am I just gonna go fucking psycho again?”

“We’re gonna be out of here before that can happen,” Rachel says. She pulls back again, still clinging to Nathan by his shoulders, dragging her fingers along his wet skin to wash the tears away. He stares, jaw tight and eyes glassy and wide, and she tries to look much more put together than she really is. “I swear. You’re gonna be okay.”

Her words seem to soothe him, even if it’s just a bit. She guides him into another deep breath, then again, where he closes his eyes and imagines a time much better than the one he’s currently living in. She talks the entire time, and as the engine breaks down and the desperate pleas for help come to an eventual stop, they’re both equally calmed, even with Nathan a bit on edge. 

And as the chaos dies down, a few of the missing students come rushing out—including Juliet, half of her face smeared with ash, and her clothing adorned with blood and dirt all down the front. She raises her eyebrows at Rachel, seemingly with distaste, but she ignores it. 

Dana comes rushing behind her, arms over her shoulders, prancing onto her like a dog, “Juliet!”

She coughs, only slightly losing her balance as Dana clings to her. “Dana, oh my God.”

Nathan and Rachel stagger around for a time. Brooke is still kneeling beside Stella on the ground, her hair loose and tangled around her and her blood-stained hoodie, Warren Graham is watching over a hill, looking like he’d just arrived, with his backpack over his shoulder and clothes covered in something nobody can identify. 

Max and Chloe find each other beside that same pile of rubble that houses some of the discarded luggage. Max’s messenger bag is there, and she holds it to her chest like a Christmas present. The adults on the plane are nowhere to be found, and Kate seems to be growing antsy. Her head is bowed in prayer, her knees against the dirt, even with her skirt tattered and slightly riding up. Her hands are folded on her lap, and her face is wet with a waterfall of tears, but that’s never been unfamiliar for her.

But as she sits there, her head lowered and hands folded in prayer as she whispers to herself, something comes down on her, like a wet liquid, dripping against her forehead as she raises her head towards the sight. 

She palms her forehead—blood, and she screams. 

The survivors come rushing over, pooling around her like the droplets of blood dripping from the tree above, and hanging from a branch overhead, is the mangled body of their principal, face disfigured, and limbs hanging over the sides of the tree. 

Kate scrambles back, Max pulling her away with urgency. Nathan and Rachel join them around the circle, staring up at the smokey sky, mouths hung open, then hands covering their eyes. 

“Somebody has to go up and get him,” Victoria shouts, her eyes squinted at the bleak sun through the misty air. They all look at her wildly, then back at each other, watching as the wind carries a breeze through their hair and clothes, and the same with Wells in the tree. “Why are we just standing here!? Don’t make me go up there myself.”

“I’ll do it!” Courtney shouts, throwing her hand up, but Victoria ignores her with clenched teeth and white knuckles.

“No one is going up there,” Rachel declares. “Who has the best arm?”

“We’re photography students, why would we have good aim?!” Stella shouts, her jeans splattered in dirt, and the sleeve of her hoodie torn and wrapped up in bloody gauze. 

“Nathan, weren’t you on the football team?” Dana asks. 

“I… I mean… I was,” he says. “But I sucked. And I was forced to, anyway. I don’t even like sports.”

“I can try,” Warren butts in. He looks around frantically, and Brooke joins him in his search for something to throw. “What… what do we throw? Help?”

“I don’t know, Graham, maybe a fucking rock? We’re in the forest!” Nathan shouts. 

“Okay!” He panics, his shoulders stiff, and he scrambles around in search of rock to throw. “Okay, searching!”

“Warren, come on!” Rachel says strongly. Warren flinches, then carries a mid-sized rock over his head and flings it towards the tree. It misses, narrowly, and Warren grunts in frustration. “That’s okay. We… we can try again.”

Warren swallows, then picks up another rock from the surrounding area. Brooke and Stella continue to hand pebbles and stones off to him as he throws—his aim is horrible, to be fair—each one missing where he’d been attempting to throw. After a time, he grows exhausted and gives up, with Rachel taking over for him with an agitated sigh. 

Nobody moves. Kate watches, still clinging closely to Max as they stare; Nathan stands behind Rachel and bites the inside of his sour mouth; Chloe has her forehead pressed against the trunk of a nearby tree, exhausted; and Warren is rubbing the sweat from his forehead and rolling up his sleeves as he staggers beside Nathan. They exchange another glance, then return to watching as Rachel winds up her arm and shoots the tree with the rock. 

This time, it hits him, but nothing happens. Kate turns around, her face green, and Rachel curses under her breath. 

“Did you really think a rock was gonna do the trick?” Victoria says with a dry scoff, and Nathan shoots her a look. She shuts up after that. “Whatever. You tried, but I guess it just wasn’t good enough.”

“He’s gotta be dead,” Max says quietly. “There’s no way he could’ve…”

“Then, when we get him down, we’ll bury him,” Rachel replies. She grabs another stone from Brooke’s hand, then winds up and throws. It hits again, but he loosely hangs from the tree, still wrapped up in a blood-soaked suit. “He was a piece of shit, but that doesn’t mean he deserved to die…”

Juliet gives Rachel another disdainful look, her eyes squinted and a scowl placed upon her lips, and it just tugs at her heartstrings. It feels all too familiar, the concept of deserving to die or not.

Victoria paces back and forth, her shoes caked with ash and mud, then throws her head back and groans when nothing happens to Wells in the tree. She shouts, “Can’t we just shake the fucking tree or something!? It’ll be so much quicker that way!”

“What if he’s still alive?” Nathan stammers. They all look at him. “What? I mean… he… he could still be alive, right?”

“I mean…” Warren shrugs. “...depending on when he flew out of the plane…”

“I saw it!” Courtney shoots her hand up into the air, standing on her heels. “It was right before we crashed. And I mean, right before. Like, we were on our way down, face first and all, just… I could see the top of the trees at window level. Nothing crazy.”

“Nothing crazy?” Taylor stares, and Courtney shrinks. 

“I didn’t think it was crazy,” she says quietly. “Did you, Victoria?”

“Yes, I think it’s crazy. Why is this even a fucking discussion? Our principal's possibly dead body is literally hanging from a tree right now… obviously, I have the right to be freaked!”

Courtney shuts up after that. Chloe chimes in, “Can’t we just… stick somebody up there? Y’know, a good Samaritan to, I dunno, shake ‘em down?”

“Chloe!” Max shouts. 

“No, Chloe, we’re not doing that,” Rachel stays as she rubs her red eyes. “Think, Rachel, think.”

“He’s likely to die either way,” Brooke adds. “I mean, look at him. He’s barely hanging on, even now. Maybe one more blow and he’ll come crashing.”

“Just get him down already!” Victoria yells, and Rachel caves. She takes one final rock from Brooke’s hand, giving it a small, sad glimpse as she winds her arm back.

Kate hides her face in the remnants of Max’s charred hoodie. Chloe returns to pressing her face into the tree, so hard the bark leaves a print across her forehead, and Victoria and her posse stare in horror. The rock hits him again, and this time, the repeated motions set him into action, and just as Brooke said, they all clear out of the way as he comes crashing down. 

It’s simply a gory mess, with blood and matter splattered everywhere, and his face so horribly disfigured it’d be impossible to identify him. His limbs bend at odd places, and his body twitches, but just for a moment. 

Nathan’s hands fly over his mouth as he whirls away. Warren follows, and Rachel squeezes her eyes shut and takes Nathan back by his shoulders. She tells him, “Let’s just…”

“Okay.” Is all he says. Warren watches them leave, meeting Brooke’s eyes as she flickers between him and the smashed body of what used to be their principal in front of them. The others scurry away, Kate crying and Max close to vomiting, and wait for somebody to make a move with his corpse. 

————————————————————

“I’m pretty sure everybody hates me now,” Rachel says. “Especially Juliet. After that stunt we pulled in the plane…”

Rachel and Nathan sit a bit further off, tucked below a shady oak tree in the May sun, digging through luggage for supplies and such. Right now, they seem to be going through one of Chloe’s bags, barely packed with much besides for a few t-shirts and a shit ton of weed.

“I’m sure she doesn’t hate you,” Nathan says, staring down at his jeans, even though he’s not fully there. “Maybe just give her some time. She’ll come around eventually. She’s Juliet, she always does.”

“For the record,” Rachel says. “I was trying to save you. I thought…”

“I know.” He gives her a knowing nod, mustering up whatever of a smile he can, just barely wiping speckled blood from his face with the sleeve of his flannel—it’s Rachel’s, actually, they tend to share clothes from time to time—and grimacing when he spots red smeared across the pattern. “Ew. Are we ever gonna get the blood off of these?”

“Probably not,” Rachel says with a laugh. Nathan tries to mimic her, but nothing happens. 

It’s silent for a time. Rachel moves onto the next bag, possibly Dana’s or Courtney’s, they all look the same to Nathan, and he bites his lip anxiously. Rachel doesn’t notice his anxiety brewing, or the way he twists up his face and brushes his curls from his eyes with the back of his bloody, dirt-smeared palm.

“Do you think we’ll find my bag?” He asks nervously. 

Rachel finally looks up. “Sure we will.”

“No, I’m serious. I need it.”

“I know you do. And we’ll find it. Don’t worry.” She smiles again. “But, it’s not like you’ll need it, anyway. With rescue coming and all… I’m sure they’re on their way right now.”

“You can’t be so sure,” Nathan tells her with a concerned look plastered upon his face, still semi-wet with tears. He always looks so sad, even if he isn’t trying to. Rachel’s told him that he looks fragile, like he’ll burst into tears any moment, and he’s spent more time studying his face in the mirror than he’d like to admit. “What if they never find us?”

“They’ll find us.”

“But how do you know?”

She grows agitated. “I just know, Nate. You’re so paranoid.”

“...maybe I’d be less freaked if I had my fucking meds.”

“We’ll find them,” she repeats. “I’m sure we will, okay? Now stop whining.”

“I’m… not… whining,” he says, though he bites back tears. 

“Just be glad that nobody was seriously hurt,” she tells him, then adds, “and that nobody other than Wells died. But nobody can seem to find Mr. Jefferson, so.”

“So.” He groans, hands in his face, leaning upright against his knees. “Hand me another bag.”

Rachel passes a backpack over to him, adorned in pins and such, and he scoffs. 

“What’s Warren Graham gonna have in his nerd-bag?” He says, but Rachel doesn’t look very amused. “Sorry.”

“You’re sorry about everything,” she says. “Don’t you ever wanna live a little?”

He unzips the bag, hesitantly peeking inside before sticking his hand into something he might regret. Only, it’s packed to the brim with clothes, all smelling too much like Warren, and each now recycled with however long they’ll be out here. Nathan slowly looks back at Rachel, unamused, and she flashes a pretty, white smile and cocks her head to the side. 

“Yes, actually,” Nathan tells her. “Do you want your earring back, since…”

“...Clearly, it didn’t work,” she finishes for him, and he purses his lips. Rachel sighs pathetically. “Guess it was a bad omen after all. Here.”

Nathan carefully takes the intact feather from his pocket, exchanging it with Rachel in return of the pleasure of her honey eyes. She smiles and clips it back to her ear, and Nathan sighs and throws his head back against the tree. 

“Do you have those cigarettes?” He asks her. 

Rachel quirks her eyebrows with a curious smile. “Oh? Stressed?”

“No, I’m doing great,” he says sarcastically, and Rachel laughs. Luckily for him, she digs into her pockets and presents the half-empty, crumpled box and lighter in front of him. “Score. Thanks, Rach. You’re a fuckin’ life saver.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Let’s just see if you can even smoke it first.”

“...Asshole,” he grumbles, and he picks a cigarette from the box and lights it for himself. He coughs, of course, but it’s only natural. Rachel slips the box back into her pocket and continues digging endlessly through the luggage they’d gathered, the same motions repeated over and over—check the front, then each pocket, inside and out—it’s all just exhausting. 

She groans. Nathan studies the end of the cigarette for a time, the ash almost reminding him of how Juliet was supposed to turn out, the spark like a fire in the back of the plane, engulfing those who dare stand in its way, and his mind flashes with the memory of the crash before he trembles and drops it to the ground. 

Rachel turns to him. “Are you okay?”

Nathan’s chest is rising quicker than before, his face slightly red, and the bud of the cigarette fading into nothing in the dirt. 

“Yeah, I just…” He stares at it growing lifeless before him. “...sorry.”

Rachel adjusts her position to face him fully. “Nathan, you have to stop apologizing for everything all of the time. It isn’t your fault.”

“I know it isn’t, but I just…” He chokes back another apology, the words heavy on his tongue, but he decides to listen to her. No more apologizing, he thinks, then straightens his shoulders. “Sorr…no, no, I’m not sorry.”

“Atta boy,” Rachel says with a grin. 

Juliet whizzes by, a bag tucked between her arm and her chest, and her eyes narrowed at Rachel as she sits beneath the shade of the tree besides Nathan. He continues tearing through Warren’s backpack, ripping apart the contents, slinging clothes all about. 

Meanwhile, the remaining survivors gather in the center of the wreckage, just beside the fuselage where the smoke overlaps with the foggy sky, trees lined ahead, like a sea of nothing but pine and rocky mountains looming in the distance. Kate bites her chipped fingernails; Chloe is attempting to start a fire with her lighter; Brooke and Stella are tearing out pages of science text books to help with said fire; and Warren is drawing in the dirt with a stick. 

“Do you guys think… we’ll be stuck out here forever?” Max asks, her messenger back still stuck to her chest. 

Chloe shoots her a look. “Nah. I think they’ll just wait till we’re skeletons or something.”

“You’re not helping,” Max replies with furrowed eyebrows. 

Chloe scoffs, and Dana waddles over, carrying a mixed pile of whatever food survived the wreckage. Warren perks his head up from the dirt, then finds his eyes fastened on Nathan and Rachel and the smoke following them under the tree. 

“We’ll be fine,” Dana says. Juliet joins her around the snacks of splintered firewood and crushed pieces of metal from the cockpit. She rubs her eyes. “I’m sure when we crashed, some signal went off and alerted somebody. I bet they already have, like, rescue planes searching for us right now.”

Kate hides in her knees. Juliet says, “Yeah. Listen to her.”

Victoria turns her nose up at the fire. Courtney gives her a sympathetic smile, her face painted orange in the weak glow of the fire as the night sneaks up on them. “It’s such a shame that all that muck got over your sweater.”

“Tell me something I don’t already fucking know,” she grumbles, brushing strands of loose, blonde hair from her eyes as she scoffs. Brooke raises her head to watch, still crumpling pieces of paper and tossing them into the fire, and Stella sighs. “...my outfit is probably worth more than your fucking life, Courtney.”

“Sorry,” she mutters, biting her tongue, and Taylor hangs her head. 

Warren shuffles over with his stick still present in his hand. He takes a seat besides Max and gives her another sad-eyed glance, and she just grumbles under her breath. The fire strengths in front of them, night slowly approaching over the trees ahead, and the darkness overlapping with the fainting sun in the sky. 

He looks over his shoulder for Rachel and Nathan, scraping dirt from off of the knees of their jeans and hoisting the bags back over their shoulders to join the campfire. Rachel finds a spot beside Chloe, on the other side of Max, and Nathan goes to sit beside her, but Kate scoots closer, just for the comfort of somebody near her, and he sits beside Warren. 

They give each other another awkward glance. Warren, with chocolate eyes and messy hair and a large scrape along the bridge of his nose gives a shy smile, and Nathan, with his blood-stained hair undone in his eyes and skin caked with dirt upon dirt, slowly returns it. 

Kate shifts and stiffens, glassy eyes focused on the fire as night comes. Victoria studies her for a time, though, not even she knows why. Nathan hugs his knees; Chloe lights a flame in front of her, watching as it dies down after the wind strikes it; Rachel slings her head over Chloe’s shoulder and groans to herself.

They all sit, exhausted, beaten, bloody and bruised, with dirt and red splattered all over their clothing; hair undone and knotted, belongings scattered everywhere, and a smoking plane wreck behind them, with one adult missing and another dead. There’s nothing more to say other than that, and they all keep to themselves for a time. 

Finally, Kate speaks up, with a meek, strained voice and tears stabbing at her eyes. “This is all my fault. I did something really bad.”

Everybody exchanges looks. Victoria raises her eyebrows, asking, unsure, “What’d you do?”

Kate takes a deep breath. She goes on, “I kept screwing up at my violin lesson last week. And my teacher kept yelling at me… she kept saying… I needed to practice more, but I did practice. I swear, and I just… I called her a bad word.”

They all pause. Nathan and Warren look at each other again, curiously this time, with Warren cracking a confused smile. 

“...It was just in my head, but God heard me. And now we’re all being punished.”

Victoria keeps a straight face. “What’d you call her?”

Kate lowers her head in shame, tears bleeding calmly down her face, her chest barely rising in the darkness of the night. 

“Cunt,” she whispers softly, shutting her eyes—and Victoria starts to laugh. 

Courtney joins, slowly, then Taylor, then Chloe and Rachel and everybody else in the circle. Even Nathan, though, somewhere deep down, he feels the same way as her. A simple thing, something as small as a “bad word”, as Kate herself called it, is just enough to ostracize faith. He feels this nervous stirring in his stomach, like he’d been the one to do something, like he’d been too pathetic or too ungrateful or done something to warrant this, but all he can do now is laugh, less he’ll feel more like an outcast than he already does. 

God has never really had eyes for Nathan Prescott, and that can only take him so far.

As time goes by, they’re all laughing, confessing secrets, unburdening themselves after everything fucked that’d happened today. 

Chloe goes next sputtering, “I steal shit from that shitty gas station in town all the time, like, everyday, then sometimes I just… take whatever it is out of the packaging and put the empty wrappers on the shelves then bolt.”

They’re all cracking up, with Rachel adding, “I used to sneak downstairs when everybody was asleep so I could go through my parent’s weird movie collection, and I’d fuck up a good sex scene. My introduction to the real world.”

Warren says, “When I was a kid, I’d use my stuffed animals as kissing practice. And my dad walked in one time and we had the 'birds and the bees' talk after that."

“I started the rumor that Alyssa and you were together,” Victoria confesses awkwardly. “It was just because I was pissed that you’d transferred into photography and Alyssa was just the classic target.”

Warren seems more enthused than upset. He’s rocking back and forth, slapping the knees of his dirty blue jeans, getting awfully close to Nathan as he moves around. 

And as they’re all laughing, throwing their heads back and howling like wolves at the darkened forest sky, Rachel turns to face Nathan. She’s smiling, though, the words that come out of her mouth don’t match her elated expression, “I know Prescott over here’s got a shit ton of secrets. Juicy ones, too, like, the type of shit you see in movies.”

He pales. 

Before Nathan can say anything, the laughter is broken by another scream from the wreckage. Everybody freezes, then stares at the dying flames surrounded by a hazy smoke that envelops the remaining pieces of the wreck. Wires are poking out from the interior, the tail end is hanging loosely from a tree, and the door is crooked and unlatched before them.

“I thought everybody was dead,” Max says breathlessly. 

“What if it’s Mark?” Victoria cries, though Rachel and Nathan both shoot her a look. “Mr. Jefferson.”

“Did we ever get a headcount?” Dana panics. “We could’ve left somebody in the plane, I mean…”

“I was the last to get out,” Juliet admits, eyes finding Rachel as she darts hers away. “...I didn’t see anybody, but it was so dark, I didn't…” 

“Somebody has to go in and save him!” Victoria shouts. 

“Nobody is going into a burning plane!” Rachel shouts, hands in her hair, eyes squeezed shut. Victoria freezes. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“There has to be some way to get him out,” Max says with a broken voice. Kate has her head buried in Max’s shoulder and she seems to be praying, judging by the way her hands are folded and her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. “I don’t know, maybe, like… we have blankets, we could make a rope, or—”

“No,” Nathan says suddenly. Everybody’s eyes move to him. “We have to leave him.”

“Why? Why, Nathan?” Victoria is crying now, fists balled up in her lap and eyebrows raised in awe. Nathan’s lip quivers, but he swallows down the rapid heartbeat pulsing through his throat. “Why do you get to say what happens to him?”

“We just can’t do anything!” He yells in return. For a second time, Victoria almost seems scared of him, with a pale face and wide eyes, but that doesn’t make him feel any better. “...just let him.”

“Why?” She cries. 

“Because! We’re not…” He winds back up, face red with anger and embarrassment, and his fists ready at his sides, though he hadn’t meant for that to happen. “Please, Vic…just…please. I can’t do this.”

“What?” She looks around wildly. The smoke from the plane is barely visible in the darkness, only a long, slim shadow in the starry sky, covered by trees and mountains stretching over the skyline. Victoria looks for some sort of assistance, but nobody chimes in. Not even Courtney. “Why is everybody okay with this!? He’s a person, too!” 

Chloe shakes Victoria by her shoulders. “In case you haven’t noticed, Shit-toria, that jet is on hella fire. If you go in, you’ll probably cook like a turkey.” 

Nathan paces away. Warren goes to follow, but Max takes his arm. 

Rachel watches him go, lip quivering. “There isn’t anything we can do,” she repeats, and Victoria zones out. 

And as the others argue over what to do about the agonizing voice from the wreckage, all battered and smeared with soil, Nathan wanders off between the oak trees and plops himself down under some shade, just close enough to watch the others pace around the fire, but far enough to catch his breath. 

He presses the back of his head to the tree. Nathan closes his eyes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…he counts, breathing through his nose, then out his mouth, with chapped lips and a seemingly burnt tongue. He hears a twig snap nearby, but he ignores it, drowning himself in his overpowering emotions, mind focused on everything that’s happened today and every time he’d ever worked with Jefferson. 7, 8, 9, 10, he continues, wishing he were home, even if he doesn’t love anything about Arcadia Bay, even if he’d rather truly rot in the woods than ever return to the ocean.

Footsteps grow closer, but still, he ignores it. He can’t quite seem to control his breathing; it’s all so frantic and panicked and after everything he’s been through, breathing doesn’t seem necessary. He feels more like a waste of oxygen than he feels useful and talented like Rachel insists he is. Nathan’s always felt poisonous, anyway, but now the stinging in his lungs doesn’t matter now.

He would rather Jefferson blow to bits in that fire than ever see his face again, even if it’s mangled and chewed up by flames, still, he’s just glad God listened to him for the first time in his life. Nathan had prayed for him to magically disappear, but he’d never wanted it to be like this. He’d never wanted God to punish him for thinking differently, for being twisted, he guesses, but that doesn’t seem to matter now. They’re all being punished for Nathan’s sick mind now. He just curses himself and takes in another sharp breath.

And then there’s the disaster of his medication, stuck in a bag somewhere, of course, in his luggage, which still has yet to be found, and Nathan’s still spiraling. A million different scenarios go into his head where they’re never found, where he’s already outcast enough, but this is a hundred times worse. His image is twisted by whoever he truly is, and not how he’s perceived to be when he’s doped up all of the time. 

His breath grows quicker, his mind like a storm, his heart sinking at least a thousand feet into the depths of his stomach. He chokes back a dam of tears, and when he opens his eyes, Warren is standing there. 

“Nathan?” He asks weakly, face knitted in concern. “Are you okay?”

Nathan stares at him in disbelief. He can’t seem to find the words right away. 

“I saw you walk off, and I just…”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Nathan rubs the tears from his eyes and lowers his head, just enough for Warren to be oblivious of the clouds behind his eyelids, or the tears just barely bleeding from his eyes. Somehow, he can’t stop thinking about every time he’d ever sat and memorized Jefferson’s body language, just so he knew what to expect, nor can he stop the repeated images of his face when he’d get angry, or each time he’d make Nathan feel like the most disgusting boy on the planet. “I’m sorry.”

Again, the words sting in his mouth; he’d grown so used to them, but there’s a sudden weight lifted off his chest when he notices Rachel isn’t around to chastise him for saying it. He always thought it was just proper manners, after all, it was how he was taught, despite his own disdain towards his upbringing, but apparently not. 

Warren sticks his hands beneath his armpits. “You don’t have to be sorry, man. I saw you. You looked seriously disturbed, and I mean… we’re friends. I just want you to be okay.” 

Nathan hadn’t noticed, but his fingernails were digging into the dirt-streaked skin lining his arms, still hidden behind the fabric of Rachel’s flannel, sleeves barely riding up. But Warren doesn’t look. Primarily, his eyes are focused on the rubble below him, then the mud stretched across the soles of his tattered Converse, then back to Nathan and his face barely visible in the darkness.

“...Sorry,” Nathan repeats. This time, he doesn’t feel bad about it. 

“Can I sit with you?”

“...Sure, I guess.”

Nathan tucks his knees closer to his chest. Warren smiles sweetly, then plots himself down beside him. 

“Can I ask what happened?”

He lowers his head into his knees and responds with a muffled grumble. Warren takes that as a no, but Nathan slowly raises his head and rubs wet eyes with the back of his palm. 

“I just got freaked out,” he admits. “...overwhelmed, I guess.”

“About what?” Warren asks, and Nathan wonders how he’s one of Blackwell’s smartest students. “What, about Mr. Jefferson?”

“Yeah.”

“What was it?”

“You ask a lot of questions for somebody who’s supposed to be smart,” Nathan tells him. 

Warren shrinks. “Well, I’m curious. That’s just about as good as being smart. Y’know, you’re supposed to question everything. That’s the key to a healthy lifestyle. Questions, an apple a day, and… uh…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Nathan groans. “And whatthefuckever. Just… don’t ask about it. I’m feeling pretty fucked up.”

“We all are,” Warren tells him with a shy frown. “Nate, we’re all fucked up.”

Nathan looks at him, finally. He studies the way his hair falls over his eyes, knowing he’s in desperate need of a haircut, and the way his eyes look so bright and lively, even in the midnight glow. 

“I…I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Warren starts to laugh, but not at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m starting to get really sick of people telling me that I didn’t do anything wrong,” he confesses. “We all do bad things. Even if we don’t mean to.”

“Oh, trust me, Nathan, I know,” he says. “Even Kate Marsh thinks she blew up our plane. It isn’t anybody’s fault… besides whoever made the engine, I guess. But it’s not like those big buck corporations would care, anyways. Sorry if that offends you. I know you’re, like, totally loaded.”

“Do you think I care?”

“...I don’t know… I don’t like questions like that,” he says. “It’s so sudden. I’m not good at thinking on my feet.”

“You must’ve been pretty on your feet today, though.” Nathan slightly shifts closer. “I mean, we survived a fucking plane crash. I think we were all thinking pretty fast.”

“Right. I’m just glad nobody really… died… I mean… Wells and…”

Warren looks at Nathan for approval, but he’s looking awfully green. 

“...the other one… but I just mean… none of us died.”

“Can I tell you something, Warren?”

“Of course,” Warren says quickly, eyes flickering with excitement, shifting his position to be closer to Nathan beside him. 

“I’m scared out of my fucking mind,” Nathan tells him. “I know we’re all scared, but… there’s… there’s so much that nobody else knows about me, and I have to get out of here, I mean…”

Warren puts a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Hey, Nate,” he says, voice like an anchor, and it prevents Nathan from growing anxious. “It’s okay. Even if we’re out here a bit longer than we anticipated, I’ll be here for you. I know you don’t like to act like friends or anything at school, but… I really do like you, Nate. And I’m open to… talking, or whatever you need. If you’re feeling anxious, or if you just need a friend.”

Nathan feels genuinely touched. He stares at Warren for a time, memorizing every angle of his face, looping his words in his head, drawing as close as possible without it becoming weird. Warren seems clueless, though, with raised eyebrows and a face too calm to fully read. 

“...Thanks, Warren,” he mutters. “I really appreciate that. Like, I really do.”

“Course,” Warren says. “C’mon, let’s go back. I’m sure we’re missing out on Victoria publicly berating Courtney, or something.”

Nathan gives him a small smile, one that doesn’t feel entirely forced, for once, and takes his hand as he lifts him up from the earth.  

————————————————————

They’d come up with the decision to leave him in the plane. It was particularly painful for Victoria, but it was the only option; they took a vote, minus Warren and Nathan, and nobody had the guts to stick themselves back into the flaming vessel. 

Rachel tells her, “I’m sorry, Victoria, it was the only option.”

When Nathan hears of this, it doesn’t hit him right away. He goes to sleep that night, clinging to a blanket Rachel had shared with him, thinking about everything that’d happened that day—from the initial crash, to Wells, to Warren and Rachel and Jefferson and everything else. He doesn’t fall asleep for a long time, but when he does, he dreams that the plane’s black box is crushed into oblivion, wires torn and loose and slung haphazardly all over the place, and they’re all doomed.

Chapter Text

May 16, 2014

The survivors gather round two large graves, focused on the mounds of dirt, and Rachel wonders how they did such a great job burying them. When morning came and the fire from the fuselage had died down, Victoria and Rachel sent a few of the others back into the plane to collect bodies and anything that survived the crash—they returned with Nathan’s suitcase, a few discarded, tattered bags, and whatever remained of Mr. Jefferson.

Nathan was thrilled, to say the least. At least this way, he wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of the forest for God knows how long with the man who’d ruined his life. For the first time in Nathan’s 17 years, it seemed like God had been looking out for him, even if he’d punished his morals with a plane crash. 

At least they all chipped in and did a great job burying them. But Nathan just thinks it’s a bit ironic that the only adults on the plane, including the pilots, were the only ones to die. It feels more like a sick twist than anything else. Maybe it was meant to be that way; Nathan believes in fate, anyway. 

“Does anyone wanna say anything to them?” Rachel asks hesitantly. 

Nathan can’t take his eyes away from the mound of dirt with Jefferson’s name on it. Fuck you, and burn in Hell, I guess. But I still feel bad. Nobody really deserves to die, even if they ruined your life, he thinks, then bites his lip. Maybe I do for thinking that… God, if you can hear me, I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. But I’m probably gonna miss you anyway, even if I don’t want to. He stays quiet, though. 

“I’ll go,” Victoria says, teary eyed. Chloe scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Principal Wells, you were an asshole sometimes, but that was just a part of your job. I feel sort of bad that we never got to know you other than that and your divorce and your drinking problem.”

“Jesus,” Max mutters. 

“What? It’s just the truth,” she snaps back. “I’m really sorry we were all so horrible to you.”

Kate lowers her head and lets her eyes flutter closed. Chloe has her arms crossed, and Nathan is still staring down at the mound of dirt before him with a white face. Warren stands beside him, watching Nathan’s eyes flicker across every inch of the grave, every speck of dirt, and every pebble in the soil. 

“And Mr. Jefferson…” She begins, clearing her throat, and Courtney puts a steadying hand on her shoulder. “...Mark… You were the best teacher I ever had… I learned so much from you and your work… and… I… Oh, I can’t do this…”

She turns away, burying her face in Courtney’s shoulder, her expression suddenly stricken with shock as she rubs a hand down her back and shushes her. Rachel grumbles under her breath, then looks up to find Nathan’s eyes. 

“Anyone else?” She asks. “Nathan?”

Nathan, startled, raises his head, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. “What?”

“Do you want to say anything?” Rachel asks again, and Nathan goes pale.

“No,” he sputters. “I’m okay. Sorry. Thanks.”

“It’s okay,” Kate says softly. “Let’s pray for them.”

The survivors reluctantly join hands and form a sort of lopsided circle around the makeshift graves, heads bowed in respect, as Kate leads a final prayer for those lost to the woods. 

“Oh Lord, please accept Principal Wells into your arms,” she says, her eyes closed and chest rising with every breath she takes. “And please accept Mr. Jefferson, too, and flight attendant Janet and pilot Robert and…”

————————————————————

May 17, 2014 

Dana shuffles over to the rest of the group as they’re serving a scarce ‘breakfast’, with half-empty water bottles taken from the bar cart and eerily small packs of trail mix. She pulls over her own bag and takes out a large, foldable makeup kit, sorting through supplies for anything the others could use. 

Rachel sits against a tree with her poison ivy infected leg slung out in front of her. She scratches, but Nathan, taking a quick sip from a water bottle then passing it to Warren, gives her a hard look. 

“Don’t scratch it,” he tells her, but she just groans in response. “it could get infected.”

“If poison ivy is what kills me out here, then I deserve to die.” She mumbles under her breath. 

The sun beats down on the remaining group like it really is some scorching summer day, where they’d all just happened to be stranded in the middle of woods and forest. Nathan hugs his knees close and watches Warren take a quick swig from the water bottle, his lips pressed right where Nathan’s had just been. They lock eyes again, and Warren gives him a brief smile. 

Nathan breaks apart a piece of some small shortbread cookies Juliet had brought with her and hands the other half to Rachel. “Close your eyes and pretend it’s bacon,” he says, and Rachel graciously takes it with a smile. 

“God, I really miss bacon,” Warren says with a sigh. 

“I think we all miss everything about the real world,” Max replies, knees to her chest, nearly-empty water bottle by her side. She holds her camera in her lap and fidgets with it as she continues to speak. “We could’ve been having the time of our lives in Seattle right now…”

“C’mon guys, don’t be so down,” Rachel says enthusiastically. “When the rescue team gets here—”

“If it gets here,” Chloe adds. 

“Don’t say that,” she says sternly. 

Nathan gently adds, “It has been 3 days, Rach…”

Rachel’s eyes blaze, her determination stronger than it was before, “They’re coming,” she says firmly, like her belief is all that matters, and Nathan just hangs his head. 

Victoria jumps to her feet, frustrated, fists clenched, repeating to the camp, “I’m going on a walk. Feel fucking free to join me.”

All eyes land on Taylor and Courtney, still sitting in the dewy grass with their knees tucked in, and they scramble to their feet and follow close behind. They watch them scurry off between the trees and stumble awkwardly over each other. Rachel sighs, and Nathan shuffles away from the group with his fists tucked into his pockets. 

————————————————————

Nathan crouches over his suitcase, tearing through each pocket and completely ripping it insides out like he’s gutting it like a turkey. He searches through his clothes, which still smell like burnt plastic and cigarette smoke, then through each pocket until he finds his prescription with a sigh of relief. 

When he took them yesterday, he guesses he panicked and put them in the wrong spot, but that’s just another thing Nathan’s messed up during this time in the forest. But he just sighs and swallows a couple dry, then closes his eyes and waits for his hands to stop shaking in his lap. 

From the distance, Max and Warren watch curiously as he stuffs the pills back into his suitcase, hidden under his folded sweaters and clothes he and Rachel had shared when they were a bit younger. They give each other a confused glance when he rises to his feet and waddles back over to the rest of the group, and it just makes no sense. 

————————————————————

While they grow impatient waiting for Victoria and the others to return, Warren takes a swig from the water bottle he’d been sharing with Nathan and panics when he forgets to offer him the last sip. Nathan says nothing, but that isn’t unusual. He stares dizzily at the ground before him, eyes unfocused and his face completely still, but Chloe just notes that he looks haunted by a ghost. 

“Maybe it’s the ghost of Principal Wells,” Dana says. “Or maybe Mr. Jefferson,” Max adds, and Nathan goes completely pale. 

Nobody says anything about it other than Warren, who puts a hand on his shoulder and tries to muster up a genuine smile to lift his spirits. There isn’t much spirit there in the first place, but Nathan just raises his shoulders and lets out a dry sigh while Warren pats his back. At least that makes the uneasy feeling settle in his chest, and he suddenly doesn’t feel like puking anymore than he already has. 

“No, but imagine it,” Max continues without noticing the horror on Nathan’s face. “The ghosts of two under-paid educators roaming the forest… students haunted by their ghosts…”

“And Rachel Amber swears that she saw Principal Wells taking a dump in the woods,” Chloe adds. 

“That doesn’t do much for the story,” Brooke grumbles. “I don’t like the odds of seeing that out here.”

They laugh, all minus Nathan. He can feel his chest tightening with every mangled breath he tries to take, anxiously picking at the skin from his arm, and even after all of this, the burden of hunger in his stomach just feels too familiar. 

The next time he raises his head, they’re all looking at him weird, with awful, twisted faces that don’t seem like their own. He blinks, then takes a deep breath, and the blur is gone, but they’re still looking at him. 

Kate kindly reaches out to touch his shoulder. “Nathan?”

“What?” He asks, looking around nervously. 

“Your nose is bleeding,” Kate says. 

Nathan brings his fingers to his nose, rubbing metallic blood from beneath his nose, the taste apparent on his lips and across his teeth. He hadn’t noticed, but they’re all looking at him still, with curious faces and furrowed eyebrows and concern and all, and he just wants out. 

“I’m okay,” he spits out, panicked. “Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Max asks again, face hard, and he feels like disappearing. 

He’d rather have just died in the crash than have to survive out in the wilderness where nobody really knew a thing about him; minus Rachel, of course, but he still had secrets hidden from her that she would never know. But it all feels too ironic that somehow he’d survived, even after all of the times he’d been cooped up in his room and stared at nothing but the darkness of his bedroom floor and mindlessly prayed to disappear without a trace or something along those lines. It would’ve been so much more poetic if he’d died when the plane went down and everybody was out there to mourn him, because at least that way he’d really died, but now he simply did just disappear without a trace. 

Nathan buries his head into his knees. The blood from his nose leaks onto his jeans, joining the splattered dirt and ash in some sort of sick reminder of what he’s already had to endure, and it’s only been 3 days. It makes him feel pathetic, knowing he’ll never survive out here, especially with how weak he is, inside and out, but he doesn’t need any pity from anybody else. He’s already had enough in 17 years.

“I don’t know,” his voice cracks. The next time he raises his head, blood is smeared over his lips, and he fights back the tears stinging his eyes. 

Rachel puts her hands on his shoulders and pulls him closer towards her. “Hey, hey, what is it?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats, firmer this time, with tears blurring his vision. Warren carefully watches, face knitted up in worry, but Rachel gives him a look to back away. “I’m just so fucking scared.”

“We’re all scared,” Rachel says again, acting as if she hasn’t already told him this hundreds of times since they’d crashed, cradling him in her arms like nobody else is watching, acting like nothing is wrong when two people are dead and food is running out. “Nathan, you’re not the only one who’s scared—”

“I had a dream last night,” he says, and Rachel freezes mid-sentence. 

She anxiously looks up at the group; first, Chloe, with angry eyes and then Max beside her, camera still hidden in her lap; then Kate, with sorrow behind her irises and tears staining her face; then Warren, with his hands stretched out for Nathan, but Rachel has it under control. 

Her heart sinks—she knows what it means when Nathan has a dream like this. She knows what he’s like at his worst, and she’s seen him there, too, at rock bottom, with bloody arms and a tear-stained face and miserable eyes clouded with a sadness that’s never truly been lifted. She knows what it’s like when he hasn’t been taking his meds, and she knows all too well what it means when he has a dream like this. 

“Excuse us,” Rachel says to the group, clumsily bringing herself and Nathan to their feet and stumbling off behind a tree to talk in private. All of their eyes follow as they hurry away, then they each turn to each other. “Nathan, what happened?”

He heaves through his tears. “I… I had… a dream… that…fuck, Rachel, I’m really scared.”

“Nate, it’s okay, just tell me what happened,” she says, her voice like wind. “please.” 

“The… the transmitter,” he cries. “or whatever it is. It’s broken. I know where it is. I’m… fucking…”

“What?” She asks, jaw dropped and skin pale. “It’s—”

“It’s broken, Rachel. It’s fucking destroyed. You can’t get a fucking signal when the wires are all fucked,” he shouts. “We’re not going home. We’re all… we’re… gonna fucking die out here, I’m…”

“No. No. We’re not dying out here,” she swallows. “Even if rescue doesn’t come, we can… I don’t know… we can…”

Nathan’s sobs are broken by the sound of Victoria’s voice, loud enough to have the birds overhead scurry through the air, then flock off together. She stumbles over herself by the campfire, Taylor and Courtney behind her, her face slick with sweat and dirt. 

The three of them come stumbling in, dizzily, and Victoria cries, “There’s a lake!” 

Excitedly, they come buzzing forward. Rachel cranes her head over her shoulder to listen, their silhouettes barely visible between the greenery of oak trees. Her and Nathan look at each other, Nathan, still, with tears in his eyes and snot from his nose, and Rachel just brushes hair from her own eyes and tries to smile sweetly.

“We saw it from the hill,” Victoria says excitedly. “It can’t be that far away.”

“Do you think we could hike it?” Stella asks. 

“I mean, it looked kinda steep and rocky and stuff, but it can’t be that bad,” she explains. “So, yeah.”

“I don’t wanna hike, though,” Juliet complains. “My feet already hurt enough.”

“Oh, grow up. The rest of us are hella thirsty,” Chloe says. “A nice dip in a lake wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I’m sure we could do it,” Kate says quietly. “If you just saw it from the hill, I mean…”

Nathan and Rachel rejoin the camp, despite the fact that his eyes and nose are still red. They give the two of them another confused look, and Nathan ducks his head in embarrassment. 

“You found a lake?” Rachel asks. 

“Uh-huh,” Victoria says smugly, a bit too prideful, and Rachel crosses her arms. 

She thinks for a time. About what, only God knows, but she raises her head, saying, “We can’t just… leave, though.”

“We have enough water, I think,” Taylor says. “We should be able to last. Do you really wanna just sit here and die?”

“What if the rescue team comes,” she says, trailing off when the sadness over Nathan’s face returns to her. She swallows, hard and dry, then finds her tattered Doc Martens on the ground. 

“Do you think they’re taking their time on purpose?” Max replies. “Sorry, Rachel, but if they were coming, they’d be here by now.”

“You don’t know that!” She says, anger blinding her, and Nathan squeezes his eyes shut. 

“What do you think, Nathan?” Kate asks him quietly, with a smooth, silky voice and pretty, light eyes on him, even if they’re still clouded by tears and fear. 

He perks up innocently. “Sorry?”

“Do you think we should go to the lake or stay here?”

He stares at her for a while, though he hadn’t meant to. Only, he gathers his thoughts, still so saddened and snot-nosed and desperate for rescue that he knows will never come. He briefly glimpses down at his dirt/blood-stained sneakers, with the holes in the sides from all of the time that’d worn them down. 

Nathan knows that there’s nothing for them here. Deep down, Rachel must know, too, judging by that stern, yet horrified look on her face that’s trying to make her look much more put together than she actually is. He knows that Rachel always has things under control, even if she doesn’t seem like she does, but this is too much. She doesn’t get to decide for everybody what to do, and she knows that the power she had back in Arcadia means nothing here. 

His lip quivers. “The lake.”

Rachel looks betrayed. He briefly catches a spark of anger in her eye, even if she too knows that rescue will never come. But clinging onto the idea of planes shooting overhead and dropping low to the trees would bring her comfort, and now that’s been ripped away from her, too. But Rachel really has no idea what it’s like to be Nathan Prescott, and she will never know what it’s like to have dreams so horrible and vivid, even when he doesn’t want to. 

“This is bullshit. I say no way,” Rachel declares, but no one budges. 

“Why don’t we vote?” Stella asks.

“Okay, sure, whatever,” Rachel complains. “It’s all about what you guys want, huh?”

“It’s up to a vote, not either one of you,” Dana adds. “But there’s no way we can just stand here and rescue’s gonna come.”

“All in favor of waiting here?” Victoria asks, her hip stuck out, and Rachel shoots her hand up. She looks to Nathan for backup, but he avoids her eyes. A few others stick their hands up quietly, as not to anger her, Nathan guesses. “All in favor of the lake?”

Victoria raises her hand. Almost apologetically, the remaining slowly lift up their hands, heads ducked, eyes avoided. Nathan raises his hand, too, eyes aimed at his sneakers, but he can still feel Rachel’s eyes burning into the side of his head. 

“Then it’s settled,” Victoria says smugly, hand on her hip and a rewarded look stretched upon her face. 

Nathan briefly glimpses back at Rachel, her face sullen and seemingly betrayed, and his heart sinks. 

————————————————————

The sun beats down on the wreckage, the heat like a furnace, and with a sweaty exhaust washed over the camp, they each gather their belongings and roll up their blood-stained sleeves with palms across their faces. Nathan steals Rachel’s lipstick from her suitcase and scrawls in big, red letters across the side of the plane, SOS. GONE TO LAKE, then stuffs it into his pocket with his backpack slung over his shoulder. 

Chloe emerges from the cockpit with the plane’s compass, blood smeared on her boots, then grimaces once she notices. The wilderness calls in the form of birds overhead, cawing at the sight of bold letters across the wreckage when paired with a group of sweaty, unprepared photography students from nowhere in particular. The trees nearly swallow them all whole as they begin their route to said lake, drenched in three-day old blood and sweat, all heading down the arches of rocky terrain through the woods. 

For a time, it’s eerily quiet as everybody listens to the leaves rustling gently in a soft breeze. Rachel’s mud-patterned sneakers (she’d changed out of her Doc Martens) barely give way under the rock and soil beneath her two feet, and Nathan watches anxiously as she sulks while itching the rash on her leg. 

He hurries behind her, offering a water bottle to her. “Want the rest?”

Rachel glares at it. “Your backwash? I’ll pass.”

Hurt, he shuffles ahead. Victoria sidles up beside him, her hair messy in her eyes, something so incredibly unusual for someone as put together as her. They trade a glance, then Victoria motions to Rachel behind them. 

“Thanks for having my back in the vote,” she speaks quietly, as if she’s exchanging secrets, and Nathan just returns it with an awkward, uncomfortable smile.

“I didn’t have your back. It was just what I thought.” 

“Either way, I’m sure it was the right choice,” she replies. 

“You don’t know that.” His jaw hardens. “I mean, we think we’re doing the right thing. But really, we have no clue.”

“Look, I’m so sorry Rachel is pissed at you, but we couldn’t just sit there and live off of false hope,” she explains with a frown tugging at her lips. Nathan stares at her, a bit unsettlingly, to be fair, but he’s always been a bit off-putting. But nobody has the courage to say anything. “Did you really think rescue was just gonna magically appear or something?”

“No,” he admits. “But she’s my best friend. And, apparently, the only person who cares enough to want to get the fuck out of here.”

“Nathan, do you think I don’t? I’m fucking miserable. And I know you, are, too,” she says, “but is that really so unusual?”

“What?” His stomach drops. 

“No, seriously, Nathan. You’re fucking miserable. Is there anything you even like about the world, or are you just living in it?”

“What the fuck is your problem?” He snaps back. Her face flickers with surprise, knowing she hadn’t been entirely sincere, but she hadn’t meant for him to explode. He stiffens when he feels eyes all around him, and not just the ones carved into the birch trees, but everybody’s, watching as he reddens. “I’m not… miserable, or whatthefuckever you said.”

“You sure look it to me,” she says quietly, then pouts. “Something’s wrong with you.”

He stares at her in disbelief. Those words ring in his ears for a long time, though she hadn’t really meant it, deep down, he knows it's true. 

They all continue walking ahead, even without Nathan saying a word, and he draws back from the rest of the group and remains stone and frustrated with nobody but himself in the back of the line. Rachel glimpses at him from afar, but he avoids her eyes. 

And as time passes, he sulks, holding onto both straps of his backpack while the others move infinitely quicker than he’ll ever be. Stella points out a black shape barely visible through the trees, and as they approach, they grimace; the carcass of a bear is pressed to the ground, guts and entrails exposed, head halfway gnawed off, with patchy, maggot-infested fur and meat ravaged and exposed.

“Oh, gross,” Dana grumbles, clutching her stomach. 

“I’m gonna puke,” Courtney gags. 

“Whoa. Sick,” Warren coos, and Nathan looks at him curiously. 

“What could have done that?” Nathan asks. 

Brooke replies, “A wolf, probably. My guess is something with lots of teeth. Sharp ones, too.”

“They can kill a fucking bear?” Chloe asks, staring at the carcass with wide eyes in all of his mangled glory.

“Yeah. Wolves can kill just about anything as long as the packs big enough,” she says, and that settles in the air for a time.

————————————————————

The survivors continue through the terrain, rocky and tough, with sheets of sweat splayed over their wet foreheads and clothes drenched in the same. Rachel is panting like a dog, and Nathan’s still stuck in the back like the caboose of a line in elementary school. He shuffles his feet along the dirt and frowns when mud is smeared darker across the soles of his sneakers, then grumbles as they continue forward without a word. 

“Are you sure it was even a lake?” Stella asks, out of breath and sweaty. 

“It had to have been,” Victoria insists from the front of the line. “I swear there was one.”

“Well, it’s been a lot more than however long you said it’d take to get there,” Brooke complains. Dana and Juliet hum in agreement. 

“This is why we should’ve just stayed,” Rachel chimes in, but she’s ignored. 

Suddenly, Chloe stops, pointing out something glimmering faintly in the distance between the ferny trees, shouting and cheering, “Oh, hell yeah, bitches!” 

“What?” A few call out, turning their heads—and there sits the lake in all of it’s glory, sparkling with the sun pounding down against the murky color, surrounded by a rocky beach and thick oak trees on either side. Immediately, they go rushing towards it, clumsily stumbling over the terrain and tripping over themselves to navigate towards it. 

Nathan follows reluctantly. The lake shimmers in front of them with a sort of golden hue, like its been here waiting for them the entire time. Most of the girls rush in, pulling their shirts and shorts off and tossing them to the side with the rest of their luggage, flopping belly-first into the icy water and wincing at the cold on their overheated skin. 

“Jesus, that’s cold!” Max cries. Chloe swims by her and splashes her with water, and Max flinches and throws her hands up in front of her. “Chloe!”

Chloe laughs maniacally. Rachel joins in, briefly smiling as she shuffles awkwardly into the water. Not even Victoria shoots her a look, but some of the other girls are staring, but that isn’t entirely out of character. 

Warren follows behind, struggling out of his shirt and stepping carefully into the water against the rocks. Nathan watches, though, he hadn’t meant to, and Warren swims out a bit further and complains about how cold it is. Only Nathan and Kate sit alone on the beach, watching the others splash around like they were all meant to be fish in another lifetime, laughing, smiling, caring about each other, and whatever else Nathan is unfamiliar with. 

Kate hugs herself, slowly easing her cardigan off, though it still doesn’t reveal anything. “Hi, Nathan,” she says with a sweet smile. 

He looks at her. “Hey, Kate.”

“Are you okay?” She asks politely, face slightly sunburnt. 

“I guess,” he replies. “When is anyone ever okay.”

“I get that,” Kate says. “Is everything okay with Rachel?”

“Yeah.” He pulls his knees to his chest. “Just another day. She’s mad because I didn’t want to stay by the plane, I mean…”

“I know.” Kate turns to fully face him. She’s incredibly beautiful, with a slim, freckled face and sad eyes and pretty, beaver hair. “I don’t think we were supposed to stay at the plane. It felt wrong… being near the… bodies, and all… and plus, we would’ve never found this lake.”

He tries to smile, but it doesn’t come to him. Nathan sometimes wonders how it comes easily to people like Rachel and Warren, with their signature smiles and rays of sunshine and whatever else. 

“Right.”

“You don’t wanna swim?” She tilts her head curiously. 

“And neither do you?” Nathan asks. “I just… I’m not feeling it, I guess. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Kate looks wistfully at the sun in the sky, dancing before her eyes, clouded by a baby blue sky. “Can I tell you something, Nathan?”

“Shoot,” he says, unfocused. Only, he’s watching Warren carry Brooke on his shoulders, laughing, splashing and flailing around.

“I think you’re a good person, Nathan, and you were just trying to do what is right,” she continues. His heart soars for a minute, though it isn’t entirely aimed at Kate, just her words, “but it isn’t worth ending a friendship over.”

Nathan laughs. “We aren’t ending a friendship, this happens all of the time. We disagree and she mopes around. I love Rachel, but she can’t admit she’s wrong. That’s just the truth.”

“Oh…” Kate hums, cocking her head at Rachel swimming alone in the water, drifting off down the stream, her wet hair slicked to her head. “Well at least you know that. But does she?”

“No, she doesn’t,” he says, “she’s my best friend. And, God, I don’t know what I’d do without her, but I mean… we all have issues. Nobody is perfect. Especially me.”

“Why do you say that?”

Nathan finally looks at Kate and her sunburnt face, still light with sincerity and freckles and all.

“We all do bad things,” he says, voice wavering, “everybody does. Not just me, not just Rachel, not just you or anybody else.” He stuffs his face in between his knees, still turning his head to face Kate. He sort of laughs awkwardly, “I’m already convinced I’m gonna die out here and get… shipped off to Hell or whateverthefuck.”

“What?” She sits up. “Don’t say that. You aren’t going to Hell, Nathan.”

“You don’t know that, Kate,” he says firmly. “And I do, so.”

She thinks for a moment, staring down at the sand by her feet with a small frown plastered on her sunburnt skin. Finally, she asks, “You’re religious?”

“Sort of. Sometimes, I guess.”

“Oh… I didn’t know that…” She hums to herself, pondering. “What, um…”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

“Sorry,” she apologizes, her face red, and not just from sunburn. “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t,” he says sternly, his face in his knees, and he just sighs. 

In the water, the girls (plus Warren) are playing an aggressive game of Marco Polo, Max, with her eyes shut and arms bobbling in the water, and everybody else splayed off in every direction, shouting and cawing. Warren is swimming around aimlessly with Brooke and Stella, and Rachel’s joined in on the game.

Nathan studies Rachel for a time, watching as she attaches herself to somebody else like they’re her best friend, and not him. For a second, he feels left behind, but he’s been feeling it for the three days they’d already been there. 

Rachel catches his eye, briefly, though, and they compete in a staring contest for at least three seconds; eyes locked, jaws clenched, tears stinging eyes, whatever. Rachel turns away once it’s over, scoffing, and Nathan rolls his eyes. 

Warren cranes his head over his shoulder and whirls around when something in the distance catches his eye, apparently, and he goes pointing and shouting, “Guys. Look.”

Everybody turns. From across the hill ahead is a reflective, white light, bright and glowing from within the trees. They all scramble out of the water, grabbing their belongings, clothes soaked with green lake water and such, rushing back into the brush to find the source of said white light. 

Warren leads the way, with Nathan lingering not too far behind. The survivors scurry up the hill and back through the endlessly wooded area, stumbling over rock and hard soil with each step. Finally, after they make their way back up the hill, Warren pauses and cheers in victory. 

Nathan creeps up behind Warren. In front of them, tucked behind overgrown grass and weighted down trees, is a sad, shadowed wooden cabin. They trade excited looks, then rush to the front porch, banging on windows, kicking at doors, stomping on the floorboards and checking for any supplies left out in the open. 

The remainder of the group come up behind them. Max and Kate run to a small shed linked away from the main cabin, seemingly for storing meat, they guess, and Chloe peers in through the window. 

“Anybody home?” Victoria shouts, banging her fist against the door

“Why would anybody be home?” Brooke scoffs, her arms crossed, and that warrants a laugh from Stella. Juliet and Dana turn their heads to watch as Victoria stomps off the porch with her arms raised, then Rachel takes her spot by the door, still anxiously avoiding Nathan’s eyes.

“Try breaking down the door,” Warren suggests. Rachel glances between him and Nathan, then kicks open the front door with the soles of her sneakers. It flies open and slams against the back wall; the inside is completely deserted, with everything covered head to toe in nothing but dust and cobwebs. 

Nathan is the first to step inside, followed by Warren, then Rachel. Perched on the wall beside the door is the skeleton of a deer, large antlers bestowed upon its head like a crown, and Nathan drags his fingers along the exterior, wiping dust from the figure, then wiping it off on his jeans. 

Rachel heads straight for the pantry. Warren and Brooke go through the kitchen area, digging through cupboards and drawers for anything useful, then Victoria and her posse enter with a sort of disheveled flair to them. Victoria, with a scowl and crossed arms, sends Taylor off to look for food with Rachel, and Courtney locks eyes with the fireplace and the trophies of taxidermy and bones hung on every corner. 

A cheer erupts from the pantry, then Rachel stumbles out with an open can of peas. “Yes! Food!” She cries, then peels open the lid… just to drop it onto the floor with a groan of disgust. 

“Rachel, that isn’t your personal fucking buffet,” Victoria shouts, then looks down at the sopping, slug-like green slimy mess on the floorboards. They all grumble for a while, let-down, but stand their ground. 

But Rachel isn’t having it. With wet hair and all, she points down at the “peas”, shouting, “See, this is why we should’ve stayed in the plane!” 

“Yeah, well, we didn’t,” Chloe says. “So this is helping… how… exactly?”

“This place is a fucking nightmare,” Rachel whispers to nobody but herself and the wind. 

As she speaks, she looks right at Nathan, standing just below the deer head, making it appear to the others that he somehow possesses antlers or some sort. Rachel scoffs, then rushes out, taking her backpack with her. 

“Is somebody going to stop her?” Max asks as she slowly enters with Kate by her side. 

“Guess not,” Brooke replies, turning back to the cupboards and pulling out old, rusted tupperware. 

“It reeks in here,” Juliet complains, pinching her nose as she goes further inside. 

“Well, get used to it,” Chloe says in return. “Looks like we’re gonna be here for a hella long time.”

“I hope not.” Dana turns back to the fireplace and grimaces at the animal heads perched on the walls. “Yuck.”

Through the window, Nathan gets a glimpse of Rachel on the side patio, her head tucked into her arms and her knees up, her backpack beside her and clothes splayed everywhere. Through the blurry window, he can only see her swallowed by amber hair and foamy lake water, then a cloud of sadness as she buries her head deeper into herself. 

He goes for the door, but Victoria stops him. “Nate, can I talk to you?”

“About what.” He asks, deadpanned, though his stomach twists with anxiety. 

“Just… I’m sorry for what I said earlier," she admits. “It was out of line. I was fucked up for that. Please don’t hate me. I really do love you.”

“It’s fine,” he says quickly, avoiding her eyes. “I’m alright. Thanks for apologizing. Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” There it is again, and he hangs his head in embarrassment. 

“Nothing. I don’t know,” he fumbles with his words, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, dust from the deer antlers still present on his fingers, and that bugs the fuck out of him. “Sorry, I just… I need to check on Rachel.”

She deflates, visibly upset, but nods. “Fine. Do whatever you want. Sorry, again… I… I know I can be a rotten bitch sometimes, but I really didn’t mean that, Nate. There isn’t anything wrong with you. And if there was, who am I to judge? You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had, okay?”

“I know,” he says, forcing a smile. “You are, too. Thanks, Vic.”

She nods again, briefly. “Love you.” Then, she watches him rush out the door. And as he goes, she quickly remarks, “Wait! Nate!”

He turns around wildly, hair undone and eyes wide. 

“What?”

She bats her eyes, frowning, “You didn’t say you love me back.”

He lets out a heavy sigh. “I love you.”

“Thanks,” she says with a smile, then watches him clumsily hurry down the front steps. 

Rachel is sitting there, propped against the wooden pillars barely holding up the rickety hunting cabin. She doesn’t notice Nathan standing there, backpack slung over his shoulders, and dust still lingering on his fingers. 

“Rachel,” he calls, hands behind his back and an innocent look plastered on his face. Rachel raises her head and turns like a deer in headlights, watching as he slowly steps closer. “C’mon. Let’s talk.”

“What’s there to talk about?” She groans, hiding her face behind her two palms. 

Nathan sits down on the porch beside her. He takes a deep breath to regulate whatever emotions he’s feeling, then goes into his prepared monologue, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, okay? I have no idea what’s right and wrong out here. I just went with my gut so we wouldn’t die of thirst. I don’t know about you, but I’m really fucking scared. They should have come for us by now… and… what if they're not going to?”

Rachel’s face softens with a beat. Nathan chokes up slightly, but keeps his sad blue eyes angled on her to make her feel that familiar pang of guilt. 

“I just really need my best friend right now,” he says, teary-eyed, “I really need us to be okay.”

With a pause, Rachel stretches out her arms and drapes them over Nathan’s shoulders. “Come here,” she says quietly and breathlessly, pulling him into a warm embrace against the side patio. “The worst is behind us, okay? We survived a fucking plane crash. We’re gonna be fine.”

Nathan smiles, biting back a smile, knowing he’s got his best friend back. There was never any doubt on his part, but he can never be so sure with Rachel. They’re both similar in that way, he guesses, with rapid mood swings and uncontrollable anger and sadness and all. He knows how she likes to feel like she’s the brave one, and she knows about how he needs attention on its own. They know just about everything about each other and their twisted insides, and that’s what makes them so perfect. 

“Did you take your meds?” Rachel asks silently, her arms still wrapped around his neck and her head on his shoulder. He stiffens, but nods, and she draws back to study him. “Did you?”

“Yes, Rach, I did,” he says, then deflates when her face grows more frightened than before. “I’m sorry.”

“So… nobody else knows?” She leans a bit closer, her ear close enough to his ear where she can whisper and nothing will be heard. Again, he just nods and tries to muster up a smile, but he always looks permanently sad. That’s at least what Rachel’s told him, and he hates that about himself. “Are you sure? Nobody… saw you or anything?”

“I don’t think so,” he confesses. “I don’t know. I hadn’t been looking or anything, I was just…”

“And that’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to account for everything, Nate. It’s fine. Let’s just… get ourselves sorted out.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Nathan asks again, frowning. “I’m sorry for not being on your side with the vote.”

“I know you are, and it’s okay,” she says with a forced smile. “I’m fine. Thanks for worrying, I guess.”

“Always,” Nathan says. “I love you, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” Rachel lowers her head, studying the mud-patterned, baggy red and black flannel he’s wearing, noting it as her own, then smiling. “I love you, too.”

————————————————————

Throughout the rest of daylight, the group gathers belongings and supplies and merge through said hunting cabin. They dig through every drawer, every inch, every corner of the cabin and search for whatever they can use. Here and there, they’ll find a blanket or a yellowing, moldy pillow tucked into a chest or a bag or something, and they’ll all gag and throw it off into the distance while Warren  and Max clean up everybody’s mess. 

Sitting on the coffee table in the kitchenette is a hunting knife, dull, and nearly rusty, with a wooden base and no reflection in the blade. Nathan takes it for himself, almost enchanted, staring at it in the palm of his hand while the others scurry off. 

“What can we do with that?” Victoria asks over his shoulder. They trade looks, and he returns his eyes to the blade clenched in his fist. “I’d rather not turn to some violent Lord Of The Flies shit, okay? Is that what that’s for?”

“Didn’t know you knew how to read, Victoria,” Rachel jabs smarmily, looking at Nathan for approval, who just shrugs.

“Ew, no,” Taylor gags. “I’m sure it’s for, like, hunting.”

“Wow. Good answer,” Chloe adds. “It’s called a hunting knife for a reason, dipshit.”

“Jeez, do you need to be such a dick about it?” Taylor snaps back, face red and arms crossed. Courtney and Victoria both go to join her by her side, staring daggers into Chloe, then Max, standing crookedly beside her by the front door as the sun sets in the orange sky above leafy trees. 

“It’s probably for butchering, or something,” Warren says as he frees himself from the half-open pantry. “So when we hunt, we can, like… get the meat.”

“Bingo,” Chloe begins, but is shut down by a look from Rachel across the room. 

“Who the hell actually knows how to do any of that shit?” Taylor asks with a scoff. The room falls silent—except for Nathan, who shoots his free hand up, the other still tightly clenching the hunting knife so hard his knuckles turn white. 

Everybody stares at him for a period of time. Speechless, Rachel cocks her head in curiously, then Nathan and Kate and Max follow, staring blankly. 

“You?” Taylor asks in disbelief, almost laughing. 

“Yeah,” he admits. “My… dad used to take me deer hunting every year when I was a kid,” Nathan continues, “to toughen me up, or something. I guess. I don’t know.”

“So, you know how to hunt?” Warren brings himself to Nathan’s side, barely looming over his shoulder and eyes flickering to the knife in his white fist. 

“Sure,” Nathan says blankly. 

“Are you serious?” Rachel asks, making her way across the kitchenette to face him, her eyes wide with surprise mixed with a sense of wonder. “I didn’t know I had anything new to learn about you,” she laughs, then, “guess I was wrong. What a little hunter boy we’ve got here…”

Rachel teases, pinching his nose, and he giggles. “Stop—” he laughs, and Rachel moves her hand back. “It’s easy enough. I mean… I could probably teach you guys. We could… get food… and then…I dunno, eat it. So we don’t starve, maybe?”

“Good fucking idea,” Chloe says with a laugh, throwing her head back over her shoulder. 

“Yeah, I… don’t want to starve to death,” Max says, pulling her wet hoodie closer to herself. 

“I know what I’m doing,” Nathan says firmly, glimpsing back down at the blade in his hand with hard eyes. 

Outside, the sun briefly sets over the sky, another red-orange hue stretched across the Canadian Rockies sky, wilderness endlessly spread ahead, trees and mountains and hills and rocks all glowing radiantly over the sky, cutting through the edges of white clouds against warmer colors. 

————————————————————

Some of the survivors are asleep against the cabin floor, wrapped up endlessly in blankets and sleeping bags and clothes they’d brought, but didn’t care for. Rachel sleeps alone by the window, a vacant spot beside her, and twists mindlessly as night carries on. 

Victoria glimpses around the room as she settles into bed, only, something isn’t right, and somebody is missing; she sits back up, studying each body on the ground… 

Nathan, she thinks. Quickly, she pulls a sweater over herself and hurries out the front door. Only, he’s sitting alone on the deck, his arms wrapped around himself wearily, and his eyes wide and unfocused on the ground before him. 

She sneaks up behind him, whispering, “Fuck’s your deal? Come back inside, it’s freezing.”

Nathan looks uneasily at the cabin behind them, then back at Victoria. “I just… I have a really bad feeling about this place, Vic.”

“Yeah, because it stinks,” she says carelessly, “and there are probably fucking spiders that could eat your face off. But after that bear we saw today, I’m not gonna let you sleep out here.”

Still, Nathan refuses to move; half of his face is shadowed by midnight darkness, only the whites of his eyes are illuminated by the glowing moon hidden above the deck of the hunting cabin. He lowers his head, staring at the floorboards. 

“‘A bad feeling?’ Are you kidding me right now? I don’t believe in that shit, and you’re not going to, either. Now get your ass inside.” 

Victoria firmly grabs Nathan by the sleeve of his sweater, pulling him reluctantly back towards the entrance to the cabin. His eyes, barely visible in the darkness, are horrified, watching as Victoria pulls him back inside. 

————————————————————

Sometime long past midnight and after Victoria brought Nathan back inside of the cabin, a slow, steady creaking erupts from the attic; harsh and low, like dragging nails across chalkboard, and nearly silent. Carefully, she pries open the pantry to see a rickety ladder heading above, and she takes those chances. 

 When she comes upstairs, there’s Nathan, sitting against the back wall, panting, with darkened eyes focused primarily on something hidden behind Victoria’s view. 

“Nate?” She asks cautiously, the flickering light of the lantern not enough to move him. 

“I told you,” he says quietly, his voice barely above a whisper, and his gaze remaining on whatever lies behind her. 

Slowly, she turns. There, in a motionless rocking chair, sits a skeleton, whatever remains tight to its body, clutching a hunting rifle, dusty, chewed-up clothes clung to bone and marrow, eye sockets empty and hair peeling off its scalp. She lets out a blood-curdling scream, unaware of Nathan mindlessly joining in behind him, each screaming with raw throats and lively, tear-clouded eyes and fear bubbling up somewhere deep inside of them. 

————————————————————

That night, Nathan has a dream where he’s stuck in the middle of the forest, but either way he turns, there’s no way to escape. He finds a rickety, rusted vessel of what appears to be the very plane they’d crashed in, only, it isn’t as mangled and deformed. He tries to pry open the bolted doors, but nothing happens. 

And as he plays tug of war with the plane, he hears a deep howling somewhere close by within the trees. Either way he looks, he’s surrounded by nothing but black spring and birch trees with eyes watching him and hungry wolves, eyeing him up like he’s their dinner.

Somehow, when he wakes in the morning, he knows that, no matter how hard they try, It doesn’t want them to leave.