Ashes, Ashes

chapter 12

-aspen-

I sighed. It's a bit boring here without Ash. I could've gone with him, but he insisted I should stay here. Simply because I was bored, I took out the food and snacks from Ash's and my packs. Then I arranged Ash's pack where he had tossed in a couple pairs of clothes and supplies and kept it aside. I tried to arrange the rocks Ash and I had gathered into a circle in the middle of our cave, but some I couldn't lift because they were too heavy or if I crawled over to the farther ones, my calf muscle hurt with a jab.

Sigh. It seems to be around 9:30-10:00 so if i were at school, i would be in second period right now. Isabel and Natalie probably gossiping about Chase and Noah or anyone else, not even noticing that I'm gone.

I waited for a while, absorbed in my thoughts. Suddenly, a song popped into my head. Well, I'm alone and Ash won't be coming back anytime soon...

"Is this the real life, is this just fantasy?"I started humming softly. "Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality." I stood up off the rock i was sitting on and turned towards the inside of the cave, my back facing the forest. "Open your eyes," I sang a little louder. "Look up to the sky and see..."

Pretty soon, I was dancing and running around- wel as much as I could- singing my heart out. "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN STONE ME AND SPIT IN MY EYE, YEAH!' I pumped my fist and played an electric air-guitar with my eyes closed. "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN LOVE ME AND LEAVE ME TO DIE! OH B- Ash!" I spun around to see Ash leaning against the entrance of the cave with his arms folded. I looked at his face and saw that his lips were parted. "Uh, this is... ahem... e-embarrassing," I flushed and looked away. How did I not hear him come up?

"No," His voice came out like a goat's bleat. "It shouldn't be because you have a great voice! I'm just kind of shocked to... hear you like that."

"How- how long were you s-standing there?" I stammered out. Ugh, you're so stupid, Aspen. Now he thinks you're an even bigger weirdo.

Ash chuckled and walked towards me. "Long enough to know that you are way more talented than what you told me. I personally find that song hard to tune, but you got every note spot on!"

I blushed profusely and shrugged. "Yeah, well, I've heard it from one my m-moms old records years ago and thought I'd give it a go. I've n-never really sung it b-before," I stammered. Then my stomach grumbled.

"I guess all that singing made you hungry!" Ash exclaimed just before his own stomach grumbled. I lifted the corner of my mouth in a half smile and reached into my pack and tossed him a pear. He, at the same time tossed me an apple. We both caught it and bit in it at the same time. Then we realized what happened and smiled at each other but quickly went back to devouring our fruit and granola bars.

* * *

After we were done eating, I stretched out on the floor and tilted my head back towards the sunny sky.

"So what do we do now? Do we just get on our way to Camp, or what?" I asked

"Hmmm...well, I'm not sure. I mean, we don't need to do anything else do we?"

I mentally ran a list of stuff through my head. "Food?"

"Check," he replied, after scanning through our packs. "Weapons?"

"Er, I think so yeah. At least, I've got a butcher knife. What've you got?" I asked inquisitively. He rummaged through his pack and pulled out a bronze dagger.

"I think this will be good. Nice butcher knife, by the way. Is that CutCo?" He asked, examining the sheath.

I laughed. "Yeah, one of my mom's favorite." Mom. I wonder how she's doing... Shaking away the thought, i looked at Ash to see he was already talking.

"...so do you want to get started, then? I think we could reach Camp Half-Blood in a couple more hours. I nodded in response.

 ٭ * *

-ash-

The journey should not have taken three days, but it did. If only we weren't so held back. We were just caught in a landslide, I guess. Thinking of Aspen singing, i started to hum as we hiked through the trees.

"Mama, just killed a man. Put a gun against his head. Pull my trigger, now he's dead."

Aspen turned to me and smiled. "Mama, life has just begun, but now I've gone and thrown it all away." She hummed back, her voice smooth as honey.

After a while, we were passionately humming our hearts out. Aspen was harmonizing in all the right places, making the song even more beautiful. Almost as beautiful as her...

"SO YOU THINK YOU CAN STONE ME AND SPIT IN MY EYE!" I hummed loudly, grinning.

"SO YOU THINK YOU CAN LOVE ME AND LEAVE ME TO DIE!" She hum-yelled back.

On and on, we finished the song in a laughing fit. After a couple of minutes of complementing each other on our musical skills, not that I had any, I stopped. I could smell the campers.