Stick To It

To Survive

Not finding anyone on the first or second floors I head into the basement. Upon entry, I can hear some voices, some angry, some sad and muted. They all sound frustrated though. I follow the voices until I come across a door. It's locked, maybe barricaded, which is fair.

I knock on the door. The voices inside go silent. Are they afraid? I think I can hear some shuffling about. I open my mouth and speak into the door, "Can you let me in? It's lonely out here." I think I can hear some frantic movement around, surprise maybe? I mean, I would have considered myself dead meat too. I got lucky.

I can hear the unlocking of the heavy door in between me and the voices. The ever-familiar clicking of a deadbolt. I can see the door open just a smidge before it stops moving. it's kind of funny actually. I feel a little tempted to pull a prank, before immediately chucking that thought into a ditch and dousing it with gasoline before throwing a lit match at it. That's not cool me, not cool at all.

"I'm uh, I'm not going to bite you if that's what you are afraid of." The door quickly flings open when I say that. "Trenton!" Sam dashes and gives me a big hug. "Woah! You look like you just saw a ghost." I smirk a little. She gives me a punch on the arms. it hurts a bit more than I care to admit. Probably from bruising. "I thought you died, you idiot! That was stupid of you." She scans me. "Wow Trenton, you look terrible." I snort a little. "I feel like you've said that before."

I can see Mike and Chris's approving nods. "No need to thank me, guys," I say smugly. "And you just lost your moment," Sam smirks at my comment. "How'd you get out of there? If you don't mind me asking." Sam continues. 

"Well, they seemed to want to play around with me first. I ended up using the shotgun to block some smacks before I dropped it and fell to the ground. It then picked me, like it was reveling at the moment just before it'd kill me. I used my flashlight to blind the thing and quickly ran behind a tree before it recovered. It immediately ran to the last place it say me moving. It was right next to me, it was terrifying. I think it would've found me too, but here's the thing. That other wendigo started fighting it. It made me think maybe they can't discern what a lifeform looks like only if it's moving. So while the two were distracted I tossed a button from my pocket and my hypothesis was correct. Fortunately, the two's fight continued on away from me and the lodge. Afterward, I crawled in through a window."

The conversation ends awkwardly there before Mike picks up a new one. "Well, let's get you guys back into the saferoom." I pick up the subtle connotations in his word choice. I figure we should get behind the door and lock it before I start anything though.

"Mike, back to our conversation from before Trenton got here, you can't just go! You'll get yourself killed!" Sam immediately begins imploring Mike. "And what? Stay in here like bags of jerky for those things? I'll go get that rail key from the things bedroom if I have to!" Mike shoots back, his tone isn't nice, but I know he's just really worried for our safety.

"Woah, Woah. What's going on?" I try to mediate. "Mike wants to go into the mines to look for Josh!" "And that's because?" "The mines are where the wendigos live!" I nod in understanding. I was about to open my mouth in favor of Sam's case, but then I look back on my previous actions and I realize that this is Mike's call.

"Sam." I look at her blankly. "Trenton." She responds, somewhat confused. "Sam." She gets what I'm getting at. "You're siding with Mike on this?!" "Sam," I say firmly. "Let Mike do his thing. He's got this." I give Mike a reassuring nod. He nods back, words not needed. I can see the gritty determination in his eyes.

I see Emily hand Mike a revolver she had on herself. "Don't die." Mike nods solemnly at her words and heads deeper into the basement. I look at everyone in the room. Sam, Chris, Ashley, and Emily. I know where Mike is... and Jess. So where's Matt?

"I'm probably going to regret asking this, but... where's Matt? Wasn't he with you Emily?" I ask the room, the questions pointed towards Emily though. "We went to the old fire tower to call for help, but the whole thing started falling when we were in it! Matt tried to save me, but I fell into the mines anyway. I don't know what happened to him." I get a better look at Emily and notice she has an awful bite on her shoulder. Looks like she had a run-in with them too.

"When are they coming?" "Dawn at the earliest." "Shit. What time is it?" "5 till 5," Ashley answers. Damn, I said a lot can happen in 20 seconds earlier, but a shit ton can happen in an hour. I see Ashley grab a book from the shelf and read it over. "Oh... oh, no, no, no, no." "What? What is it? What does it say?" Sam questions as Ashley looks distraught. Ashley hands the book over to Sam and she gives it a quick once-over. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit... We've got to get to Mike, like now!"