Stick To It

The Eye of the Storm

"I... think I'll stick with Mike and Josh. Mike and Josh aren't exactly at the top of their game right now." Sam looks a little disappointed but is okay with my decision. "Here. Let me give you a boost and we can get on our merry way." I walk to the cliff face and crouch down with my hands shaped into a foothold. Sam climbs on top of me before beginning her ascent. "See you guys at the lodge." She says between strained breaths. "See ya." We turn to find another way out of here.

"Wow Trenton, I'm surprised you stuck with us." Mike playfully punches my shoulder. "No wonder you don't have a girlfriend yet. You can't take a hint." I roll my eyes. "Hey... I got worried okay? I think I would have chosen to go with Sam, but... I had this feeling like something was going to happen." Mike looks at me, too anxious about my message to reply with any humor.

Mike loops an arm around Josh's shoulder. "Alright, let's go you fucked up son of a bitch." While I don't agree with his tone, Josh does look pretty bad. Not even just his mental state, he's kind of battered. He looks fragile... "Why'd you leave me?" I take a guilty breath at his betrayed tone. Even Mike doesn't know how to respond. "Sorry." Is the only word that is allowed to fall through my mouth.

We enter the room with the bodies from earlier, the visage does not agree with Josh. "No...no!" He thrashes a bit as Mike holds him steady. "I know... I know I know I know... okay." Mike and I just look at our friend glumly.

We continue on in silence, back at the freezing lake we had to cross earlier. Josh was surprisingly in the lead with Mike in the back. "Oh, fu-" I hear a scream from Mike, but I've got no clue where he is. He must've gotten dragged under the water! "Josh! Stop moving!" I yell to him, the surprise stopping him more than the sentence itself.

A wendigo much larger than the previous ones surfaces in front of Josh. Shit! I warned him too late! "NO, you're not real! No, you're not..." It picks him up by the neck. "Hannah!" What?! Then I see the butterfly tattoo on its arm. Fuck! "Hannah, I'm not letting you kill your brother!" I pull out the flare gun from my pocket and fire it at the wendigo. The round hits it in the back of the head, making it drop Josh and scurry away.

I hear something enter the water and quickly turn around to see Mike. "Holy shit... good thing you were here Trenton." The tension leaves my body as quickly as it came, just leaving me feeling exhausted. I'm lucky I found that flare gun earlier. "Let's just get the fuck out of here. We got Josh." Mike nods, knowing that I don't want to speak anymore.

At the lake there is, fortunately, an easy slope to climb. It's tough but me and Mike manage to get Josh and ourselves out of there. We take a deep breath and relax our aching muscles. "Remind me, to never piss Sam off," I say out of breath. "Why?" Mike asks curiously. "Because she does that shit for fun." Mike chuckles a little.

We hurry back to the lodge to see a shaken Sam like she was running from something. She's trying her best to open the locked door. "HEY! HEY!!!!! COME ON OPEN UP!!!! GUYS COME ON ARE YOU IN THERE?? LET ME IN!!!" Mike pulls ahead of us and just says "Sam-" "Ah!" She gets startled by her own name.

Sam turns around to see the three of us. "Shit! Guys, you look terrible." I extend my arms into a flex playfully, "It's hard to look this bad." Sam chuckles a little. "C'mon. Let's get inside." Mike says seriously. Sam grabs a nearby rock and smashes the window of the door before unlocking it by sticking her arm in the hole.

"What happened to you guys? You look tired, and Josh looks all bruised." Mike calmly explains. "The, ah, wendigo. It grabbed Josh. Luckily Trenton had brought a flare gun with him." Sam looks a little guilty since she originally wanted me to go with her. I interrupt her thoughts, however. "Don't, don't feel bad. You couldn't have known." Sam still has a self-defeating look on her face though.

We all enter the lodge, Sam turns the light on but Mike turns it back off. "Not good." I look at him confusedly, but there's no real point in the lights being on or off right now. "What should we do now?" Mike, ever the leader, responds, "We should check the basement.... might be someone left down there..."

We walk through the cinema room on our way to the basement when Chris bursts through the door. "Go! Go!" He says while running in the opposite direction of where we were headed. Ashley comes out next, "Go, run!" She quickly follows after Chris as Emily is hot on her trail. "Go! We have to go!"

I push Josh to follow after Chris as Mike peers down the hallway curiously. "Uh-oh. Shit." A wendigo is in it. "Guys, run." Mike starts running to the living room. "Run!" I turn around and start running as Sam locks the door on the wendigo and joins us.

Exiting the cinema we see everyone on the main floor, Sam the closest to the cinema. A wendigo topped the chandelier in the middle of the room. Everyone is standing still. "Don't... move. Don't fucking move a muscle..." Mike ekes out through parsed lips. Time flows to a crawl. 3 wendigos, 7 humans, 1 room.