A Chaotic Camping Trip! (Hermitcraft 8 Highschool AU)

Chapter 17 - Trail Treachery

Bdubs was breathing heavily, blinking his eyes rapidly to hold back the tears pricking at the corners, as well as trying to adjust to the dark better. Keralis was looking at him, he knew that, and they were sitting on dirt-leaves- something that was dry, but that was pretty much all he could figure out. It was so dark. He needed to calm down.

Keralis started shifting around. He focused on that.

"Where's the flashlight...?" He mumbled to himself.

Bdubs started looking around for it too, comforted by having something else to think about, still sitting down with his legs in front of him. His foot- or ankle? He wasn't sure which, the entire thing throbbed in pain- didn't hurt too bad when he didn't move it.

Bdubs bit his cheek as he realized his phone was in the inside pocket of his jacket. Oh void it was probably snapped in half from the fall....

He pulled it out with a wince, sighing in relief as he was able to turn it on normally. The light lit up his face and showed off only a few new cracks on the screen, but that was replaceable, and after all of this, he figured he might get an iou from Doc or Etho about fixing it later.

"Here." Bdubs said, turning on the small flashlight on the phone. "You can find the real one with this."

"Thanks Bubbles."

There was an audible sigh of relief when Keralis found it laying on some leaves and was able to pick it up and turn it on, handing the phone back to Bdubs. Bdubs turned it off, a habit to save the battery as long as possible. A really good habit for a situation like this.

Keralis moved the flashlight around, trying to figure out where they were. Did they land on another trail? Were there any signs to direct them back to camp? Something- anything to make where they were?

He looked upwards, only to be met with trees, clouds, and the faintest speckle of stars above. It wasn't like he could measure the constellations or anything to find their longitude or latitude on Earth, but even just the north star would be appreciated. They remembered it was a vauguly east to west trail. 

Wherever it was, it wasn't visible to them.

They had been closing their eyes during their- ahem, ride downhill, and with dizziness, plus dark, plus not knowing where they were overall, it just led them having no idea what direction they were looking at.

"I think. I think we're supposed to stay put." Keralis said unsurely, still looking around. "That's what adults say to do. Stay put until someone finds you."

"Stay put? STAY PUT?! Nobody even knows we're here!" Bdubs cried out. He tried to shift his weight to the side before wincing, breathing a little bit too fast. "We- we can't just stay-"

"Bubbles calm down-" Keralis crouched down, putting his hands up softly like Bdubs was a scared animal. He felt like one.

"I can't calm down! We're going to die in the woods and we'll never see any of the others again and it's cold and itchy and dark-"

Keralis took Bdubs's hands to stop him from rambling and looked him in the eyes.

"Breathe with me ok? In and out. In... out."

Bdubs calmed down after a minute and Keralis looked more relieved. This was scary, for the both of them, but Keralis had to put on a brave face, because one of them had to, and Bdubs was hurt and scared.