There were many things that Josh wish he could have done differently, that if he had the time to sit down and list them all, it would take years to finish naming them all. But as he was tugging the scarf that coved his face despite already wearing a mask, he decided to list some of them.
He would have been a better brother for his sisters. He would have stayed sober that night that his sisters ran into the forest. He wouldn’t have stopped taken his meds that sent his mind into a spiral. He wouldn’t have played the prank that nearly got all his friends, if he could still call them that, killed. He wouldn’t have resorted to eating human meat down in the mines, because it wasn’t too long later than they found him, but the wendigo curse was already upon him. These were some of the things he wished he could differently, and this wasn't even a tenth of it.
He wasn’t sure what happened in the months after the wendigo curse took over, all he remembered was being dragged down to the mines by the monster that used to be his sister, Hannah, the hunger that he felt in the mines. He wasn’t sure how many days he spent there. The last thing he could officially remember was finally giving into the hunger that took over his sister, and then that’s when things got fuzzy. He had visions of seeing the Cree natives chanting, a pain deep throughout his body that felt like lava coursing his veins; being locked up in a steel room, flashes of hearing people calling him a monster.
Then he remembered hearing his mother and father whispering his name, and that was that. According to his doctors and the Cree natives, he was free of the wendigo curse, or at least most of it. Josh hard time believing that because when he looks at his reflection, all he sees is the monster that his friends called him over and over. The scar on his left cheek running up to nearly his ear, his eyes were gladly back to normal, but they still had a slight scar on his right eye. His teeth even though he had them filed down, they still remained sharp since there was only so much he could file before they became too painful for him to bear.
But despite that, there were a few loose ends he needed to close, which was why Josh was at the local park.
He felt nervous because of the one person that was going to meet. (Y/N), the love of his life since before he knew what love was when he and you were kids. You were always there for him, and valued him as a person and not because of his name and status as son of a famous film director, like his friend Chris, but the bond you had with him was different then what he had with Chris. You hadn’t been part of the prank, because you weren’t there since you were with your own family that cold dark weekend, but when you heard the news of his sisters, you were the first one to care for him.
You would help him with his nightmares, even if it meant staying up all night with Josh on the phone or in person when he was home alone. You would hold his hand as he drove to his therapy sessions and patiently wait outside Dr. Allen's office while they were in session, never questioning what they spoke about but there with comforting arms. You were his light when the world around him was dark and grey. But even the brightest of lights couldn’t shine in the darkest parts of his mind. Despite you being with him through his troubles, you weren’t enough to shake him from his thoughts of revenge. He wanted them to pay, he wanted them to feel the same heart racing, anxiety, and fear that his sisters felt that cold, cold night.
So when he invited his so called friends back to Blackwood Mountain, he said that it would be best if you didn’t go. You had insisted on going, wanting to be there for him on the anniversary of his sisters’ disappearance, because you knew that his mood could drastically change from one moment to another. But he insisted that it would be better to stay, since you being there would make them feel odd since you weren’t there when it happened, and the retreat was more of a way to mend what happened that night between them.
