doomsday. ( yellowjackets )

soixante-trois.

xxx.

chapter soixante-trois.
chapter sixty three.

1997.

xxx.

Sam held a wrinkled map in her hands, marking something off when the blackened end of a small twig, the ash leaving behind a strike on the paper. It was the same map that she, Natalie, Travis, and Coach Scott had worked on back at the cabin, just with a handful of updates from her and Coach's trips around the woods in the recent weeks.

The girl stood still as she marked it, unable to walk and pay attention to what she was reading at the same time, but it didn't matter. Coach Scott had also stopped, just a few steps ahead of her, causing her interest to peak. Sam quickly finished scribbling where they'd been that morning and jogged to catch up to him. She followed his gaze down to the snare, one that was not left by them.

Coach Scott wordlessly tossed a few acorns into the trap, hoping that a rabbit or squirrel would be foolish enough to cross its path for a few measly nuts. Sam assumed Natalie had left the snare for them, but she stepped to the side and saw a different letter dug into the dirt. She met the man's gaze, tilting her head down to the T in the ground so he'd see it.

He didn't say anything, but simply nodded and shuffled the dirt around with one of his crutches to erase the evidence. That was how most of their days went: quiet. Sam didn't really talk much in general, and while Coach Scott had been through a lot, she felt that he had recently become silent, for the most part, out of desperation. Maybe it was also the exhaustion, but Sam didn't really mind.

It took some time after they left, but Natalie— at least, they'd assumed it was Natalie initially — had started leaving them snares or other supplies in the brush of the woods. Then, with it, started to come notes, scribbled messily on scraps of paper or textbooks from the plane debris, addressed to Sam. There were never many details, maybe for the fact that there wasn't enough room for them, but there were directions; moreso, advice on where not to go, as that was where they would be hunting.

Matter of fact, Sam had one of Natalie's recent warnings crumbled in her jacket pocket as they spoke, telling them to avoid the eastern half of the woods.

Theo had been a bit more blatant, leaving a T in the dirt, either with a subtle drawing that would've otherwise been unnoticeable if you passed over it too quickly, or with a handful of pebbles. She didn't leave notes, didn't leave supplies, but maybe she thought they didn't need any of that, they just needed to know that someone knew they were alive, and were still a friend, not a foe.

         Since they didn't speak much, Sam wasn't sure how Coach Scott felt about the two of them communicating with them; they'd both heard Natalie's words the day they saw what the group had done to Javi, that she let him die in her place. Sam wanted to think they could trust her, but she never voiced it one way or the other to the man. It was a similar sentiment for Theo. They hadn't been able to speak to her directly about that day, but Coach Scott had briefly mentioned that he used to pick Theo up for practice some days after her mother had died. He made it seem like he wanted to trust her, the same way Sam wanted to trust Natalie, but neither of them were certain.

After they'd effectively covered the trap, Coach Scott gestured Sam on, and they continued their rather slow, unsteady hike. It was new ground they hadn't reached yet, though they'd gone out almost every other day to add more to their knowledge. Sam kept a good distance between her and the man in case she ended up walking into him while looking at their map to make sure they didn't go off the path and run into Yellowjackets territory.