Aftershocks (Ze and Chilled)

Tents.

There was a very loud, very audible groan from a very angry Canadian in the backseat. Ze was way too fidgety to be stuck in the car. His hands needed something to do. Luckily, his phone still had a connection to the great site Twitter, praise be unto it. He then proceeded to spend his time catching up on tweets, and when he wasn't doing that, he himself tweeted. Snapping a picture of the two people in the driver and passenger seats while they weren't looking. There was one caption for the tweet.

"Chilled has radio privileges. It hurts."

And it was true. Chilled's choice in music was unusual, even for him. Both Ze and Adam had heard his favorite pieces of music before, and this was definitely nothing like what they'd listened to. It was old, classical music that may very well have been played during Beethoven's funeral. They ignored it.

After all, Chilled might very well be gone tomorrow. They had experienced that before... yelling at a friend who was there one day, gone the next. They wished for more time, but in teh end, he'd been taken for granted.

Nanners couldn't change the radio, as he was too busy driving. Ze was in the back. He couldn't if he wanted to.

Chilled could do whatever he wanted to the music, and no one could stop him.

After the immediate replies, retweets and favorites came, Ze grew bored of seeing what appeared to be the same reactions over and over again. Of course, there was the occasional tweet that was different, which Ze took the time to acknowledge, but he ended up scrolling until he was bored again, and that was never good.

He shut off his phone, and began to complain.

"Why are you guys in the front?" Ze asked, obviously annoyed.

With a grin, Nanners responded, "Because we're older and more responsible than you."

"That's a lie and you know it."

Ze got no answer, but he was right.

Chilled's depressing music continued to play, and everyone else was silent. It went on for too long, and was finally ended when Nanners announced, "We're here!"

They all stepped out. It was barely large enough to be called a clearing, and Ze had trouble figuring out how they'd make a fire without burning down the whole forest. The more he looked at it, the smaller it seemed to get.

Chilled seemed lost in his mind. He stared at the clearing, but not really. He had his thoughts to tend to like everyone, and these days, they seemed like an overgrown garden, with vines slithering up nearby walls and thorns everywhere.

It had been a hard week for all of them.

"It's fine," Nanners said, noticing Ze's reaction. He also managed to shock Chilled back into reality. "I did my research, we'll be alright."

Ze winced.

"Will we?" Chilled asked. Ze knew only one of them wasn't included in that 'we.'

"I'm sure of it."

A pause. So many thoughts, words unsaid, and the pain that was the silence. God, the pain was awful.

Finally, Adam broke it.

"Let's set up the tent!" Adam exclaimed. "No sleeping in the car, that's too easy. If either of you do that, I'm locking you in."

Ze suddenly remembered. "Put the keys in the car before you start. Don't want to lose them."

Nanners winked. "Already done."

After several failed attempts—involving a certain someone accidentally destroying all the work done already, stakes not being stuck in the ground far enough, and other things beyond their control—the tent was finally set up. It, like the clearing, barely fit them.

"I'm beat," Ze announced, practically collapsing inside of the tent. All of the energy he'd built up during the long car-ride had finally left him during the set-up process. He was ready to go to sleep.

Too bad it was only two pm.

"How about you take a nap, Ze?" Nanners offered, not ready to negotiate with him. "Chilled and I can go fishing. You didn't want to do that, right?"

"Release them after you catch 'em...," Ze mumbled, already dozing off. "Take pictures, I wanna see..."

Chilled smiled. "Goodnight Ze."

-- -- --

Ze woke up fifteen minutes later, to the sound of twigs snapping. A few seconds later, he realized that didn't make sense. Chilled and Adam were probably still fishing. The little sunlight he could see through the walls of the tent had barely budged.

He knew it was dangerous. In fact, Ze should never have considered it. He peeked out the tent and...

saw him.

Shocked, Ze blinked, and he was gone.