A town named Winter

Amy

Stephanie looked deep in thought for awhile. Her eyes glazed over and looked distant. When she came back from that mental place, she focused again on me.

"Okay I'm ready. Let's find Todd."

I nodded and our makeshift all women's team continued to look through the last few building in Winter. We haven't found any glues left behind to explain Todd's disappearance. We all assumed the boys would have better luck and went to find them. After some time walking around the outskirts of the town, we heard the boys calling for Todd. Alex jogged off towards the voices with us all following closely behind. When we reached the boys they were standing back by the blood in the snow. Adam walked over and greeted Meghan tenderly.

"Did you ladies find anything?"

I shook my head solemnly.

"No. I'm guessing neither did you guys."

The boys looked down in remorse. No signs were left behind of Todd. We all feared to explore too far into the woods in fear of getting lost. He was our navigator and it would be better for the groups safety to stay close by the town.

The night air chilled us all to the bone. The low temperatures seemed to seep into our bones as the adrenaline from Todd's hellish scream subsided. Adam came to a conclusion.

"It is too dark to see much right now even with our flashlights. Maybe we should return to our camping spots and warm up? We can continue searching at sunrise."

Kevin wasn't thrilled about this idea.

"We can't just leave Todd out here. He could be bleeding out somewhere all alone!"

I sigh.

"As a nurse, I can see Adam's reasoning. It's below freezing out here. We will be risking our lives searching any longer. We need to find him, but we can't compromise our own safety doing so."

Everyone grew silent in thought. Ryan started walking back towards the town. The rest of the group watched his back as his figure started disappearing in the darkness. Jake was quick to follow.

"I guess that settles things. Let's meet up at dawn to reconvene the search party."