In the early spring of next year, to celebrate her friend Avery's birthday, Thalia and three other friends - Alex, Ethan and Dean - were invited to go on a trip to Keswick to stay in the countryside together for a few days of exploring the scenery. Accompanying them were Avery and Alex's mothers who seemed to enjoy the idea of a long weekend in the countryside almost as much as their kids. The plan was to explore the town, take two of the mountain walks that they had chosen together and, most of all, take the 4 days to relax and enjoy each other's company. Unfortunately, Avery and Dean had fallen out the week before, so Dean abandoned the trip to stay at home.
The group knew each other well. Thalia had spent so much time with Alex's family over the years that going on a trip with him and his mum only provided more opportunities for the three of them to grow closer. Thalia had also been friends with Avery for years, but she was less familiar with Ethan. Though they had talked and been in the same social circles for a while, Thalia didn't know him as closely as the other two.
Alex's mother drove Thalia and Alex to the house they were renting for the trip, where they met Avery and Ethan who had already called dibs (on the room with the double bed) and unpacked. The top floor, which had been given to the teenagers, consisted of two bedrooms and a bathroom, while the parents had the middle floor. The bottom floor was communal containing the kitchen and a small living room. The house itself was tastefully decorated but mostly preserved as a simple country home. It had been fitted with Wi-fi and most of the modern amenities without losing the idyllic feel characteristic of a country cottage.
Having arrived in the early evening, the group decided to have dinner early and then head out to wander around town and explore. They walked and talked for about an hour until they found a hidden forest trail where they spotted a flurry of bats flying past overhead. They didn't venture far from where they started yet still stumbled upon a stream that trailed through the foliage of the woods. Eventually they returned home at last, engrossed in chatter punctuated with the occasional jab of friendly mockery.
Once they settled back into the house and headed upstairs, they agreed on playing a game of Monopoly. However instead of playing with the normal rules that they were all familiar with, Avery convinced them - after some debate - to play with his unusual banker's rules where players could make deals with the banker to get an advantage. According to Thalia and Alex, Ethan won purely because those rules were unfair and allowed the banker too much control over the game. Even so, they had a lot of fun and the game lacked the tedium that Monopoly sometimes holds.
After that, they decided to play a few rounds of another game called Truth Bombs: a board game in which you answer questions about the other players - in the most ridiculous way of course. The game quickly developed some recurring themes as Thalia got accused of having written a song about the Star Wars ship "Reylo" (she hadn't) and Ethan got labelled a nonce (admittedly, there was a very similar age gap between Thalia and her girlfriend but hush only Ethan was the nonce). By the end of the game, Thalia had renamed Ethan in her contacts as "Nonce of Warhammer" in response to his denial of the fact that having a girlfriend a year younger than him made him a nonce.
Since they were planning on using the following morning for the journey to Castle Crag, they agreed to settle into bed soon after the final round of the game. Aside from a few protests from Alex who claimed he saw a spider in their room (he didn't), Alex and Avery appeared to fall asleep pretty quickly leaving Thalia and Ethan quietly awake in their respective rooms with only their phones as entertainment. It was going to be a long night.
The two left awake ended up spending the evening talking over Facebook messenger about the mistakes they had each made to end up in a room with someone who slept like the dead and how the Wi-fi deserved to be beaten with bats. Sadly, they couldn't follow through on that threat as they didn't have any bats on them; though the intent was there.
