Until I Met You

12. Sacrifices for the better

Mike was the first one to offer himself, then Josh from the corner.

I turned to face him. "You can't go, you're still not..." I was trying to get the right words "mentally stable."

He shot me a glare. "But I put you all through this! I should be the one to go after them!"

"First off, it wasn't your fault, second, what if you get one of your episodes right when a wendigo is on your ass? You're out of the question." I told him harshly. He seemed to back down.

"Is that all?" the man with the scar asked.

"No." I got up. "I wanna come with you."

Mike bursted in laughter. "Really? After all you said about Josh, you're gonna offer yourself? I don't think so. Just moments ago you could barely stand up." he mocked me.

"Look, you melon-head, do you know how small and easy to miss those keys are? You need at least three persons to cover more perimeter, otherwise it'll be nearly impossible to find them!" I got closer to him. "And I don't have a good reason for you to take me, other than the fact that no one else wanted to risk their lives for this and I don't think we should force them. I might not be the most healthy one out there, but I can stay as still as a statue when I want to, whereas Josh will have a hard time distinguishing reality from his own thoughts."

That silenced him, finally. He looked at the stranger who was deep in thought. At last, he decided to take me with them.

"Wait!" Josh cried out. We all turned our attention to him as he began walking over to us. "She can't go! Wh-what if s-she dies?" his voice began trembling which broke my heart. I looked into his green eyes and saw the desperation in them.

The room went silent after that.

"I'm not gonna die, none of us will. We'll be back in a blink of an eye, got it?" I told him pretty lies so he could let me go.

He needs to realize that I'm not the only one who cares for him, I told myself. He has better friends, like Sam or Chris. They've known him for longer than me. For fuck's sake, I don't even know what his favourite color is, I've met him today! (Or possibly yesterday)

"Please, Josh-" I tried to reason with him because he seemed unconvinced "-look at all your friends you have here, don't attach yourself to me, okay? We've only met hours ago. I assure you, Chris and Sam were a lot more worried about you these past minutes than I ever was! They care a lot about you, Joshua." I looked at the two and they nodded, reassuring him.

He looked lost and confused for a moment. "I... J-just take care, alright?"

I gave him a quick nod. "Will do."

Before getting out of there, the stranger turned back one last time: "If anything happens, you have a map in the book I gave you."

Then we went on our way. Leaving the warmth of the barrel was probably the toughest thing I had to do today, but I managed. I had to, for the sake of my friends.

My headache was still lingering and I'm pretty sure I wasn't walking properly, but that didn't matter right now. I had a mission.

It was quiet, too quiet. The wolf was always in front of us, looking out for any danger, while we were following the stranger. We went through a place called 'Sanatorium' (after the flamethrower guy's words) where apparently they were testing wendigos.

At one point we had to go outside, which was absolutely wonderful.

"The weather outside is frightful..." I singed in a hushed voice, trying to get my mind off of all the things that happened in the last few hours. Mike seemed to hear me and responded with a 'heh'. He had found a torch and a gun back in the strange bulding we just came from.

Before entering another bulding, the wendigo hunter gave us a warning: "Watch out, we're close to the place where I trapped those monsters."

It was only when we encountered the first fucker that I realized what I got myself into.

As we went forward, we found the cells they were locked in. There were a lot of them.

"Holy shit...how did you manage to trap them without getting killed?" Mike asked the stranger in amazement.

"I... didn't get out of it unharmed." he replied while showing the scar on his face.

We ran through all those creatures and I barely made it through. Mike had to drag me at one point. Once we got out of the danger, we settled down to catch out breaths.

"I fucking told you you shouldn't come! You almost got yourself killed!" Melon-head shouted at me.

"Hey, keep your voice down!" the stranger whispered. "She had to come with us, otherwise we might not be able to find those keys. My eyes barely work anymore, son." he tried to calm him down.

I chose not to interfere in their conversation, since I was too tired to speak. I knew Mike was right in a way, but he also couldn't have managed on his own.

We were getting down in the mines again, which terrified me. Screams and screeched could be heard from the distance. The boys were at least five steps ahead of me, because my walk was getting sloppier. I could barely carry myself anymore.

All of a sudden I hear a door slam open behind me. I looked back, hoping it was not what I thought it was, but my praying was in vain.

The two males were already in another room, waiting for me to catch up so they could barricade the door. The creature grabbed my foot and I held onto a table. Mike shot it in the face and I hit the floor. I started crawling toward the door as I heard more wendigos coming behind me.

Melon-head seemed to have a plan. He was desperately looking into my eyes, telling me to hurry already as the flamethrower guy was blasting everything with fire.

I looked back one more time.

There's no way they'll make it if they wait for me, a painful thought ran through my mind. I looked at Mike one more time, who was eyeing a barrel full of flamable substance, probably.

I closed my eyes, knowing what I was about to do was going to be the last thing I'd do in my life.

"Hey, fuckers! Here!" I screamed with all my energy left. All the wendigos turned toward me and I looked at Mike. "Do it." I mouthed at him and he quickly caught up on what I was reffering to. He nodded in understandment while a bunch of emotions flashed through his eyes and finally...

He shot the barrel.

The last thing I saw was a ball of flames eating the whole room up before everything went black.

Chris: 7.5/10
Ashley: 0/10
Sam: 6.5/10
Mike: -3/10
Jessica: 1/10
Josh: 7.5/10 ↑
Emily: 5/10
Matt: 1/10
Flamethrower guy: 5/10
Wolfie: 25/10 ↑↑↑↑↑
Wendigo: -3/10 ↓