Archive of Our Own

When Jessica opened her eyes at the bottom of the elevator, the first thing she felt was pain. The second was cold. Fuck, she was freezing.

She sat up, slowly, her whole body aching. Snow drifted down slowly around her. She wasn’t actively bleeding anymore, she noticed, which was probably not a good sign. How long had she been laying here? Where was Mike? Jessica gasped at the thought of him.

The trees blurred by as the thing dragged her body along. She struggled to free herself from its icy claws but they dug deeper into her chest. “Mike!” she cried out helplessly. “Michael!”

Jessica wrapped her arms around herself, hoping to alleviate the cold at least slightly, but she choked on her sudden pain. There was something wrong with her ribs. She fought back the tears and stood up. She wobbled and reached out aimlessly and then all but crashed into the wall. But she was up.

Walking was hard. Every step sent pain through her body, and the air was biting into her flesh.

Nails biting into her flesh, puncture wounds that bled heavily. The monster dropped her for a second and she tried to claw through the snow. The spindly hand grabbed her ankle and dragged her back. “Mike! Michael, please, help me!”

There was a green jacket. Jess hadn’t gone to church since she was a little girl, but in that moment she was sure that there was, in fact, a God. The jacket was cold to the touch, but as she slipped on the sleeves, she sighed in relief. She shakily put on the boots next to the jacket as well.

Something screamed and it echoed through the walls of the caves. Jess’s breath caught in her throat. No, maybe there wasn’t a God, not when that thing still existed.

Teeth, way too many teeth, all razor-sharp. The milky white eyes. Its claws scraped across her back as its grip tightened. Its other hand was reaching for her mouth when Mike’s voice pierced the air. She breathed a sigh of relief, and then she was falling.

Jessica moved slowly. She trudged along, staying quiet as possible, until she saw a shovel. She picked it up, feeling safer with any sort of weapon, although she didn’t trust herself to be able to swing it with any real power.

Oh shit, something was moving. Jessica’s breath hitched and she inched forward, gripping the shovel with two hands. Her vision was blurry as she stumbled forward, but this thing was moving and what else was down here other than that? She swung.

And met resistance. She half-sobbed, half screamed as the shovel broke and clattered harmlessly to the ground. This was it. She’d made the wrong choice and she would die for it.

“Jess? Is that you?” No, wait, she knew that voice. Jessica shook her head. It took all of her willpower not to fall into Matt’s chest and cry. “Jesus, Jess… What the hell happened to you? How the fuck are you still alive?”

Jess wondered the same thing herself. She shouldn’t have survived that fall, shouldn’t have been able to get up after all of that bleeding and breaking. “...Yeah…” she breathed, because her mind was still sluggish and she had no idea what else she could say.

Matt wasn’t looking too great either. His clothes and face were smudged with mud, and his sleeve was torn open, revealing a gash on his arm. “Jess, I need to tell you something, and I don’t want to freak you out, but there’s… There’s some kind of thing on the mountain. It’s not human… it’s like a monster.”

The memories flashed through her head again.

Glass shattered around her, the cold air washing over her back.

Mike! Michael!

Sharp claws ripping at her ankles.

Falling, falling, falling.

Lights out.

“It came after me!” Jessica sobbed and refrained from hugging herself. Matt was trying to get her attention, but she kept going. “It fucking pulled me down here into this fucking nightmare!”

“Jesus Christ! I’m sorry, don’t freak out, please.”

“Oh, God.” Jess stumbled and Matt reached out to help her, but she was able to catch herself.

“Can you move?”

“Yeah…”

Jess didn’t really register where Matt was taking her. She’d follow him blindly most days, anyway - Matt was a good guy. And she just wanted to stop thinking for the rest of forever and if that meant just keeping up with him and hoping, then that was good enough for her.

“...Some sort of cave-in here,” Matt was saying. Jessica raised her eyes to see what he was looking at.

“That was me.”

“What?”

“I fell. Through that roof,” Jess explained.

Lights out.

“You fell this far?” Matt glanced back at her. “Jesus. That makes two of us.”

That caught her attention. “What?”

“I fell off a goddamn fire tower down here.”

“You’re kidding me,” Jess replied. Matt shook his head and she pushed down all the questions in her head.

Then something screamed, right behind them. “Fuck,” Jessica whispered, because what else was there to say?

Matt ushered her behind a rickety wooden wall and she tried not to think of the monster that was chittering just behind them. She stumbled, her vision having gone blurry and a violent dizziness having suddenly come over her. But Matt reached out just in time to steady her. She whimpered as another spike of pain shot through her body.

“Does this hurt?” Matt asked.

“Oh, God,” Jess said in return. The dizziness returned, worse this time, and Jessica’s world slowly turned gray and then went black.

-

Jessica was a pretty light person, and Matt, who liked to consider himself a pretty strong guy, was having trouble carrying her. How fucked up was it that that was what got him to realize the gravity of their situation?

They were alone and lost in the mines. Jess wouldn’t survive for long with her wounds, and Matt wasn’t doing too hot himself. He’d sprained his ankle or something, maybe even a minor fracture, and the claw marks on his arms were still trickling blood. His head felt fuzzy from the constant pain.

Nevertheless, he plodded his way forward.

Jessica was draped over his back like he was giving her a piggyback ride. That would be a much nicer reality. Matt and Jess were pretty close, actually. Or had been. Back in middle school, they’d gone to the same summer camp. Matt liked to hike, but Jess certainly didn’t. If he just didn’t focus too hard, he could pretend that they were back there. That he was carrying Jessica back to her cabin because she was just tired and her feet hurt. The monotonous color of the mine walls was the woods. There would be a bonfire, complete with s’mores and dumb camp songs. Matt sighed something deep and sorrowful. How had they gotten here?

“Come on, we’ve got this, Jess,” he said to the unconscious girl although he meant it for himself. 

It was hard to be calm, stay steady, and keep his eyes peeling for somewhere, anywhere that could be safe when the screaming of the monsters was echoing across the stone walls. Matt’s heart was beating a million miles a minute. What if it was close by? It had been nothing short of a miracle that they’d been able to hide from it the first time.

Was he willing to abandon Jess here if he had to run?

As soon as he considered it, Matt pushed the thought away, revolted by himself. No fucking way. They were both making it off this mountain or neither of them were.

Matt adjusted Jess on his back and, with more resolve than before, he walked on.

The caverns opened up after several minutes of walking, and Matt glanced around at all of the mining gear strewn about. More jackets, a couple of hard hats. A flashlight, which he especially noted, because the lantern was going to run out at some point.

Three things happened in very quick succession. One: a monster shrieked from somewhere close by. Two: Matt panicked and, against better judgement, turned to look back at the monster as he limped as fast as possible in the other direction. Three: he and Jessica were falling. 

It wasn’t a far drop, just about four feet, probably, but a four-foot drop to a healthy person was not the same as a four-foot drop to two teenagers who should be in the ER.

Matt bit his tongue to suppress a scream as fiery pain rocked through his injured leg upon landing. Jessica slipped off of his back, her breathing just as shallow as before. If Matt was wittier, and they were not in immediate danger, he might have made a quip about how she was so pale she could pass as one of the monsters. He grabbed Jess again and retreated backward into the crevice until his back hit a grate. He glanced back and could have cried in relief.

The stars had finally aligned for them. It was some sort of outpost, protected by a cell door. And there was a key, just barely within Matt’s reach. After a moment of fumbling, he managed to unlock the door and drag Jess in, slamming the door behind himself. A satisfying click signified that it had locked, but Matt pulled Jessica farther back, just in case.

Oh my God, there was a cot. And a blanket. Matt praised whatever God there was and set about getting Jess to lay down. He did his best to ignore the chittering of the monster somewhere out in the caverns above them and searched the rest of the room in the dim light of the lantern.

It was better than he could’ve dreamed. Well, that was a lie. In his dreams, Matt would have had a way to teleport off the mountain and blow it to pieces behind him. But beggars can’t be choosers.

Aside from the cot and blanket, there were several cans of beans and peaches, and a mostly empty water canteen. There was a first aid kit. An honest to God, modern, barely used first aid kid.

Matt did cry in relief. Not that anybody could prove it.

He set about treating what he could. Jessica was unresponsive, even when he disinfected her scratches with rubbing alcohol, even as he bandaged her as much as he could. He tucked the blanket around her tightly, or as tight as possible without agitating her wounds, and then he fell to the ground next to the cot.

Matt was so tired. His own bandaged arm stung, and his ankle burned something furious, but it couldn’t keep him from closing his eyes. Not even the monster’s echoing screeches could stop the lull of exhaustion.

Just five minutes, he told himself as he leaned against the cold stone wall. It’ll just be for five minutes.

-

Jess blinked open her eyes and for just a second she felt normal. Then she felt the crustiness of the dried blood on her face and the constant, pulsing pain in her torso and all of the recent events came crashing back over her.

“Fuck,” she breathed. Where the hell was she? The last thing she remembered was that thing chasing her and Matt, and Matt keeping her steady… Where had the blanket come from? What was she laying down on? Oh, God, where was Matt?

Jessica felt like her bones were creaking as she sat up, keeping the blanket wrapped around her arms. She wasn’t tired anymore, at least her head wasn’t, but there was an ache across her whole body that begged her to just lie down again. It took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She glanced around quickly for Matt and was relieved to see him asleep at an uncomfortable angle just a couple feet away.

“Matt,” she called out. Her mouth was dry, but it was just another thing to add to the list of what was going wrong. “Matt!” The boy woke with a start, flailing for a second.

“Jesus, you’ve gotta stop scaring me like that,” he grumbled once he had calmed down.

Jess cracked a sad smile. “Well, it’s not my fault you couldn’t stay awake.”

“Ha-ha,” he said dryly and then put on a serious face, which was the last thing Jess wanted. Serious face meant dealing with their situation. She’d rather keep making jokes to distract herself from all of that bullshit. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Jess answered. “But I’m not bleeding anymore, I think. I guess that was you?”

“Yeah. Dumb luck. One of the… the monsters was chasing us and we fell down here. I think it must’ve been some safe house for the miners, or something.”

Jess closed her eyes slowly and leaned back against the cold wall. “Is there anybody coming to help us? They’ll send search parties, right?”

Matt moved to sit next to her on the cot, which creaked under the weight but held up. “Em and I got through to some rangers. They said they were coming at dawn. It’s gotta be past then by now.”

“They never found Hannah and Beth,” Jess said before she could think about the words leaving her mouth. She felt Matt stiffen beside her. “Not even their bodies. They’re not going to find us, Matt.”

“We don’t know that.” Jess could hear the doubt in his voice.

“Yeah, well, regardless. What’s the plan? Can we get to the cable car?”

Matt put his head in his hands. “It’s stuck, far away from the station. Josh had the keys, but he’s…” Jess’s blood ran cold as Matt trailed off.

“Josh is what?”

“God. There was, like, a killer up here, too. I forgot you didn’t know,” Matt was saying.

“What the hell?” 

He took a shaky breath. “Christ, yeah. Chris and Ash and Josh, the guy kidnapped them, and like, made Chris choose who to save. He, um… Josh got sawed in half, Chris said.”

Jess probably would’ve thrown up if she wasn’t too busy pushing back tears.  “We could…” She shook her head. “If his body is still up there, we can… It’ll be in his pockets.”

“I don’t know if I could do it,” Matt spoke quietly. “There’s just some things you can’t unsee.”

“I’d rather get the hell out of here alive with a bit more trauma to add to the pile than die in this shithole,” Jessica retorted sharper than she intended to. “What else are we going to do? Hike down? Wait for help that never comes?”

“I just don’t like it.”

“And I don’t like the idea of starving to death because we can’t get over some blood.” If she thought too hard about it, Jessica would probably back off. It was better to downplay now to get in that mindset for later.

“Okay, fine,” Matt finally agreed. “But, uh, speaking of starving…” Jess watched as he got up and rummaged around in a small trunk. “I think this’ll make you feel just… peachy.” He held up a can of peaches.

Jess grinned in spite of herself. “You’re not funny, dipshit,” she laughed anyway.

“Okay, not my finest moment.” Matt was smiling back. “But it made you laugh, didn’t it?”

Maybe Mike would’ve been braver, and maybe she would’ve felt safer with him, but thank God that if she was stuck with anyone, it was Matt.

-

Matt and Jessica spent the rest of that day and night taking it easy. Neither of them were going to be in any shape to travel regardless, but it seemed like a good idea to let their bodies take a break.

In the morning, Matt made a very small fire using the label of the peach can and the lighter he had pocketed earlier. He attempted to cook a can of beans over the pitiful embers. This resulted in a hearty meal of cold beans in a slightly warm can.

“Well, I tried,” Matt said. Jess smiled at him but didn’t reply.

When they left the outpost, Matt brought along the empty canteen and picked up the flashlight he had seen on his trek through the mines.

“Ready?” he asked Jess.

“As I’ll ever be,” she murmured in response. Walking through the mines was a quiet affair, neither of them wanting to attract attention to themselves. Matt’s ankle was still killing him, but it was still manageable. He truly had no clue how Jessica was able to walk with all of her injuries. She was more resilient than he had ever thought.

It was also much easier to navigate the mines in the day. There were more holes to the surface than Matt was led to believe, more natural light in addition to the flickering bulbs from when somebody had switched on the power. Matt tried to memorize the path they were taking, just in case they didn’t find the keys.

“Hey, look.” Jess broke the silence and pointed ahead. “That could be climbable.”

It was a steep wall of rocks, not completely vertical but certainly not a fun slope, and somewhere around ten feet high. “In your state? I don’t know, Jess.”

“Do you see a better option?” Jess replied. Matt grimaced and shook his head. “Come on, it’ll be fine. I’ll just need your help.”

It was a rough climb. Jess almost fell when her leg just gave out, and Matt barely caught her. He was all but climbing with one foot; he didn’t trust his bad ankle to support him on a rock wall. But they made it, and took a breather sitting at the top.

“Are you still doing okay?” Matt couldn’t help but ask.

“No worse than before.” Jess curled in on herself for a second. “Hey, what are we going to do if we run into the guy who killed Josh?”

“...Run?” Matt offered. He had no clue.

Jess laughed. “In your state? I don’t know, Matt,” she mocked.

“Hey, watch it,” he said without any real fire. “You’d be slower than me, anyway. What’s that they say about bears? Just bring your slower friend.” Jess opened her mouth to say something but stayed silent. “Jess? You still with me?”

“Would you?”

“Huh?”

“If it came down to it, would you leave me behind? To get yourself out?”

“What the fuck? Jess, no. It was supposed to be a joke.” Matt shifted himself so that he was facing her. “It’s both of us or it’s neither of us.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said with a sudden bitterness. “I probably would. You should, too. I don’t want you to die for me. That’s stupid.”

Matt stood up. “No, this conversation is stupid. Let’s keep moving.” He offered his arm to Jessica and she pulled herself up, using it to steady herself. He turned to keep walking, but Jess caught his wrist.

“I mean it, Matt. If I get into trouble, I want you to leave me behind.” There was a sincerity in her voice that was so unlike her that Matt had no choice but to acquiesce.

It was warmer outside of the mines, or maybe it just felt that way because it was so much brighter. Matt pulled his torn-up Letterman tighter around his body anyway. The mines were unsafe in their own right, of course, but there was something about being out in the open after all they’d been through that felt even worse. At least in the mines, they had walls around them. Here, it was just trees, snow, and open space.

Jess seemed to have the same instinct. “Let’s hurry,” she said.

It was easy enough to find a trail, and from there make their way upwards towards the lodge and the shed. Matt felt sick. The last time he’d walked here, it was with Emily. It was their last moment of peace before everything went to shit.

God, what if she was dead?

What if all of them were dead?

It just wasn’t a reality that his brain could accept, even if deep down he knew it was a distinct possibility. Emily had fallen even farther than he had. Josh was already dead, and he and Em had told Ashley and Chris to try and find Sam in the lodge, where the killer was probably waiting for them…

But it couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t.

Matt had been steeling himself to see Josh’s body the whole way up here. His heart was beating fast. He was already a squeamish guy and couldn’t stand watching people get hurt. He has been - still was - a rambunctious kid, and no matter how many scrapes and scratches he got and treated, the sight of blood made his stomach twist itself into knots. Needless to say, a body, a body of his friend, that was cut in half wasn’t going to be easy. Digging through Josh’s pockets for a key was going to be hard. Doing it with the threat of monsters and killers hunting them down was going to be hell.

Except, they got to the shed, and there was no head on Josh’s body.

Matt didn’t mean that something or someone had cut his head off, he meant that there was just… no head. “What the fuck?” At this point, he and Jess should get that tattooed on their foreheads. It was probably half of their dialogue.

Jessica was the one who stepped forward. Matt was looking anywhere except at the guts spilled on the ground, following her after a hesitant moment.

“It’s not real. The body’s silicone,” Jess confirmed.

“What do you mean?” Matt’s voice strained. Jess didn’t respond at first, just peered behind the wooden wall, where some sort of audio control box sat.

“I don’t know what the hell happened up here,” Jessica said, “But this isn’t Josh.”

-

Heading farther up the trail, all the way to the lodge, did not answer any of their questions.

The lodge had been blown to bits.

Jessica leaned up against a tree and thought she might cry. “What the fuck did they do?”

“It looks unstable,” Matt commented uneasily. Jessica could agree with that: a large portion of the roof had caved in, and the entire front wall seemed to have burned away. Some of the ashes were still smoldering. As Jessica opened her mouth to reply, there was a creaking and another part of the roof snapped and fell onto the rest of the rubble.

“What if the others are trapped in there?” Jess insisted. Matt looked at her with dread in his eyes, and then he shook his head.

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay. Let’s go.”

Each floorboard groaned as they walked across them. Jess would’ve been more scared of it if she was about seventy percent sure that she’d gone through worse than this house could offer. The interior was just as scorched as the exterior. The sofas and chairs were all but ash, and anything that was left standing seemed like they would crumble under the slightest touch.

It was then that Jess saw it: a body. Something completely singed black, crushed underneath the fallen roof. “Matt. Look,” she said weakly.

“Oh, shit.” They both just stood there, neither of them wanting to see who it was. Jess had been proud of herself, keeping a level head for the last two days. Things were fucked, but she was alive. But in that moment she felt her resolve breaking.

How could she be alive and one of her friends not? She’d never really processed Hannah and Beth being gone, not really. She never grieved. But what if that was Mike laying there? Just the thought of it nearly knocked Jess off of her feet. What if it was Emily? What if Emily was dead and died thinking that Jess hated her guts? Maybe she had hated her guts but she thought it would have eventually gone back to normal. That’s just what they did. Now they may never get the chance.

Jess stumbled towards the body, her heart beating in her ears. Vaguely she could hear Matt calling to her to be careful, but she paid him no mind as she all but fell next to the body.

The proportions were wrong. The hands were long and clawed, the arms spindly. The face was unrecognizable, but its jaw was wide open, displaying its sharp teeth. “Fuck,” Jess laughed. Matt had caught up to her. “It’s just one of the monsters.”

“Do you think the others did this? Maybe to kill it?”

“Mike does have a bit of a destructive streak,” Jess admitted, the thought of him bringing a smile to her face. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did this.”

Jess led the way down into the basement - the upper floor was completely inaccessible. It looked like the lower floor was mostly spared in the fire. Exploring further, though, only added to the questions.

They found fake newspapers, an abundance of dummies - one of which was dressed up in Sam’s clothes, which did nothing to assuage any of their fears - video cameras, and a pile of spliced together timers and batteries. Things only got worse as they descended deeper.

“Oh, hell no,” Matt groaned as they stared down the ruins of the old hotel. “We’re not doing this.”

“Yes, we are,” Jessica replied.

The first thing of interest they found in the hotel was a butcher’s knife in what appeared to be a restaurant kitchen. The second thing of interest were the gutted pigs hanging on hooks. “You ever butcher anything?” Jess asked.

“Uh.” Matt grimaced and turned away. “Not really my thing.”

Jess glanced down at the knife in her hand. She’d picked it up as a defensive measure. “I mean, we don’t know how long we’re going to be up here.”

“Somebody’s going to come find us,” Matt said firmly.

“What’re we gonna eat in the meantime? No offense but there’s no way we’re surviving on, like, five cans of beans.” They’d tried to check the kitchen in the lodge, but it was buried in the rubble.

“And peaches.”

“And peaches, but I’m still right.” Jess started to slice off chunks of pig, nose wrinkling. Nasty stuff. “Can you find a bag or something?” Matt looked queasy just watching her and seemed relieved at the opportunity to get away from the dead animal.

“Sure.” He returned several moments later with a burlap sack and shook out what looked like onion skins but could’ve been anything, honestly. Jess filled it with slices of meat proudly.

“You think I should become a butcher after this? Now that the model dream’s fucked,” Jess tried to joke, although saying it outloud made her more upset. She had thought about it, about how the scratches on her chest and face and entire body would scar and no modelling agency would want her, but saying it made it real.

“Come on. People are gonna be all over you. Pretty blonde girl with cool scars? You’ll be the next big thing.”

“I won’t be. But thanks.”

Matt smiled. “Just being honest.” It could’ve been a sweet moment, but Jessica was holding several pounds of raw pork in a burlap sack, which was a bit of a mood ruiner. “Come on, let’s get out of here. The sun’s gotta be setting soon.”

-

There was almost a schedule after that.

In the morning, Jessica and Matt would prepare a can of beans or peaches or roast some of the pork - Matt’s firestarting abilities were much better when he actually had sticks to burn. Then, they’d spend an hour or two silently searching through the mines for anything of use.

Jess scooped up a hard hat and put it on her head delicately. “Now this is a fashion statement.”

“All the rage once we get down the mountain, just you wait,” Matt played along. “You’ll be a trendsetter.” They found another one for Matt easily enough and although it probably wouldn’t do anything against an attack from the monsters, it was something.

Sometimes they did find actually useful things: A couple more miner’s jackets which Matt ended up using as bedding so that Jess could keep using the cot, a few dusty cans of beans and more bandages in another smaller alcove, even another ratty blanket. Most of the time, they found nothing. They hid when monsters came screaming down the mine shafts and became quite adept at the art of staying still and silent.

One particular day, however, they found things they could’ve gone forever without seeing.

Matt was leading the way, Jess shuffling quietly right behind him. They had gone down an unfamiliar path this time and they were both shocked to see such a large opening up to the surface. The way up was completely iced over, though, so there was no way anybody could climb out. The trouble started when Matt pointed out glasses sitting on the ground.

“Are these Hannah’s?” he asked as he kneeled down to pick them up.

“They could be anyone’s,” Jess offered, but didn’t sound very sure.

It was several little things. The other half of the “danger” sign, which Matt identified because it would perfectly match the half on the cliff he and Emily had been trapped on. Some scrawlings on the walls, the date of February 2, 2014 above dozens of tallymarks. 

“Matt, what the fuck,” Jess whispered as she traced the marks. “Did they survive down here?”

“And nobody ever found them.” Matt was horrified. “There’s a giant fucking hole in the ground right there, how the hell did nobody ever find them?”

And then it was the head.

Matt walked into a darker corner, trepidation making his steps uncertain. There was the vague figure of something sitting there, but as soon as he could make out enough detail, he shut his eyes and turned away.

“Jessica. Jess, it’s Beth,” he gagged. 

“What?”

“Her fucking head. It’s her fucking head.”

Matt’s head was spinning and he had to sit down against the wall, but his mind was a flurry of had they sat here, waiting for help that never came? Was this where Beth died? Are we going to die here, too?

Jess joined him after a moment with a blank look on her face and they sat there quietly, the air filled with apologies that neither of them could find the voice to say.

It was so utterly silent that they both immediately heard the sobbing echoing through the mines. They’d become almost accustomed to the screams, but this sound was something human.

“What now?” Jess rasped, her voice creaky. If Matt didn’t know better he would’ve thought she was on the verge of crying.

“It’s gotta be one of us.” Matt stood up, wincing as he once more put pressure on his bad ankle. “We have to check it out.”

“I know. Hey, help me up.”

Following the noise was easy enough. The hard part was a massive underground lake directly in their way, which required some clever maneuvering through other tunnels. After half-crawling through a tiny crevice and a painful drop of a couple feet, Matt and Jess were standing in a room full of cages and meat hooks.

Somebody’s headless body was hanging in the center. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Matt exclaimed.

“Who is he?”

“No clue.”

The sobbing was close now, close enough to make out words.

“Don’t make me… Please, don’t make me do it! Stop!”

Matt and Jessica stared at each other. It sounded like Josh.

They rounded the corner and there he was, definitely still in one piece, but he was crouched in the corner, legs drawn up to his chest. He alternated between staring at something that neither of them could see and hiding his head in his knees. A disembodied head sat next to him.

Matt approached. “Josh? Hey, Josh, it’s us.”

“You’re not real…” Josh whispered.

“Uh, yeah, I am, man.” Matt squatted down next to him, but Josh’s attention had turned in another direction.

“No!”

“Josh! Josh? Can you hear me?”

-

Josh was alone.

At least literally, Josh was alone. He knew this, he knew that the things surrounding him couldn’t be real, were impossible, but it was hard to keep that in mind when everything was so real.

He didn’t really know how long he had been sitting down here. There was light far above him, but he didn’t register when it was changing, how many times night had fallen. He was too busy focusing on everything else.

Josh heard Chris and Ashley. They were taunting him, sometimes, but most of the time they were crying. Crying out for him. Crying as Chris raised the gun to the bottom of his jaw. Was it a memory or was it a hallucination? Oh. A hallucination. Chris’s brains were splattered on the walls of the cavern. Josh was pretty sure that hadn’t happened - but was he actually sure? Oh, God, he’d bought the wrong bullets, hadn’t he? Of course he had. He’d killed Chris. Fuck. He shut his eyes tightly and buried his head in his hands.

Mike had said that Josh killed Jessica, too. He had also been pretty sure that he hadn’t killed Chris but obviously that was wrong. He could have an evil alter ego that took over sometimes and he just didn’t remember. It was entirely possible. It was probably the case. It would explain the bullets, too.

His stomach rumbled. He looked at the head next to him, staring at him with blank eyes, one milky white and one blue. Josh knew that it was real. It had stuck around since the beginning, since something that should’ve been fake had dragged him back here. He had once reached out to touch it with shaking hands, just to see, and instantly recoiled when he felt the head’s wiry hair. He was hungry. So, so, so fucking hungry.

Josh turned away from the head violently. No fucking way. He wouldn’t. Mr. Alter Ego might, if he was real (and Josh was pretty sure at this point that he was).

Hannah and Beth rarely left. Ever since Sam (oh, Sam) and Mike had tried to help him, had explained that Hannah… Hannah had… Josh retched, but all that came up was bile. He was so hungry.

Well, Hannah was a lot more monstrous these days. She had taken a liking to slowly peeling off Beth’s skin and slurping the strips up like spaghetti. It was such a Hannah thing to do. If Hannah was a cannibal, at least.

And she was.

Fuck.

Josh shut his eyes tight enough that he saw patterns swimming on the backs of his eyelids.

It was heart-rending. Sometimes Josh found a moment of clarity, staring at the stone walls that surrounded him, and the harsh and freezing cold reality would set in. He was trapped down in the mines. He was alone except for a dead man’s head. He would sit here until he died. Nobody was coming for him. He might as well do himself a favor and…

Josh shook his head like it would shake the thought out of his brain.

Sam would sit across from him. She was nice. Well, she was better than Chris shooting himself, shooting Ashley, better than Dr. Hill jeering at him, better than Hannah slurping away with a menacing grin full of sharp teeth. Sam was silent. Sam stared at him, scrutinizing. It wasn’t fun, because Josh knew that she was staring right into his heart and was probably deciding if he was heading to Heaven or Hell, but it was still miles better than the rest.

Poor Sam. Why did he do that to Sam? And now he was making her condemn him to eternal suffering. She wouldn’t like doing that, but she would. Sam was good at judgement. God was probably scrambling for her to die so that He could just employ her to do all His judgements for Him. It must get tiring, right? Josh had tried it. He’d got it all wrong and now he was sitting in the bitter cold waiting to die.

It was daytime, although Josh couldn’t know what day it was, when he heard a newcomer.

 “Josh? Hey, Josh, it’s us.”

“You’re not real…” Josh murmured to himself. Poor Matt. He and Emily had a lot in store for them. He hadn’t gotten to pull it off, though. Sam and Mike showed up and then everything went to actual shit, so.

“Uh, yeah, I am, man.” Wow, his head had gotten really good at its Matt impersonation. Oh fuck, Hannah was moving from Beth’s body and standing behind Matt. Her teeth were already sharp but her face was splitting now, her body contorting and stretching and turning ashy. Her claws reached for Matt and Matt wasn’t real but Josh had to cry out.

“No!”

“Josh! Josh? Can you hear me?”

Blood was pouring from his back, dark and sticky. Matt didn’t react to it. That was weird. Usually all the hallucinations played well together.

“He’s way out of it, Matt,” somebody else was saying.

“Jess?” Josh stared up at her. She looked like shit. She definitely looked like she shouldn’t be alive. “Mike said you were dead. You’re not real.”

“Pretty sure I’m real,” she said, sounding a healthy mix of confused and maybe offended. “Wait, Mike? You’ve seen him?”

“I…” Josh saw him a while ago, drowning in the nonexistent lake several feet away. “I don’t know.”

Jess put a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Are we going to bring him back to the camp?”

“What the hell, yes, we’re going to bring him to camp.”

“Well, yeah, it was, like, a suggestion question.”

“What does that even mean?”

Josh listened to them squabble for a moment more and then he started to laugh. He liked to think he was a pretty funny guy, but even he couldn’t mimic Jessica like this. They were real. They had to be. He wasn’t alone.

His breath still caught when he reached out for Matt’s hand to help himself up and it was solid. He choked back the sobs in his throat with more laughter.

“Okay, big guy, let’s get you out of here.”

-

Roasting pork over a dinky fire in an abandoned mineshaft was already a weird activity, and it was only weirder now than Jess and Matt were silently watching Josh sleep fitfully on the cot.

Josh wasn’t in good shape. Physically, he was better than them, and Matt had been able to bandage up his cuts and scratches but his body was mottled with black and purple bruises. Jess didn’t know much about Josh’s mental illness, pretty much just that he had one, but it was clear that he wasn’t thinking clearly. He thrashed in Matt’s grip on multiple occasions and mumbled out apologies and stared off into space. Jess theorized that he only fell asleep because just walking back to the outpost had been exhausting.

“How do you think he got down here?” Matt asked in a soft voice.

Jess shrugged. “Monsters, probably. Like us. What else?”

“I mean, what if it was the killer? He’s still out there.”

Jessica turned her gaze away from the fire and pork to look at Josh. He was facing away from them. “I don’t know if the killer’s real. Like, what’s the deal with the fake body, you know.”

“No.” Jess was surprised by how resolute Matt sounded.

“I’m just saying! And what’s Josh wearing? It was probably just Chris and Ash and Josh screwing with you and Em.”

“You weren’t there, Jess!” Matt snapped, then immediately deflated. “God. The way that Chris was talking, and Ashley was crying… People can’t fake that.”

“Okay, fine. Sorry,” Jess backed down. It was hard to get Matt riled up, which meant that when he did, it was serious. Unfortunately, it seemed like their conversation had brought Josh out of his slumber. He sat up slowly.

“Hey, Josh,” Matt greeted.

Josh stared at them. Jess shifted uncomfortably. Then, he said, “So you guys are real.”

“Yup,” Jess confirmed. “Feeling pretty real. Welcome to Casa de Shitty Mountain Crew. Are you hungry?” She showed him the pork. “It’s tasty, at least when you’re starving.”

“I don’t… I can’t… You’re trying to trick me. That’s human.”

“It's pork.”

“No, that’s human. I’m not eating it, you can’t make me,” Josh insisted and tried to back away from Jess.

“Josh, it’s literally pig that we found in your basement.”

Matt quickly intervened. “Hey, it’s okay, we’ll just heat up some beans, alright?”

It was an awkward meal. Jess wanted to ask Josh so many questions, but Matt shot her a look that made her back off. Josh stopped staring at them and instead into his can of beans, although sometimes he would look up, gauge Jess and Matt’s reactions to nothing, and then return to the beans.

“So. What was up with the fake body?” Jess asked finally, despite Matt’s silent protests.

“They didn’t tell you?”

Matt sighed and relented. “We haven’t seen anybody else since we left the lodge. I saw Chris and Ashley once, but after that…”

“I was… It was supposed to be funny. It was a prank,” he mumbled. “To get back at them and Sam. For Hannah and Beth.”

Jess made eye contact with Matt. They didn’t know if Josh knew about what they had found.

“But Chris and Sam weren’t even part of the prank,” Jess said.

“You pretended to die in front of them as a prank?” Matt asked at the same time. 

“It was just a joke!” Josh argued though he sounded unsure. “And it wasn’t just them. Jess and Emily were supposed to have to fight to try and save you or Mike and the one that they didn’t would die.”

“You were going to make them think that we were dead?” Matt stood up. “What the fuck, dude?”

Josh finally looked up from his can of beans. “And then I’d reveal it wasn’t real! So no harm done.”

“No harm done? Did you see Ashley? She thought she was covered in your blood! Chris thought he killed you!” Matt was shouting now, and Jess would have urged him to quiet down but she was in shock. No killer, but still very real monsters.

“Well, now they know how Beth and Hannah felt!”

“Guys!” Jessica snapped out of her stupor. “Can we keep it down?” Matt huffed and turned away but didn’t provoke Josh any further.

Josh got to his feet. “I’ll go. I’m sorry. I didn’t want anybody to get hurt. It was just supposed to be a prank.”

“Go where, asshole?” Matt shook his head.

“I thought…”

“We’re not going to leave you to die up here. Sit down. Eat your beans.” Matt said it to Josh but looked down at Jess. It was an argument they had at least once a day. Jess still wanted him to leave her behind if things got hairy - she was way weaker than him and still couldn’t walk faster than a stumble. “Jesus Christ,” Matt muttered as he sat back down with a thud.

Jessica shared the sentiment.

-

Days passed by slowly when there was nothing to do but wander around monster-infested mines and chat about nothing to ignore the gnawing hunger.

Matt had taken to keeping track of the days on a semi-smooth section of the wall and today marked the fourteenth day in the mines. Two weeks.

Two weeks and there was no sign of rescue. No calling out for them, no whirring of helicopter blades, no flashlight beams shining down the mineshaft.

Three days ago, Jessica shot up in the middle of the night and winced in pain. Matt jolted awake, disturbed by her movement, and Josh who had been curled up in his side woke with a sharp breath.

“Oh my fucking God, Josh, do you have the cable car key?” Jess whispered into the darkness. Matt relaxed but felt Josh stiffen beside him.

“Uh - no. I gave it to Mike when he and Sam were looking for me,” Josh replied.

Matt knew that he and Jess weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed that was their friend group, but he was still embarrassed that it had taken them four days with Josh to even ask about the cable car.

Josh was doing better than when they had found him. He was still seeing things, which Matt didn’t think he could fix, and he still refused to eat any pork, but he and Jess could at least serve as reality checkers for him. Matt had read up on delusions and hallucinations when Josh had first told them all about his illness, hoping to be supportive if he needed it, but the time never came and the knowledge barely stuck. Still, a little bit was better than nothing.

In the flickering light of a lantern - their fifth one they had found, the others had burned out - Matt stared at the fourteenth tally mark on the wall. It was horrifically reminiscent of the marks he and Jess had found scrawled into the walls where Hannah had…

Matt shuddered.

Jess was sitting on the cot with Josh at her side. They were both staring at the tallys as well. “We need a plan to get out of here,” Jessica declared.

“The plan is to wait until they find us,” Matt insisted weakly. It sounded more and more like bullshit every day.

“If they were coming, they would’ve come already,” Jess said. “I know that you know it.”

“What are we going to do instead, huh? Hike down the mountain?” Matt scoffed. He was in constant pain when he moved around, so he couldn’t imagine what Jessica was going through.

Josh shifted. “We’ve done it. I mean, uh, me and the twins did it. It took us three days.”

Jess smiled but there was no happiness in it. “See?”

“We’re all broken, Jess,” Matt said tiredly, “We’re barely surviving here. How are we going to survive out there?”

“Josh, there’s got to be supplies in the lodge and shed and cabin, right?” Jess nudged him.

“Uh, yeah. Well, there’s more cans of food in the cabin. There’s a tarp in the shed, too.”

It was quiet. Matt grit his teeth. Jessica was right but he didn’t want to believe it. “Fine. I guess we can spend today gathering up supplies.”

Getting the tarp from the shed was an interesting experience. They were all used to trudging around in the cold, staying silent and hiding when something screamed too close for comfort. They were not used to seeing Josh’s desecrated fake body, and certainly not used to it being torn apart more than it had been. Something had been eating it.

It took a lot of Matt’s willpower not to throw up.

“Let’s just get the tarp and go,” he groaned and turned away from the rotting fake corpse.

They made a pit stop at the lodge to butcher more pigs. Truly delicious stuff. Matt was never going to eat pork again when he got home.

If he got home.

He shook his head like it would clear the thought from his head.

The walk up to the cabin was gruelling, at least from Jess, by the way that she was walking. “You good?” Matt asked her when the building came into view and she froze.

“Yeah. It’s just that this is where I was taken from, you know? Last place I felt normal.” Jess took a deep breath. “I’m good.”

Josh stared at the broken window before Matt hurried him along. At this rate they weren’t going to make it back before sunset.

The cabin had an empty minifridge and a small closet that served as a pantry. It was a lot of the same stuff - beans, peaches - but there was also a jar of peanut butter and a box of saltines. Hallelujah.

The group ended up cutting it close to the darkness. They entered the mine right at sunset and Matt ushered them down into their camp quickly. A monster shrieked from around the corner. Matt half-fell, half-jumped down into the outpost.

The screeching didn’t stop. The creatures howled and chittered just outside their door, like they knew that their evasive prey would be gone in the morning.

Nobody slept easy that night.

Scavenging in the mines had brought them another water canteen and a dusty brown backpack. Matt stuffed it full of the cans of nonperishables, the water canteens, the extra jackets and first aid kit. Josh was put in charge of carrying the blankets while Jess kept the sack full of pork, which was easily the worst job, but she didn’t seem to mind.

As they climbed out of the mines, Matt turned to face its depths one last time.

Good fucking riddance.

-

Josh was tired.

It wasn’t like this was anything new: for the last two weeks the exhaustion had been constant. Josh knew that Jess and even Matt probably had it worse than him - his bruises had begun to heal, albeit slowly, and the rest of what was wrong was in his head. But there was a heavy toll in seeing images of his sisters and his friends tormenting him every waking hour and often into his dreams.

The group was nestled into a cliff face for the night. Matt was sparking up a fire with the grimy lighter he had found in the mines. It had been four days of walking so far - slow, slow walking - and there hadn’t been any incidents. The scariest thing that had happened was Jess tripping on a root and almost tumbling down the rocky path. Every morning they ate a meal, every evening they huddled together next to a fire as large as they dared to make and slept uneasily.

Josh woke up in the middle of the night when he heard the screams of the monster echoing and all of the things he knew were real felt like they were collapsing around him. 

He must have still been up in the mines and all of this had been an elaborate hallucination. If he looked at the ground next to him, he would see the empty eyes of a stranger staring back at him, taunting him, waiting for him to succumb to his hunger.

“I’m not there,” he murmured, but he was pretty shit at persuading himself to believe it.

“Josh,” somebody was saying. Josh looked up and then shut his eyes. It was Beth, but not his Beth, this was rotting Beth. Her forearm was gnawed off, she had no skin on her face and the bright pink jacket she wore was smeared with dirt and blood. “Josh, you didn’t save me.”

“I tried. I tried so hard,” he pleaded.

“You’re leaving me again. You’re leaving us again.” Josh pressed himself against the cold wall of the cliff, trying to get away from Beth as she drew closer. “Hannah saved you. But she should’ve just killed you when she had the chance, right?”

“Hannah isn’t… That wasn’t Hannah.”

“Oh, yes it was. I got to watch her turn into it. She’s powerful now. And she’s not going to let you leave.” Beth laughed. “Washington kids have to stick together, you know.”

Josh shook his head. “I have to leave. I’m going to die up here otherwise.”

“Just like we did.” Beth turned her attention somewhere in the forest. “Just like we did, Josh. You really think you can escape her? Think again.” The monster that had taken over Hannah’s body leapt from the trees, claws outstretched towards Beth and Josh shielded his face from the splattering of gore just in time. He cried at the feeling of cold, long-dead blood on his hands.

“He’s really in it,” Matt’s voice sounded from somewhere far away. “Josh! Come on man, we have to be quiet!”

“Hannah’s coming for me,” Josh breathed and tried to back farther into the wall, but there was nowhere to go. “Hannah’s going to kill me.”

It was Jessica’s distant voice next. “There’s nothing here, we just have to be quiet and we’ll be okay. Josh, we’re okay.”

Josh put his head in his hands and shut his eyes tight. The scream was coming from right in front of him, loud and angry, Hannah was lunging for him… But the pain never came. He opened his eyes.

Matt and Jess’s concerned faces were all that he could see. “There’s nobody but us here,” Jess repeated.

“I know,” Josh said softly and closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard to keep remembering that.”

“It’s not your fault, man.” Matt gave him a light but reassuring pat on his shoulder. Another shriek called from somewhere far up the mountain and all three of them tensed for a moment. “Let’s all try to get some sleep.”

In the morning Josh folded up the blankets, something almost comforting in that it reminded him of being home, although he didn’t think he had ever folded a blanket in his life before this deadly hike. 

Matt and Jess walked on eggshells around him, obviously wanting to say something. Honestly, their little language composed of just meaningful glances was infuriating as much as it was indecipherable.

“Look, whatever you guys want to say, it’s fine. I can handle it,” Josh finally said after an hour of hiking. It felt like a lie. All that it had taken for him to break down last night was one scream. “Just tell me what’s up.”

They exchanged another look, and then Matt spoke up. “You were just talking about Hannah a lot last night. We, uh, we know what happened to Beth, but we never… found Hannah.”

Josh’s stomach dropped. They made it sound like they had seen Beth’s body. They couldn’t have found her that easy, right? Not when countless rangers and policemen couldn’t. He was so busy caught up on that part of Matt’s words that it took him several moments to process the rest of it.

“Oh. Hannah?” Josh slowed down and stopped. The other two followed his lead. “Sam didn’t really explain much. She… she said that Hannah survived down here and… she dug up Beth and then she turned into one of those monsters.”

The silence was deafening. “She what?” Matt whispered.

“She fucking turned into one of them?!” Jess exclaimed. “And wait, she dug Beth up?”

“I’ve read about the legends of the mountain,” Josh said and was impressed that he didn’t throw up as he explained more. “It happens when people resort to cannibalism.”

Nobody spoke. Nobody wanted to. They kept walking.

They never spoke about Hannah and Beth again.

-

It took eight days of hiking total until Matt could see the distant and dim lights of the town shining in the distance.

Every night since that monster had screamed from somewhere in the forest, it didn’t leave them alone. Halfway through the night, they would wake up to its terrible call, and Josh would freeze up and Jess would shy away from the trees and Matt would stare at the flickering shadows cast by the moon and their dying campfire.

The sun was low in the sky as the group observed their salvation in the form of far-off buildings situated in the foothills of the mountain.

“Just one more night up here,” Jess breathed like she didn’t believe it. “We’re going to be okay.”

“What do you mean?” Matt asked. “We can make it there, we just have to pick up the pace.”

Josh shook his head. “It’ll be a stupid risk. We should just make camp.”

“It’s right there!” Matt protested. “We just have to push on. Don’t you want to sleep in a real bed?”

Jess snorted. “Matt, we’ll be sleeping in hospital beds, not real beds.”

“That’s still better.”

Josh shrugged. “I dunno. If you think we’ll make it, maybe we’ll make it.”

Jessica still seemed uneasy. “Fine. But if we’re torn apart by those things I’m blaming Matt.” Matt grimaced.

“Don’t jinx it.”

So, of course, their luck had to change.  

After about an hour of hiking through the dark, the monster shrieked. It wasn’t like what they had heard before. This wasn’t a booming echo, far enough away that they were still safe - this was here. Matt’s eyes widened as a spindly, ash-gray creature shot from the trees, its cry resonating through his bones.

Josh shouted and backed away and glanced over at Matt, looking for proof that this was just a figment of his mind, but Matt couldn’t offer any answer because suddenly Josh was off of his feet and crashing into the trunk of a pine tree. There was a sickening thud, and Josh fell to the ground unmoving.

“Josh!” Matt cried out stupidly and suddenly the monster was staring at him with its cold white eyes. It shrieked back at him and then it was lunging.

There were no weapons. Matt was keenly aware of this. He was drawing his final breaths. He closed his eyes, unwilling to see his own demise to the monster’s gnashing teeth, but they flew open and he screamed in agony when the claws dug into his chest. He fell to the ground unceremoniously and the claws ripped downward. He could feel his own blood pulsing out of the wounds, soaking his shirt.

The last thing he was going to see was the terrible face of death incarnate.

“Hey, asshole!”

No, Jess, no!

The weight of the monster lifted off his chest. It let out another bloodcurdling noise and began to skitter towards Jessica. Matt pulled himself upright and bit his tongue to keep in a sob of pain. He gripped the fallen orange pine needles on the ground as he helplessly watched the creature advance on Jess.

Wait. Pine needles.

Back at the summer camp he and Jess had attended, they had almost always used them to kindle fires. They only fell every couple of years, but when they did, they buried the grass in a blanket of orange.

Blackwood Mountain’s foothills were covered in them.

Matt fumbled with the lighter he kept in his pocket. His eyes felt heavy and his chest was pulsing in time with his heart. His blood stained the pockets of snow still on the ground, and the pine needles were damp, but this was his only chance. With shaking hands, he ignited the lighter.

The needles caught flame. Matt would have fainted from joy right then and there, but it was more likely that he would pass out from blood loss. He lobbed the bundle of burning kindling towards the monster, towards Jessica. Oh fuck, she was going to burn, too.

The ground was alight. The creature screamed out in what could’ve been horror, but Matt wasn’t well versed in the emotions of cannibalistic monsters, so he couldn’t say. Its hands and feet smoldered, turning black, and it started to focus on putting out the fire on its body rather than continue the hunt

We’re all getting out of here, Matt told himself as he forced himself to his feet. His eyesight was fuzzy. He stumbled forward. The monster was crying out and the fire was spreading towards Jess.

“Jessica!” Matt shouted as he moved towards the flames. “Jess!”

“Don’t risk it!” Jess replied over the roar.

“I’m not leaving you behind!”

Matt had always been a bit dumb, he knew that, but this was a new level for him. He charged through the fire.

The next few moments were a blur: Jessica was screaming at him. Matt all but threw her over a log that had caught flame and blocked their exit - he had to ignore Jessica’s cry of pain as she landed because if he hadn’t done it she would be burning alive. Matt coughed and tripped over himself stepping back through the fire, and shed his now-burning letterman jacket to the ground.

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Jess said as they held onto one another and stumbled towards the unconscious body of Josh. “I told you to leave me behind if that ever happened.”

“Well, you told me you would sacrifice me to save yourself.”

Jess glowered at him and it was so unbecoming of the situation at hand that Matt couldn’t help but crack a smile. It soon fell away, though.

Things were looking grim. Jessica’s body was singed red. Matt could feel the sting of his own, smaller burns, but his chest was still bleeding profusely, and he wished he had the anatomical knowledge to understand how on Earth he wasn’t dead yet. Josh was still, save for the rise and fall of his chest that was so slight it was hard to notice at all.

But if Matt was going to die here, the sight before him now was much better than before. The monster pranced around in the fire, its body turning black as the flames spread across the ground, up the trees, filling the sky with a roaring orange light.

He held onto Jess’s hand, looked down at Josh, and slowly drifted away.

-

Jessica wasn’t expecting to wake up.

The thing was, she had stared death in its face twice: once in the freezing grip of a monster, and once surrounded by fire. Surviving the first time had been nothing short of a miracle. The universe had to run out of chances at some point.

But, here she was, certainly alive. Feeling like actual shit, but alive. And, Jess realized suddenly, alone.

For the last three weeks she hadn’t had a moment to herself. She was constantly with Matt and Josh; being by herself meant she was in danger. She’d been separated from them. The last time she was alone, she had fallen down an elevator shaft. Now she was in an insanely comfortable hospital bed - Jess was never taking any kind of mattress for granted again - and the bright, sterile lights were beating down on her. The walls were clean and not made out of rock. A heart monitor steadily beeped beside her. She was off of that fucking mountain.

But alone.

Where the hell were Matt and Josh?

The last she’d seen of Josh, he was knocked out, barely breathing. Matt had passed out soon before she had. For all she knew, they had died there and she was the only one that the rangers or whoever found them brought to the hospital. Had they died so that Jessica could survive? She could never live with herself if that was the case. Living, knowing that two people had to die just so that she could spend the rest of her life scarred and broken and worthless…

Jessica’s breathing grew short and quick. Matt had risked his life to save hers. Maybe he paid the ultimate price for it. They’d found Josh just for him to die almost home. Why hadn’t she insisted that they wait one more night? This was her fault.

The heart monitor was beating faster. Jess tried to sit up, needed to go find Josh and Matt, but she found that she was just as weak as before and had to push herself up.

The door flew open. Her heart sank when it was a nurse, not the boys, although she supposed she should’ve been glad that somebody was taking care of her.

“You need to calm down,” the nurse was saying, but Jess shook her head.

“I can’t, where are Matt and Josh? Are they okay?” Jess pleaded. “You have to tell me.”

“Miss, you’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t calm down,” he repeated. The heart monitor beat faster.

“Why can’t you tell me if they’re okay?”

Another nurse came in and fiddled with the IV bag. Though Jess wanted to keep asking, somehow force out an answer, the world faded to fuzziness and then to black.

The first nurse was by her side this time when Jess woke up the next time. He was an older man with a grandfatherly face. “Are you going to be calm?” he asked. Jessica started to ask about Matt and Josh again, but the nurse seemed to sense this. “The boys you were with are stable. Don’t worry about them.”

Jess took a moment to digest this. “Can I see them?” The nurse shook his head.

“Not yet.” Jess stared him down. The nurse shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll see what I can do. What’s your name?”

“Jessica Riley.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m David. Lord knows how you all survived out there.”

“What’s wrong with me, doc?” Jess asked drily.

David looked down at the clipboard he was holding and back up at her. “You want the whole list?”

“Sure.”

“Well, you have two broken ribs, for starters. There are second degree burns covering thirty percent of your body, and you have several infections. You’re severely malnourished and you have frostbite.”

Jess blinked. “Damn.”

David nodded sagely. “Damn,” he agreed.

For the next several hours, a doctor spoke to Jessica about treatments, and she had her first real meal. She had eaten hospital food before, back when she had broken her leg in second grade, and it was shit, but now it tasted like heaven. Then again, pretty much anything beat unseasoned pork.

Jess’s parents were on their way up, but their flight was delayed, she was informed by David. They wouldn’t get to the hospital until tomorrow.

Finally, as Jess watched the sunset through the window, marvelling at the fact that she wasn’t going to be sleeping on a mountain tonight, the door opened to reveal Matt.

Matt walked on crutches and had a brace on his ankle. Jessica could see the top of stitched-up claw marks on his chest. He looked every bit as tired as Jess felt, but he smiled when he saw her.

“You’re alive.”

“You’re alive!” Jess shot back. Matt’s smile split into a grin and he shuffled into a seat. “Where’s Josh?”

Matt leaned back in the chair. “He’s got a concussion and some more bruising, but he’s not too bad. They took him to the psych ward.”

“We can’t see him?”

“Nah,” Matt shook his head. “I asked already. It’s bullshit.” 

Jess sighed and then was struck. “Wait, do we know what happened to Mike and Emily and the others?”

“Oh, shit, yeah, I asked around. Turns out all of them got out at dawn that first night. Em and I’s distress call actually worked.”

“Goddamn. Lucky bastards.” The room was quiet for a moment as they both looked out the window. The sun was gone, but they were still safe. ”We’re off the fucking mountain, though, am I right?”

Matt smiled again. “We’re off the fucking mountain.”

-

Unsurprisingly, nobody was able to go home very quickly.

Josh was kept in the psych ward for the better part of a week, attending daily therapy with a new psychologist and being monitored in order to make sure he was taking his medication. It was annoying and boring. And necessary, but that didn’t mean Josh had to enjoy it.

His concussion certainly could’ve been worse, but the headaches were slowly fading away, and he no longer had blurry vision when he stood up. Dr. Roth still told him that he couldn’t fly home, which was actually probably the worst thing that had happened to Josh in the last year.

Josh chuckled to himself at the joke.

Josh was packing up some clothes - new ones, because all the things he had taken to the lodge were now blown to smithereens - when Matt and Jess announced that they were taking the long way home with him.

“You already did,” Josh told them. “We spent like, a week hiking down a mountain together.”

“Yeah, so what’s a couple days more?” Jess responded. She had spent most of the two weeks at the hospital either in bed or in a wheelchair, but the doctors had cleared her to move around on crutches.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Josh insisted. “I’ll be fine on my own.” He was half-convinced that his mother was paying them to come with him.

“We’re not leaving you behind,” Matt said simply. Josh shrugged. He’d never tell, but he was glad that they decided to join him. He didn’t know how he would handle being by himself after everything.

The legal side of things had been dealt with by the Washingtons. Surprisingly, bribes were very useful when it came to getting charges of destruction of property dropped. Forest fires were a big deal, but not as much of a deal as money! Josh had never been happier about humanity’s innate greed.

Everything else about the journey, however, was something that money couldn’t fix. Being afraid to be alone was one of them. Josh knew that Jess and Matt felt it, too, in the way that they were attached at the hip and tried to hang out with Josh any and every moment they could. 

It was easy to fall back into old habits. Josh realized this when an older woman eyed him, Matt and Jess cuddling in the back of a long-distance bus. It had been how they slept every night on the mountain. Body heat was important. To old women on buses, it just looked like a very interesting relationship.

They have to switch on and off buses often. Josh was always a fan of gas stations: they had a certain energy that couldn’t be found anywhere else.

At a Mobil in northern Washington, there were three hours until their bus came. Josh thought that he and Matt probably scarred the poor cashier with their over-exaggerated bro-talk and Jess later lamented that she had lost her phone on the mountain because that was a moment that she needed to capture.

It made Josh think of Chris. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to explain himself to him, not to mention Ashley and Sam. If they would even speak to him at all.

They were finally able to get on a Greyhound in Spokane, which meant, unfortunately, less gas station visits.

Jess was laying her head on Josh’s shoulder during the night, Matt on the other side of her. Josh watched the landscape fly by from the window. Sometimes he still caught sight of Beth and Hannah, and the monster that Hannah had become running in the distance, trying to catch up. They were unclear. There was something uncanny-valley about them, in a way that made them no longer frightening. Josh would blink and they would be gone. Jessica and Matt, though, they never disappeared. Josh relaxed and closed his eyes to sleep.

The trip home was over far too soon and at the same time far too late. Matt lead the way off of the bus, Jess and Josh just a step behind. Josh breathed in - the air was warm, almost burning compared to the chill that had permeated his bones on the mountain. Good old February in Los Angeles. The bus station was busy, sure, but there was no way that Josh would have missed the faces of his friends among the crowd.

Jess was all but shaking at Josh’s side and Matt's breath caught in his throat. There they were. Unlike his companions, Josh was just filled with dread.

Jess and Mike embraced, both of them sobbing. Jess all but fell into Mike’s arms - her crutches crashed to the ground and Mike supported her as she cried into his shoulder and he cried into her hair.

Emily and Matt’s reunion was less explosive. They held onto each other like they had thought they would never see each other again - and, well, hey, they had. If Josh didn’t know Emily more than that, he would’ve thought that she was apologizing.

But that wasn’t what Josh was looking for. He could’ve broken down sobbing right there. Chris and Ashley and Sam, staring at him, and Josh was certain that they were going to yell at him, abandon him, and he would deserve it but Christ-

Sam was hugging him. Josh choked back his tears. She was real. She was warm. She was here. There were so many words he wanted to say - “I’m sorry” being pretty damn high on the list - but none of them came out. Sam laughed something watery, or maybe she was just crying, he couldn’t tell, and she hugged him tighter.

Sam let go after what may have been hours with a shuddering breath. “You’re okay,” she said.

I wouldn’t go that far, Sammy, Josh wanted to say, wanted to wipe away her tears and her sorrow, wanted to take back everything he’d done, but the words were still twisting in his throat and so he didn’t say anything.

When Josh turned his attention back towards Chris and Ashley, still hanging back with uncertainty, it took everything in him not to break. They held each other close, tensely, and he could see the fear and the sadness in their eyes.

He wasn’t okay. None of them were okay. But Josh was alive, and he was home. He had been given another chance.

And that was enough for him.