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Camila was tired. She was tired, and questioning why the hell she’d agreed that coming out to the woods in the middle of a nowhere town was a good idea.
“It’s extra credit,” she reminded herself, resisting the urge to just sit on the forest floor.
It was the fourth of July, and while her boyfriend was back in their town, at the local field, preparing to watch the fireworks, she was out here watching the wildlife. Their teacher had offered extra credit to anyone who would come back to his hometown to help out the local wildlife that got stunned from the fireworks. Apparently, wildlife had been low the past few years, and he was trying to protect them from any possible cause of death.
So here she was, in the middle of nowhere. Some town called ‘Gravesfield’. Then she’d be carpooling back with a bunch of veterinary students who were as tired and cranky as her.
Thank God coffee was a thing. Hopefully a town this small had a 24/7 coffee shop somewhere.
As the fireworks began to go off, she tried to get a good look at them from her vantage point in the woods. She could see small sprinkles of light between the trees, but other than that, not much. That was a shame, she loved a good celebration. Fireworks were always a blast, and she’d been looking forward to seeing them with Manny this year. Oh well, there was always New Years. Plus then, she’d be guaranteed a kiss.
She smirked at the thought, and walked around the woods a little. The students were trying to stay mostly separate so as not to scare the animals more, while also staying close enough to call for help if something happened. The animals didn’t just fall to the ground stunned - some would become aggressive in their fear.
Something told Camila this was not actually a school-sanctioned trip. Oh well, it was too late to back out now.
Keeping low to the ground, Camila crept towards a squirrel that had fallen to the ground in fear. She gently pressed her stethoscope to the creature’s chest, and heard its heart still beating, although very fast. There wasn’t much she could do for it aside from cover them with a fleece blanket they’d been prepared with. She could also give it fluids, but that would likely cause more fear in the animal than it would were she to just back off. As she was getting off her knees, she heard her professor scream.
“Everyone, get over here, now!” he called, panic in his voice. No longer worried about disturbing the animals around her, Camilla took off in the direction of the voice. She stumbled over a root hidden by leaves, but otherwise made it with no problems. She was slightly gasping for breath when she met with her panicked professor, but was glad to see them okay, although they had collapsed to the ground, pointing into the woods. She tried looking to where they were pointing, but she saw nothing.
“What’s wrong, teach?” one of the other students asked, holding a hand out to help the professor up. He ignored them, however, and continued to point into the woods.
“I-I… there was a beast there… it was enormous… had the wings of a bat… Never seen anything like it…” he stuttered out. The group looked at eachother, suspicious. Perhaps he’d gone out to party a bit before taking a trek with a bunch of his students. He didn’t seem the type, but you never knew, after all.
“I don’t see anything,” one student called, having walked off in the direction that was pointed in. Camila joined them along with a few other students. They all came back within a few minutes with the same report - nothing.
“No, no, it’s there! I swear it! We need to find it, this could be a scientific breakthrough!” He was almost manic now, having finally been coaxed to his feet by one of the students who stayed back.
“Do you guys think we should just… carry him back to the van?” Camilla asked, concerned. One of her classmates shrugged and lifted the man like a sack of potatoes, tossed over his shoulder. Her professor began to shout to put him down, he had a discovery to make, but all the students followed their leader out of the woods.
Feeling eyes on her, Camila took one last look behind her. There was nothing there. She shrugged and walked on. Hopefully a bit of coffee would bring their professor back to the present. At least they had a place to stay the night for now.
Eda looked at Raine over her coffee and groaned. Last night had… not been fun.
“How was I supposed to know they’d blast freaking rockets into the sky last night?” she asked as her partner continued to glare at her. “That’s not a normal thing! That never happens when we’re here! Humans are just weird!”
“You always claim to be such a human expert,” Raine said, annoyed. “You should’ve known.”
“I don’t claim to know everything,” Eda said with a sweep of her hair.
“Yes. You do. You literally do. You claim to be the all-time expert on the human realm,” Raine said with a straight face before taking a sip of their coffee. Their cup was practically half sugar and milk, but it was still so bitter. How did Eda drink this stuff black.
“You should know by now that only half of what comes out of my mouth is true,” Eda challenged before letting her face fall to the table, exhausted. “The rest of it is just bullshit.” Raine barely heard her words as they were mumbled into the table.
“You’re bullshit,” they said, having nothing better of a comeback. They looked at the clock on the wall and sighed, they’d need to head back soon if they wanted to have enough time to finish their potion orders.
Before they could shake Eda awake from where she’d practically passed out on the table, they overheard a group of people around their age complaining at the table over.
“I can’t believe he brought us all the way out here just to collapse on a drug trip,” one girl was saying with a roll of her eyes.
“I don’t think it was a drug trip,” said another girl, with an accent. “But he must have had too much to drink or something . Why else would he claim to have discovered a brand new species in Gravesfield of all places?”
Uh oh.
“At least we got extra credit for doing practically nothing,” one of the guys said with a shrug. “I’ll take extra credit for driving to the middle of nowhere and carrying my professor back to his hotel room.”
“It would have been nice to have been home last night, though,” said the accented girl. “My boyfriend called me earlier about what a blast it was. And instead I got to listen to grumblings about pitch black eyes and enormous feathered beasts.”
Eda picked her head up on her own now, ears twitching towards the table. Double uh-oh.
“Well, so long as he bumps my grade up, I’m happy not to tell his supervisor what a whackjob he is,” another boy said.
“I don’t know how comfortable I feel learning from him anymore,” another girl chimed in from where she was sipping on her drink. “I’d like to actually be a competent vet. Not… whatever he turned out to be.”
Raine silently got up from the table and tossed theirs and Eda’s drinks out before grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the cafe. She didn’t resist. As they started heading back to the woods where the portal resided, they finally spoke.
“We got seen.”
“Yup.”
“At least they think the guy’s a maniac?” they said, looking on the bright side.
“Yup.”
“We probably ruined that guy's life.”
“Oh, totally.”
Raine groaned and put their head in their hands, almost walking into a mailbox before Eda pulled them out of the way.
“Oh Titan, I feel terrible.”
“Me too, that’s why we got the coffee,” Eda said with an eye roll.
“Not physically! That guy’s going to be looking for us for the rest of his life, and he’s never going to find anything! At least, he better not.” They glared at Eda.
“Don’t look at me like that, I wasn’t planning on planting fake evidence or anything like that… not where you could see it, at least.”
Raine sighed, knowing they couldn’t stop her if she was determined.
“Don’t get caught,” was all they had to say. Eda smirked.
“Me? Caught? You kid, right?”
Raine resisted the urge to roll their eyes again, lest they get stuck in that position as their mothers always warned they would. Eda had too much confidence sometimes.
At least confidence was sexy.
“Let’s just head back before you start another conspiracy theory,” they said, pulling her up to the shack where the portal resided.
“You’re just jealous you don’t have a wanted poster yet,” Eda argued, pulling the door open.
“You’ve got me,” Raine deadpanned. “I’ve always wanted to be on the run from the law.”
“That’s what you’ve got me for, toots,” she said, winking before practically skipping into the portal.
They sighed, but smiled and followed her through.