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Natalie dragged herself back to camp for the next day or so, snow-kissed skin and tired bones trudging through the cold while clutching the satellite phone to her chest.
The plan had worked. Sure, the signal had been weak and was lost before Natalie could say anything more than her desperate pleas for someone to hear her. But the man over the phone heard her, the phone worked, their lifeline back home was right there.
She’d spent some more time on the mountain after the signal was lost, moving around the edges of the cliff and fidgeting around with the phone carefully to try and regain it. But the sun was going to set, she'd bring more people up to the mountains and try next time, hopefully reigniting everyone’s hope and then somehow holding Shauna off again.
The smile on her lips never dropped on the way back. Holy fuck, they were really going home. They would all go back and do whatever, go to college, fly off to New York, and go get some shitty food from Wisakayok’s only diner. She doesn’t know what exactly would happen when they go back, but they were going home.
Natalie managed to arrive back at the camp long after the sun had set, the moon had just hung itself right above her.
She sees everyone before they see her. The campfire lighting their huts and visages up even with all the trees in front of her, all of them awfully still and just sitting around in the cold. She does a quick headcount, a good chunk of them missing, presumably sleeping or hanging out in their huts. She doesn’t see Shauna, which is a little terrifying—but at least Shauna wasn’t standing in the middle of the camp with a rifle in hand waiting for Natalie to return.
Speeding up her steps, she walks out of the shadows and into the compound. All eyes turn to the footsteps immediately, their faces lighting up.
Travis is the first one to approach her.
“Natalie, did it...” He placed one hand onto her shoulder, the warmth of his fire-heated hands welcomed against Natalie’s icy vest. “Did it work?”
The words were stuck in her throat like honey as she felt tears well up in her eyes. She could only nod frantically, wrapping her arms around the boy out of instinct. He wrapped his own arms around her instantly, the arms of the only home she knew out here.
“Holy shit.” Came in next, Misty’s voice ringing through the tense silence of the camp. “Holy shit! We’re actually going home!” She ran towards Natalie, throwing her arms around the girl.
Cheers rang out amongst the girls as they all ran to tackle Natalie into the ground in a strange form of a group hug. The moment gave Natalie a strange sense of déjà vu, from the team hugs when they won their games, the look of respect when she was crowned as queen, to the moment where they realised the frog scientist and their guide could get them home. Which never happened, except she wouldn’t let history repeat itself this time.
She laid on the snow—normally cold, but it's the warmest thing she's felt since winter started—surrounded by her teammates and cheers.
She wouldn’t let anything stop them from their return this time; she messed up before, but she won’t this time. She would bring her team back, everyone that was still here with them, hell, even Lottie and Shauna and Tai. And maybe she could take at least a part of Jackie and Ben from the plane back home too, discreetly, somehow.
Slowly, one by one, they got off the floor, still buzzing with excitement and chatter. Natalie looked around, and couldn’t stop the grin that grew on her face, the joy of everyone was nearly contagious.
Melissa, who could eat her fries and wash them down with Sprite,
Van, who could catch up on all the movies they have missed since the plane crashed,
Travis, who could reunite with his mother,
And Mari, who could eat her cheeseburgers—
“Where’s Mari?”
Natalie’s words left her lips before she could catch them, a small bit of laugh still left in her voice as she was still breathless from the tackle.
The cheers die out immediately, replaced by an eerie silence as all eyes turn to Natalie again.
Natalie clambered back up to her feet. Her grin dropped from her face as panic took over her system. She looked around, eyes scrambling from person to person to scan for the girl.
“Where the fuck is Mari?” She asked again.
No response. Only nervous stares and guilty expressions stared back at her.
Without thinking twice, she headed straight for Shauna’s hut, the antlers on the doorway a taunting reminder as she stormed right in. Her legs rush towards the makeshift bed, yanking the blanket off the girl who was sound asleep.
“Shauna.” With gritted teeth, she grabbed the collar of the girl’s flannel and shook her aggressively. “Shauna!”
Shauna’s eyes slowly fluttered open, an unamused look on her face that only made Natalie more nervous. “What do you want?” She said, a yawn interrupting the last part of her question. The calmness in her voice was as if she was asking what was for breakfast.
“What the fuck did you do to Mari?”
“Me?” Shauna pulled back, the mock-innocence dripping from her voice like the way her usual venom does. “Ask your little boyfriend who made the trap, why don’t you?”
Natalie’s heart sank as she recognized exactly what Shauna meant. Rage, grief, guilt all flooded to her chest at once, threatening to explode in the form of the tears welling up in her eyes.
She couldn’t cry, couldn’t cry in front of Shauna, couldn’t cry with everyone’s eyes staring at the showdown.
Natalie turned around.
“Close the curtain on the way out, okay, Nat?”
Natalie sat on the edge of the cliff, a full duffel bag sitting on her right.
“Nice view, huh, Mar’?”
Her question was responded to with a gush of cold wind.
“I wish I could’ve brought you here.”
No response.
“I think you’d like it, maybe it’s less fun than your cancerous blue Slurpees, but I think you’d like the view.”
No response.
“The red ones were better than the blue ones, by the way.”
She patted the bag next to her, the bones inside rattling against each other in response.
“Alright, let’s get you to the plane now. Maybe you’ll see coach and captain Jackie.” Natalie chuckled, a weak and shaky one.
She still hasn’t cried, not after having to wrestle Mari’s bones out of Shauna’s possession, not after begging one of the girls to use their duffel bags for her bones in order to not let them rot and sit on the floor of Shauna’s hut, not after hiking up this stupid fucking mountain again knowing exactly what happened when she went up here last time.
Sitting up from the edge, she swung the bag over her shoulder—
“Hey! I’m not done with sightseeing yet.”
Natalie doesn’t even flinch, turning around to be met with ‘Mari’.
“You’re not real.” Is all Natalie said before beginning her journey to walk down the mountain.
“Duh. No shit.” The ghost (and probably hallucination) ‘Mari’ followed her down. “My bones are quite literally in the bag you’re carrying, and the rest of me is, well.”
Natalie doesn’t respond as she only continues walking. She really must be going crazy, huh?
“Hello? I’m talking to you, Scatorccio.”
“You’re not…” Natalie paused in her steps, whipping around to look at ‘Mari.’
“I’m not…?”
“You’re not real.” Natalie echoed her earlier words, “The Mari I knew is dead , that’s all. Done. Not a ghost or whatever fuckass sympathy hallucination my brain is trying to make up.”
“Uh, no? I have to haunt someone. ”
Natalie let out a small grunt, continuing to make her way down the mountain once again. This time, unresponsive to the dead ramblings of ‘Mari’ trailing behind her along with her footprints.
She made it halfway down the mountain before turning around again.
“Can you just leave me alone?” Natalie tries, her voice breaking on the last word.
‘Mari’ stopped with whatever she was saying before Natalie’s interruption, rolling her eyes. “Fine, but I’ll be back.” She shrugged before her expression softened a tad bit. “Just remember that you’re not alone— I’m going to pop up sometimes, well, most of the time.”
With a blink of Natalie’s eyes, ‘Mari’ disappeared again as Natalie makes the rest of her trip back to the remnants of the plane.
She tried to keep her mind occupied by counting her steps, humming whatever song she could remember, and naming all the items off the seven-eleven menu selection, but her mind always drifted back to the bag on her shoulder, the weight of Mari.
After what felt like hours, she finally arrived, back to where it all began. Breathless, she swung open the door of the plane, trudging down the aisles until she found a specific spot.
Mari’s plane seat.
Natalie dropped the bag onto the chair, taking a seat next to it, letting herself sink in the silence.
“Maybe you’d have a different ending this time, whatever otherworldly reality shit you used to talk about.” She glanced down at the bag, a terrible ache panging in her chest. “Some universe where our plane didn’t crash, some universe where we kicked ass at Nationals.”
No response.
“Or some other universe where you’re still here, with me, with us.”
No response.
“I won’t let anyone else join you, Jackie, and coach on this plane again.”
No response.
A flutter of white catches Natalie off guard. She stared up at the sky through the holes in the plane ceiling. The snow fell onto her face, melting once it hit her warm skin.
“I’ll miss you a lot, Mar’, you know.”
No response.
Natalie sat next to Mari until the fall of snow blended in with the tears rolling down her face, until the sensation of the snow no longer burnt her face like her tears did, until she spent every last sob she had left in her.
She only left until the snow stopped, when Mari didn’t have to be alone in the snow once more.