The Survival

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I have to stop thinking all the time. It’s exhausting. Everything that happens makes my brain work, with every little thing that I found interesting my mind divagates about it. I don’t even know how I can sleep.

My brain needs a shutdown button.

“Dylan can you make less noise peeing?” I say.

“It’s not my fault that I have a lot of fluids to expel.” He replies from behind the tree.

“No, but you could at least try to make less noise.” The words come out a little muffled and distorted because of the toothpaste on my mouth.

“Do you want to see my Willy?” Dylan’s head appears from behind the tree.

“Ew, no, I’m not that desperate.” I crunch my nose at the idea.

“Desperate? Girls would line up just to have this beast.” He points to his exit fluid.

A shiver passes my spine. And I continue to brush my teeth. One of the most difficult things to do here on the woods is to take care of our hygiene. We have needs, which Mother Nature gave us, and we can’t control it.

It’s easy for the guys to pee, but not so easy for the girls. They only take it out of their boxers and BAM it’s done.

Thank God my period hasn’t appeared yet. I heard that snakes can smell it. Once again, ew and hopefully there is no snakes here or any other animal that can kill/endanger us.

I spit the toothpaste to the river. I crouch down and make a shell with my hands to retrieve a good amount of water and guide it to my mouth. I mouthwash it and spit before standing up at the same time that Dylan comes in my line vision zipping his jeans.

“You have a little bit of toothpaste here.” He points at the corner of his mouth. I’m about to clean when he reaches his hand and does it himself.

“Dylan!” I scream “You bastard, you’ve just peed, and you haven’t cleaned your hands, but you put one of your fingers on my skin, on the corner of my mouth.”

“Oops,” He shrugs his shoulders, “But let’s talk about something that doesn’t revolve about my p***s, not that I mind, yet you seem really found of it.”

“I don’t have any interests in it, but I assure you if you don’t shut up this moment I’m going to cut it off along with your balls.” I send him a death glare and wait to see if he understands that I’m serious.

“Okay,” He raises one hand in defeat and for safety rests the other in his lower regions, “I need my c**k here. So, do you have your things ready?”

“Yes, I have everything packed.” We start walking to the den where the others are.

“Let’s pray that we find the way out now.” He bumps his shoulder with mine and wiggles his eyebrows.

“What’s so funny? Please tell me.”

“Nothing, but if we don’t have sense of humor we will end up in an asylum because of the situation we are currently in.” How ironic, a few days ago he was screaming at Lucy and Sarah’s face. The funny side of him was probably asleep that day.

“You will end up there if you leave the woods.” I reply immediately.

“Don’t be so pessimistic Kate.” He puts his arm over my shoulder.

“I’m being realist. It’s a big difference.” I roll my eyes and take his arm from around me so I can enter the covert. As it was supposed to, the others are there.

I approach my bag and check if I have everything I needed, I put the toothpaste and toothbrush close to the rest of my toiletries. I’m so focused arranging my things that I don’t hear Nathan walking to me, “Hello.”

“Jesus Christ Nathan, you almost gave me a heart attack.” I raise my hand to my chest where my heart is. I can feel the frantic beat from the scare he gave me.

“Sorry,” A throaty laugh escapes him, “It wasn’t my intention to scare you to death.” He rests his body on the covert wall and smiles down at me.

“Yeah, sure, I’m going to pretend that I believe you.” I smirk and advert my attention from him to my backpack. How is it possible that I can’t manage to close it? I ate some of the food I brought so I should have more space. I push the clothes down so I can zip the bag up.

Nathan clears his throat, “I’m sorry about what I said, you know, about Steve.”

I sit on the ground with too much force, hurting my butt in the process, “Stop it, I lost count of how many times you apologized.”

“I just want things to be good with us.” He scratches the back of his neck. It’s amazing how attractive he is. It’s not like I haven’t noticed before, but he is... different, special in his own way.

“We are good. Now help me here, my crap don’t seem to fit on the bag.”

***

The sun is shining through the leaves of the tall pines, you can hear birds singing while others are making weird noises. The chilly wind meets my body and I wrap my jacket tighter around me. Our boots keep sinking in the snow and they crunch a few brown leaves.

When someone talks about snow, we imagine it white, pearly and pure, but the one under my feet is dirty, unappealing and has a brown colour. The reason for this colour is obvious. The wild life that lives in these woods and constantly touch the snow to move. Any other time, I would be grateful for all this variety of animals and lovely ecosystem, but right now, it scares me how many animals are active around me and what kind of animals room this forest.

A beep is heard making me jump. Nathan that has been walking next to me also acknowledges the sound.

“It came from you.” He frowns at me. I slang the strap from my shoulder and reach over my bag, I set it on the ground and crouch down, I open it and search for the source of the sound.

“Here it is.” I pull my phone out.

“Is it a text? If it is that means that we are close to the verge.” I can hear the hope in his voice, and I can feel hope building inside of me, till I unlock it. I’m met with a message or more a warning that my battery is 4%, “It was nothing. I just have low battery.”

“Damn.” He rubs his face in frustration.

“I make your words mine.” The glimpse of hope that I had now vanished. Nathan’s hands travel to his hair and he tugs at the ends of his curls. He stands up abruptly and starts pacing back and forth.

“The other ones’ phones already died, right?” He doesn’t say anything, he keeps pacing but nods his head up and down answering me. “Yours as well?” Once again, a nod from him.

I stand as well leaving my phone and bag and stand behind him, “Nathan calm down,” I put my hand on his shoulder and massage it softly.

“I thought that maybe you had signal, I... we are still far from the tracks.” Walking to his front I see that he has his eyes closed, his chest is raising and falling as if he just run a marathon, and his hands are closed in fists. I grab one and pass my thumb over the white knuckles to catch his attention.

“We will find our way out. The sooner the better.” His eyes snap open, the green from his orbs never cease to amaze me.

“You are right. Sorry.”

“Oh, dear God. Stop apologizing for everything boy.” I put my hand on my waist to accentuate my point but keep the other one locked on his.

“Sor – I mean you’re beautiful” I froze after his words and so does he “I-I... What I wanted to say was... Do you want to hear a joke?” He asks as casually as possible, but I detect the nervousness on his voice.

“Two mistakes in a row. Wow Nathan.” I laugh at him.

“The part of you being beautiful wasn’t a mistake. It’s deathly true.” One more time I’m frozen in place, I part my lips and look for the right words to tell him, “I should have told you that on another situation, but it slipped.” He takes a step closer.

My lips keep moving but no sound comes out. I must look so ridiculous right now, I’m acting like a fish. You know those movements that they do with their mouth and stuff?

Nathan grabs my hand and circles his arm around my waist, his chest is firmly pressed against mine. The beating of his heart is as heretic as mine. I look at his powerful jaw, at his pink cheeks and then at his eyes, yet his green orbs aren’t looking at mine but…

At my lips.

As if a reflex I look down at his. He starts to lean down, so slowly, so gently and I go at his encounter. His breath caresses my lips, our noses are touching, my eyes are closed, and my heart seems like it’s going to explode. Just one more move and that’s it.

Snap.

A branch breaks. Someone’s here.

“Uhmm... sorry for interrupting.”

I’m going to kill him. I’m going to f*****g kill him.

I look at the person that has the worst timing ever. The person that I want at this very moment to evaporate from the face of the Earth. Dylan is standing there looking apologetically at us.

“What do you want Dylan?” Nathan speaks but his words come out worse and muffled since his head is buried on my neck.

I keep my eyes on Dylan and prevent myself to jump on him and slit his throat, or just give him a few punches. What a time that boy has. He lowers his eyes and cleans the invisible dust on his shirt.

“I came looking for you. You both disappeared and I volunteered to find you.”

“We didn’t disappear, we simply stopped,” I roll my eyes at him, even though Dylan is standing only a couple of meters away from us, Nathan still hasn’t moved a muscle to put some distance between me and him, “and you continued without us.”

“We didn’t notice, and you didn’t say anything, so how would we know?”

“You are right, mate. Our fault.” Nathan raises his head and takes a step back, but not before giving me an almost imperceptible kiss on the neck.

Dylan nods “It’s cool. By the way, why did you stop?”

“My phone started beeping, we thought that it was a message, but it was only low battery.” I march to my backpack, I grab my phone from the ground and place it on the bag again. Since it’s losing battery and I don’t have the charger, it’s useless. Well, even if I had it, I wouldn’t find a plug to charge it.

“Oh. And you ended up trying to suck each other’s faces. Sounds interesting.” A smirk is forming, and I give him a death glare and think about a good come back, but Nathan speaks first.

“At least I have someone that wants to suck my face, you on the otherwise...” Cocky much Nathan? A smile forms making his dimples popping, I shake my head and walk to Dylan.

“Man, you break my heart.” Dylan places his hand on his chest and fakes a cry.

“Will you shut up Dylan? You don’t even know how to make crying noises, you sound more like a whale.” I bump into his shoulder to quiet him.

“Damn Nathan, couldn’t you have chosen someone that could not hurt my feelings?”

“What feelings?” Nathan walks to us.

“You know what? Maybe you are perfect to one another. Insensible people.” He turns his back to us and walks away, Nathan is looking down at me and wiggles his eyebrows. A laugh erupts from me.

They are such kids. So many people that could be stuck in the woods with me and I needed to end up with a dramatic guy and with a sexy God. Dylan is marching in front of us, I guess that he is still ‘hurt’ with my and Nathan’s comment.

“Where are the others?” I question him.

The leaves crunch with every step I take but some are muffled because of the small amount of snow that is underneath, of all the seasons to be stuck in the woods it had to be during winter, you can also hear the boys footsteps and the sound that comes out of their movements.

“Where I left them.” Dylan replies back.

“Which is?” I proceed.

He stops in his tracks and I almost bump in his back, “Somewhere?”

Just like that, the sound that, seconds ago, was created by our boots stops, as well as any other noise that was occurring around us. The birds don’t chirp, the trees don’t dance, the wind doesn’t speak, and my lungs stop working.

“Dylan, you do know where they are right?” I see him gulping making his Adam’s apple move. That isn’t a good sign. It takes him a moment to answer me, or to think of one.

“Yeah, I know” He flashes me a smile to assure me, but his voice betrays him “I made this way. C’mon.”

I lock my gaze with Nathan for a simple moment and I express in my eyes all the questions that I have about this. He places his hand on my lower back and makes small circles, “We must trust him.”

“Don’t stay behind.” Dylan shouts to us, now very ahead of us.

A chill rushes through my body and I cover it better with the jacket, I button the buttons all the way up, till the last one close to the neck and put the hood on my head. I look like an Eskimo, but I don’t care I just don’t want to have the cold wind freezing my face, and to think that it will get worst with time…

Although my face is warm, or as warm as it can, my upper body is another story. The jacket is warm but doesn’t provide me the amount of comfort and heat that I need. I also don’t have gloves, so my only chance to keep my hands from freezing and my fingers to break is to:

Warm them up with my breath

Burring them in my pocket

Hide them with my sleeves

Let’s say that I’ve been doing all those above

“Who from the group saw that we were missing?” Nathan asks.

“Ed did.”

“Say what?” I do nothing but shout these words causing Dylan to turn his head back to me, “Care to repeat?”

“Have you gone deaf?”

“I think so, deaf and surprised. Since when does Ed acknowledge us or only me?”

“He was in fact hesitant to let me go find you, but I imagined that it was only him that didn’t want me to be away, that he wanted me around him.”

“Are you sure that you aren’t gay?” I question him. Shock is the only emotion expressed on his face. Why? The answer is obvious.

“What? Never. I really like pussy.” He keeps walking but he’s looking at me seriously.

“I’m going to pretend that you are talking about a cat.”

“The pusses that I’m talking about have a different kind of fur.” A smirk is prominent on his face. I can feel the vomit rising from my stomach to my throat.

“You are disgusting.”

“I’m only telling the true, but I prefer the shaved ones.”

“Dylan, you p*****t bastard. Stop it. You must be my brother’s fake twin. You two have the same conversations and I bet you have the same ideas running on your twisted minds. Ew.” I shiver and rub my arms. Thinking about it gives me goosebumps everywhere.

“Okay. But so, you know, nothing will enter here.” His hand smacks his butt and he presses his finger on his asshole, “I’m no Miley Cyrus.”

“Stop it, I got it, and don’t insult Miley.” I smack him straight in the head, I can hear Nathan laughing by my side but I’m not sure if it’s because I assaulted his friend that is much taller than me, so it kind of looks funny. Or because of Dylan’s ‘sexy’ moves.

Dylan chuckles while raising his hands in defeat and can’t stop a laugh to also leave me. Lesson of the day: Never question a guy about his sexuality.

“As amusing as this is, shouldn’t we have found the others already?” Nathan looks at Dylan and they keep looking at each other for a long time, and I know that they are having those conversations where you only need to look at someone’s eyes to speak.

I’ve always wanted a friend to do that with me.

“Over there.” You can see peeking from behind a tree a hand, it has rings so it may be Beth, Sarah or Lucy that are seated there.

“Told you we were going to find them,” Dylan winks at me and sprints to the others, I try to slap his bum, but he slinks. A sigh leaves my mouth and when I see Nathan, I can read in his eyes how relieved he is that we find the others.

Knowing that Nathan was concerned about it, only adds more fuel to the fire and increases my suspicions that Dylan didn’t know where they were. It was only a matter of luck that we actually found them.

“Thank the Gods that Dylan brought us back, he has the worse sense of navigation ever.” He laughs, making his eyes shut not allowing me to see his gorgeous green orbits. Regardless of his relaxed and carefree attitude I know that he was worried, even if for only a second.

“That boy needs a GPS.”

“I heard that Kate!” He screams, reaching the others. I slow down my pace and twist my bag to take the water bottle. I can hear Dylan from afar “... you guys never trust me, I told you that I could handle the situation and bring them back sa-- What the f**k?” He screams the last words.

“What’s wrong?” Nathan runs to him and I’m left alone fidgeting with my bag. I throw it on my back and sprint to them, now with my water bottle in my hands.

“What is it?” I ask frantically when I approach them, I try to see what caused their shocked and frightened expressions but Nathan steps in front of me, cutting my line of vision.

“Don’t look at it,” He pleads, I try to push past him, but he grabs my face and his green eyes stay firmly locked with mine own, “Please Kate.”

The panic in his voice only makes my curiosity increase and the doubt in his eyes make me want to know what is causing this havoc so I can understand why he is acting this way toward me.

“I need to see,” I don’t give him time to respond, after I say the words, I grab his hands and take them from my cheeks I slid under his arm to see what’s behind the tree.

I scream from the top of my lungs and cover my mouth with my hands not believing the sight in front of me. My body is shaking, my lips are trembling, and my knees are giving away. Shock is over powering me, I blink once, twice but the terrifying image before my eyes doesn’t vanish.

A pair of strong arms wraps around my fragile body, shock and fear running through my body and mind. Nathan hugs me and presses my body closer to him, while muttering to me sweet and courageous words.

Now I understand why he didn’t want me to see it.

I can see Dylan unmoving form from the corner of my eye and also the monstrous sight.

Lying on the ground is a hand. Only a hand. Without a body attached to it, there are rings on some fingers which make me conclude that it’s a women’s hand.

Since our group is the only one in this forest…

This hand belongs either to Lucy, Beth or Sarah.