Chapter Text
What started out as a memory filled, once in a lifetime trip to Spain with your friends had very quickly turned into nothing short of a nightmare. Your group of highschool friends had finally been able to get together for the first time in a long while since you all had scattered across the country to attend different universities and start various careers. The trip itself had been a long time in the planning, with all of you flip-flopping on dates and ideas where to go, and you didn’t know when you would get another chance to be together like this again. You had all swore that you would make it a trip to be remembered.
The country itself was very beautiful from what you had already explored from the couple of weeks already spent on your vacation. You spent your days exploring rich cities full of culture and their beautiful landmarks, while spending each evening at a different trendy eatery. However, your vacation was now being ruined by nothing more than bad luck. The six of you had planned to leave the small but bustling city you had been currently staying in to venture farther out into the countryside towards a small coastal town said to have glimmeringly beautiful beaches and an absolutely stunning view of the crystal clear sea.
The morning of your departure from the city started with you throwing on a thin but durable navy blue sweater underneath a plain gray waterproof jacket, a pair of thick dark jeans and also a pair of roughed up hiking boots to better weather the upcoming trip. Not your most favorite of clothes, but a lot more practical beings as the others wanted to walk all the way there rather than take transport like what you had proposed. The other five had dressed similarly to you; thick, durable hiking wear, with Olivia and Laura also donning knitted beanies to keep their heads warm. Mickey, the jokester of the group, had chosen to forgo a jacket for some reason unbeknown to you and typically just wore his favorite tee. Laura had rolled her eyes at this and packed his jacket anyway. You were only to be gone for a few days before returning back, not even a week, but you thought it was better to be prepared and put some extra clothes in your bag anyway, something that only a couple of the others agreed to do.
After packing your bags and camping equipment, you all set off on foot to hike what should be a simple two day journey to the north. Somewhere along the way however, you’d gotten turned around and lost track of where you needed to go. It had now been three days since you had left and your group had found yourselves in the rough outback near rocky, gloomy looking mountains instead of the warm, stunning coast you were aiming for. Vince had been the one in charge of the map and directing the group, while Jen handled the compass and navigation. Somehow the pair had gone wrong which led to your current predicament. The group had thought that, as Vince was the one in the group who traveled the most, he would be best to guide you, so you had all agreed to let him lead the way. Unfortunately, he also tended to be the more laid back of the group as well, which apparently extended to following directions, something that nobody thought to bring up. Meanwhile, Laura had always been the more outspoken of the group and, even though you were all tired and frustrated, now was no exception. After the second day had passed, her temper flared fiercely. Laura and Vince had taken to bickering between the two relentlessly, oftentimes with Laura shouting. The rest of the group had tried acting as mediator, but when that failed, took to ignoring the pair and thoroughly combing through the map to try to figure out where you had ended up.
During one of their spats, while the two argued, the rest of you muttered to each other as you poured over your leftover belongings. Your supplies would last a few more days but you really needed to be careful enough to avoid running low. The flashlights you brought were nearly running out and you only had a few extra batteries left. Worse was the water situation. You only had a few bottles left between you and none of you had seen any water nearby to use the emergency water purifying tablets on. You had been lucky to be one of the fortunate within your group to carry a pack full of food instead of the heavy camping equipment some of others had. After inventorying everything, you stuffed a portion of the remaining food and some of the water bottles back into your rucksack to begin the next set of trekking in the direction the others had finally made their minds up to go in.
Vince unfortunately took up the front once again while Laura begrudgingly followed slightly behind now guarding the compass, and pointedly ignoring him. Your three other companions followed after. Mickey, still acting like the joker of the group, was attempting to make Olivia and Jen giggle with his goofy jokes as they walked. You found yourself trailing after the lot. Your stomach turned and pinched in worry as the realization of being lost started to overcome you, and you worried about how no one else seemed to care that you were in a precarious situation.
By the time the day had already mostly gone according to the time on your phone with only a couple of hours of sun left, the group were all starting to fatigue from the fruitless walking. You felt like you were going in circles as you hadn’t even left the mountains, and worse still, the eerie fog covering them seemed to get closer. At some point over the day, you had all tried to call for help but couldn't as no one’s phones had found any signal. Already, talk of stopping for the day has started bouncing around the group, with Laura being the one championing for you all to continue going.
It was during one of these loud discussions that the brush nearby to your group rustled noticeably, and you watched on as a man in dirty, ripped clothing appeared. His hair was heavily disheveled and, from what you could see, he looked very ill. “¡Forasteros!” The man yelled, pointing directly at the group. You noticed a small, dirty axe was held tightly in his other hand.
Jen grabbed hold of Olivia next to her, and as Jen clung to her Olivia asked, “What'd he say?”
The scared girl replied, “'Outsiders' or something like that.” Much like Olivia, you didn't speak much Spanish and only knew the occasional word or phrase. Of the group, only Jen and Laura could speak it and you had so far been relying on them to help you throughout the trip.
Laura pushed herself to the front of the group. Standing in front of the disheveled man, she squared her shoulders and started confronting the stranger with her fast clipped Spanish. She was suddenly silenced, as the man’s arm lashed out and grasped Laura painfully by the throat, ripping her up off the floor. You heard the garbled screams she made as she thrashed in his hold while the man choked the air out of her. After being momentarily stunned by the sudden actions, as a group you all tried charging at him, resorting to hitting and kicking in an attempt to get him to release your friend while screaming at him to let her go. Your own fists hurt from the effort but you refused to stop, but unfortunately your combined efforts seemed to barely shake him as he clamped down on your friend’s neck with determination. A bone chilling crack abruptly sounded out loud from your collective yelling and you all froze in silence. Laura's flailing and gurgling came to an end as her body went limp and her head lulled in the murderer's hands. The man just dropped her lifeless body into a heap on the ground, turning away from her discarded body to the rest of you. All of a sudden panicked, the rest of your group took off running into the dense, dark forest nearby.
You scattered into the nearby shadowed forest edge where the man had previously come from, running frantically for your lives. You tried desperately to maintain your balance even as your feet kept clipping the fallen branches and twisting roots underfoot. You caught sight of Mickey running just in front of you and you tried following his path to avoid running headfirst into the thick trees surrounding you. You couldn't see Vince, Olivia or Jen during your escape, and only knew they were still with you by the yelps you could hear coming from them stumbling on the uneven terrain behind you. You knew that the crazed man had also followed. His constant yelling kept making stabs of terror run through your entire body each time you heard it.
You froze on the spot as the blood curdling scream of Jen rang out loud amongst the almost deafening cacophony coming from your group. In front you saw as Mickey stopped to turn around and look back past you. He breathed out a quiet 'fuck' before stumbling backwards into a nearby tree. You quickly turned too. On the ground not far from you lay Vince, and buried deep in the back of his head was the rusted axe now covered in his blood. Olivia hesitated only slightly before she grabbed the still screaming Jen and pulled her onward past Vince towards you and Mickey. You watched on as the old man slowly approached Vince’s still bleeding body. With tears now starting to gather in your eyes, you reluctantly turned and followed the others on your continued flight forward. The man's noises did not follow.
Eventually, the adrenaline that had been fueling you had ran out and you found that you could carry on no longer. Your companions had fared no better, so as a group you collapsed in a small, disarrayed clearing in amongst the twisted trees. While the darkness in the woods had started to increase, the only thing your group could do was sit in silence, not knowing what you could possibly say after the events of the last couple of hours. Olivia sat silently smoothing Jen’s short hair that had started sticking to her face while Jen clung fiercely to her, silently sobbing in obvious distress. After some time had passed in silence, Mickey was the first of the group to rise. He pulled out a water bottle from deep in his roughed up bag and took a long drink. He then silently moved over to the still crying Jen and gently pressed the bottle into her hand. She held the bottle, staring at it for a moment in an uncomprehending stare, before slowly lifted the bottle to her lips and took a sip. While watching the pair, you realized the dryness coating your own mouth and rummaged in your slightly torn bag to pull out a water bottle to take a drink. Across from you, Olivia had done the same. After a few sips, Jen’s crying had stopped, now just coming out in occasional hiccups. She recapped the bottle and gently handed it back to Mickey and opened up her own now dirtied pack. She pulled from it a few dried granola bars and passed them around the group. After Mickey sat back down, you all ate slowly in silence.
While finishing eating, Mickey started looking around the trees where you had all taken to hiding. His eyes eventually fixed on a spot, one not far behind where you were currently sitting. Turning to follow his eyeline, you looked out between the trees too. In the distance, although very faint, was a light. “You see that?” Mickey asked.
You suddenly turned back to him, replying, “Yeah, a light.” You weren't sure what to make of it, but something deep inside of you was frightened of what it meant.
“I want to check it out,” he said suddenly as he again got to his feet.
Olivia let out a quiet screech as she watched him, shaking her beanie covered head. “You can be serious?” she hissed, disbelief coating her voice. Jen curled into herself as her crying started up again.
“It could be help,” he told her, though you thought he was being too optimistic.
Olivia merely scoffed. “Or it could be more of the murdering fuckers, Mickey. Think won’t you.” Olivia shifted even closer to Jen and held her tight to try to comfort her.
You looked between the two, then back to the light. It kept flickering in the distance. Although the sight of it didn’t sit right, you knew something had to happen or the group was at risk of imploding again. “I’ll go too,” you spoke up, everyone's heads turning in your direction. “We’ll stick to the trees and look from a distance, okay? We won’t go near them until we’re sure.” Mickey nodded in agreement to your suggestion.
Olivia meanwhile, shook her head vehemently, her eyes now watering. “Please,” she whispered, barely audible over the creaking of the trees.
You stood up and walked the small space over to Olivia. “I promise we’ll be careful,” you told her, resting a hand on her shoulder. You looked over at Mickey and he just nodded his head at you. You followed after him as the two of you carefully inched out passed the tree you were camped behind and started to creep forward. Slowly, while trying to watch your footing, you both made your way towards the light, with only the occasional screech from birds and the creaking and rustling of branches to be heard. As you turned to look back the way you came, you noticed a small light there as well. You figured it was likely the only remaining flashlight your group had, and the other two were using it as a guide to lead you back to them. It took more than a moment to gain any distance, but you found as you got closer that the light grew brighter and you could see that it appeared to be some kind of flame. Closer to it still, and the fire illuminated what seemed to be a rough stone building of some kind. Suddenly, screams could be heard from where you had come from and you both turned to rush back following the guiding light to where you had left Olivia and Jen. You were too far away to really see clearly, but it looked from a distance as if there were more than just the one small light.
“Let go of me!” You heard Olivia scream faintly as you caught sight of the pair of them. It looked like they were being hauled onto the shoulders of a pair of giant men, with numerous other villagers holding on to torches and tools while gathered around them.
You and Mickey paused in your rush back. “Will we be able to…?” you tried to ask him, hoping that there was some way to help your friends, but he just closed his eyes and shook his head. Tears came quickly to your eyes as you heard the desperate calls of your friends, while you could only stand there and listen. Mickey was right, you were both too far away to get to them now. Even if you were able to, you knew that with that many people to go up against, you didn’t stand a chance to save them and get out of there alive yourself. All you could comfort yourself with was that they were still alive and screaming when they were taken.
After their cries had finally died down, Mickey left you braced up against a tree for support while he returned to where you had left your friends by himself. He came back to you not long after now with Jen’s backpack thrown across his back along with his own. You noticed there was no sign of Olivia’s being with him. “I couldn’t see where they took them,” he told you solemnly. You froze as you caught sight of a light passing between the branches, startling you both as Mickey upon catching sight of it, pushed you back behind a tree, hiding you both from its sight. You watched transfixed as the light traveled between the interwoven trees, flickering in and out as it passed between them. Slowly it started to dim as it moved farther away from your hiding spot. You yourself moved away then, shifting into the nearby brush as the sun fully started to set. The darkness crept upon the pair of you more and more, and you hurried to find a small group of bushes to hunker down for the night. Mickey combed through his bag to pull out a couple of light sleeping bags and set them out as you in turn rummaged in Jen’s pack, finding some dried food to share for your dinner. You turned away from him to climb into your sleeping bag and tried to eat your meager meal, feeling silent tears fall from your eyes and run down your cheeks.
You twisted your fingers into the brown, woven thread bracelet you always wore. Jen had given it to you back when you were both in school, telling you it was a good luck charm, but any luck it seemed to have had had now long run out. You just lay in your sleeping bag, wishing this was all just some horrific nightmare you could finally wake up from, that in the morning you would awake back in the city to find all your friends are still with you. After many hours of near constant restlessness, you finally drifted off into an erratic sleep, your nightmares full of blood and terror.
Morning eventually broke through into the clearing, dragging you awake, and the pair of you turned to gather your sparse gear quietly. Neither of you really spoke much beyond what was required as the loss of your missing friends weighed heavily between you. Mickey looked just as rough as you felt and you could only assume you looked as bad to him. The two of you walked onwards together quietly through the trees. You had tried to head back to the area where Jen and Olivia were taken to look for footprints you could potentially follow, but couldn’t find any sign of where that spot was. Eventually you had walked so far that the treeline thinned out before the two of you. In front of you was a roughly formed dirt road that by the shape of it, could have only been made by tire tracks. Looking around, you couldn’t see any road signs or markings along the stretch of road.
You turned to Mickey and asked, "What do we do?"
He tried looking down both sides of the road as far as he could. "I think that is the way we came," he said, pointing left. He turned back to you and suddenly gripped your shoulders tight. "I'm going to try to head out that way and find help."
You gawked at him, caught completely by surprise by his idea. "No!" You screamed. "You don’t know that you’ll find anyone, or if that’s even the right way," you told him.
He shook his head in denial of your words and said, “We need to try something. No one here will help.”
“Then I should come with you!” you suggested to him. “We should stick together.”
"I know we should.” His voice sounded desperate as he reasoned with you. “Look, If I can’t find someone within the next day, I’ll come right back. I just need you to stay here hidden and safe until I get back. I’ll be careful, I promise." He pulled you towards him into a tight hug.
You responded just as earnestly, panic at losing him starting to take over. “Mickey, don’t go,” you begged him. Every instinct you had was telling you that him leaving was a terrible idea.
He slowly let go of you. “Keep your phone close and stay near this road.” You nodded numbly, your mind swirling in confusion as he stepped away from you. You instinctively took a half step forward to follow him. “See you soon, yeah?” he said before checking the road again and walking out onto it. You could only watch on in apprehension as he started walking onwards following the path without you.