Chapter 1
Can you hear me? Do you still hear my voice?
Echoes back at me, "Why did you make that choice?"
The wilderness is a vicious entity that takes and takes and takes. It is consuming and relentless. In this place, in these callous woods, the only way to receive what you want is to sacrifice.
The attic howls from the wind beating against the window. It knocks in irregular intervals. Each forceful lash against the aged wood of the cabin is louder than the next, as if the wilderness has something to convey. It's uneasy, and Shauna stirs in her sleep from the noise. Panic rises in her chest as she immediately sits up.
No, No, No, No, No-
The dream she just had was too realistic.
Her breath is a frosty whisper as she exhales. It's hard to breathe and Shauna almost gasps. Whether that's from the anxiety gnawing at her chest, or the blinding coldness in the attic, she isn't sure. Even her toes are numb from the frigidness consuming the room. Despite that, she yanks the blanket off her skin and makes a beeline toward the window. Shauna is akin to a child who just had a nightmare. Nails harshly digging into her hips, she begs and pleads with herself that her dream was just a dream.
It was just a dream. It wasn't real. Jackie is oka-
The ground is coated in snow, and in that blinding whiteness, there is a human-shaped lump where Jackie should be. Time becomes sluggish- almost unreal- as Shauna flees downstairs. There is nothing else swirling in her mind except the fear of this nightmare being real.
(Shauna used to love when it snowed in Wiskayok. Every winter, the first fall of snow meant Christmas traditions of building snowmen with Jackie and making homemade hot-chocolate. It was something only the two of them shared.
In 1993, during one of the biggest blizzards they had ever seen, Shauna and Jackie were snowed in together. They talked about Jackie's fleeting relationship with Jeff and how stupid he was.
"Why do you even keep him around?"
"You know my parents think he's a good influence."
In 1994, while it began to snow outside, Jackie and Shauna cuddled together and watched Rudolph. Shauna always found that movie stupid- they only liked Rudolph when he was proved useful. How is that fair? How could they ridicule and outcast someone just because they were different? Nonetheless, they watched it every year because Jackie liked it.
in 1995, Jackie had a big fight with Jeff and came over sobbing. Resentment lingered in Shauna's stomach as she held Jackie against her chest. They didn't mention the snow that started falling. They didn't speak much that night, actually. There was nothing to say when speaking meant talking about their unresolved issues. It was years of something building up. Feelings Shauna couldn't quite name. Words that felt weird on her tongue, but perfectly articulate in her journal.
In 1996, at the first sight of Winter, Shauna finds Jackie's lifeless body).
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Jackie- Jackie, no!"
The scream that follows is haunting. Horror, crushing and agonizing, spreads throughout Shauna's body. It's in her chest, hollowed and empty. It's in her tearful eyes, in her nauseating stomach, in her raw throat that is still screaming to anything that will listen. Horror is in her shaking hands that reach for Jackie. With knuckles bright red and cracked, she paws and shoves ice away from her body. It's futile. There's no saving someone that is already deceased, who's been dead for hours, but denial is the way Shauna looks hopefully at her.
Denial is the way she shakes her side. Gentle at first, as if waking someone from slumber. Through Shauna's tearful vision, it almost looks like Jackie is just sleeping. Her eyes are closed and everything is blurred. But her lips are tinged blue, and- Her shaking turns harsh and frantic, desperately wishing for this to not be real.
Grief claws its way up her throat. It pries open Shauna's mouth.
"Jackie, wake up. Jackie, come on, wake up. You have to wake up."
Strong hands wrap around her waist, pulling her back to reality, but Shauna is already lost in this sea of overwhelming grief. Tai, warm and lively, holds her. Her breath breathes down her neck. It's a stark contrast from Jackie who Shauna still clings to. Jackie who is not moving, Jackie who is cold, Jackie who isn't breathing.
Jackie who is dead.
She's not coming back.
The realization is the most harrowing moment of her life. She screams in unison with the wind. She cries until her voice is hoarse and barely a whisper. She isn't sure how long Tai holds her, or how long it's been when the group forces her back into the cabin. Instead, her brain is fogged over and everything is disorienting.
They force her to sit next to the fireplace. The flames flicker over the crackle of wood. Her face, flushed from crying and the cold, burns from the sudden display of warmth. It's too warm. She doesn't deserve it. Staggering to her feet, she attempts to make a run toward the cabin door, but Tai and Van almost tackle her. Shauna struggles against their grasp.
"Shauna, you need to warm up," Tai firmly says. Her brown eyes are unnaturally wide as if she isn't sure what to do.
"I can't!" Shauna cries. "I don't deserve... I don't want to... Let me go back outside!"
"You can't." Van carefully replies.
"Jackie needs us," Shauna begs. "Jackie's outside. She... she..." Another sob escapes her trembling lips. Shauna locks eyes with Tai. There's no use speaking what they both know: this isn't something either of them are equipped to deal with. They're just teenagers stranded in the wilderness. The wilderness that takes and mocks and Shauna is now without her.
Tai envelops her into a crushing hug so that Shauna is smothered against her friend's chest. And she can feel her heart rhythmically beating. Counting every beat of her heart is all Shauna can focus on. One thump, two thumps, three, four, five, six-
"Let's get you to the attic," Tai's voice is laced with sympathy. "You need to rest."
I don't need rest. I need Jackie. I need my best friend back. I don't deserve to sleep. I don't deserve to be here. I don't need-
Yet Shauna is fatigued. Her legs are heavy, barely able to hold her up, and her head is pounding. "Okay," She says, but she doesn't mean it, because nothing will ever be okay again.
"Okay," Tai breathes back.
It's all complete bullshit, but she numbly lets Tai take her hand. As she passes the group, Shauna has to bite down on her chapped lips to stop herself from yelling.
"What should we do?' Mari's hushed voice asks.
"I... I don't know," Akilah whispers. "I've never seen-"
"Give her space." Lottie answers. "She just lost her best friend."
Fucking Lottie thinks she knows everything.
"Ignore them," Tai urges.
She walks up the stairs, each of them creaking under her weight, and if Shauna didn't know any better, it would almost sound like they were crying with her. But this pain is her own. She spends the rest of the day lamenting in the attic. No one bothers her, not at first.
Eventually, she is able to fall into a restless sleep.
There's dirt in her mouth when she awakes. It's earthly and uncomfortable, a bitter taste lingering on her tongue. Shauna groggily sits up and is hit with an instant wave of nausea and Deja Vu. Her hand gropes her aching temple, wincing at the light filtering in through the trees. There's no trace of snow on the ground as if it didn't exist to begin with. She's also back in the blue Doomcoming dress.
Lottie and Mari are sprawled out next to her. It's the same situation she was in yesterday morning, except, it's happening again. Did yesterday even happen? Has she gone insane? Bile rises to her throat, and her heart feels inappropriately jammed in her chest.
Or was it just a dream?
"Jackie!" Shauna's voice echoes. She staggers to her feet, brushing remnants of soil off her knees and gingerly heads toward the cabin. It isn’t a far walk, perhaps only a couple minutes, but every step she takes feels like an eternity.
(In her haze of panic, the knife that was held to Travis' throat is left behind. It glints in the soil).
"Where's Jackie," She urgently demands, bursting through the trees and into the clearing.
Coach Ben looks up with furrowed eyebrows. "Hey, I uh, boiled some drinking water." His head flicks to the pot resting over the fire. "If you're as hungover as I am."
Shauna's mouth is dry and she is parched. She's also undeniably hungover- her head feels like it was slammed into a bunch of rocks, but she huffs in frustration. "I don't care about the water," She snaps, garnering the attention of onlookers. Tai and Van exchange glances, unsure of how to handle her outburst. "I asked where Jackie is."
"I have nothing to say to you," Jackie firmly answers.
God, her voice.
Shauna’s eyes widen as she turns and stares at where her best friend emerged from the cabin. Jackie is clad in her Yellowjacket uniform but not coated in ice. And her skin isn’t a pale gray anymore. No, her cheeks are flushed and Jackie’s lips are pursed tightly together- but they’re a softer pink instead of the frost-bitten blue. She glowers in her direction, but never has she been thrilled to see her so pissed.
"Jackie," Her voice breaks, and she is unable to stop the tears swelling in her eyes. Racing over to her, she crushes her into a hug. The other woman tenses, but it isn't the stiffness Shauna felt yesterday when she was dead. No, Jackie is silently breathing.
(If she pressed her ear to her chest just to make sure, that’s for Shauna to know).
"What are you doing?" Jackie incredulously asks. "You go batshit insane yesterday and now hug me? No," A cold chuckle. "You shut me out the entire time we've been here, and now you want to-"
"You don't understand!" Shauna is wide-eyed and desperate, a wounded animal grabbing Jackie by the shoulders. The skin underneath her fingertips is hot, and she shudders at the difference of how frozen it had been in her dream.
Jackie falters and takes a step back. She shoves her away, albeit gently. “Don’t understand what,” She stammers.
I don't fucking know. I hate you? But I don't? And I actually really fucking love you? And I don't ever want to see you dead again? Because you’re my entire world and best friend? But I still kinda hate you? But I-
"I don't know," Shauna wails. She's pathetic, begging for Jackie to touch her. To hug her, to do something other than stare at her with uncertainty. She doesn't deserve it, she knows that, but never has she wanted more. "I'm sorry."
For a moment, there is tension between them. It lingers in the air, both of them breathing and staring at each other with uncertainty. There are lines to be crossed, things to be said, but Shauna is a coward and Jackie is too.
"Wait!" Lottie interrupts. "Do you hear that?"
There’s a rustling in the bushes. Not a faint breeze, but the sound of something moving, and Shauna is hit with that sense of Deja Vu again. Except, is it Deja Vu if she knows what is about to happen?
”A bear,” The words tumble out of her mouth, and Jackie gives her a bewildered glance. “It’s going to be a bear.”
If she remembers correctly, the bear isn’t going to be aggressive. It will fall at Lottie’s feet as if pulled by some mystical presence. But, fuck, Shauna left the knife behind.
“Shauna,” Lottie breathes. “Do you have the knife?”
”We need the gun,” Jackie argues. “Shit, has anyone seen it?”
A chorus of voices buzzing:
”Nat and Travis had it last.”
"They went looking for Javi."
“First wolves and now fucking bears?”
"Okay, everyone inside, now."
The bear bursts through the undergrowth, and Shauna's eyes are transfixed on its snapping jaws. It isn't the same bear from yesterday. The other one was soft in nature. Obedient at Lottie's feet. This one is more ragged, out of control, with tufts of fur missing from its shoulders. Its ribcage is visible and poking out from underneath the crimson-stained brown fur. Slobber drips from its mouth as it lets out a ferocious growl and prowls forward. But what is truly haunting are its eyes. They are pure white, soulless, not at all the same creature.
It's haunting.
“Well, fuck,” Jackie says next to her. “What are we-“
Her voice is cut off as the bear charges directly at her.
There are two thoughts going through Shauna’s mind in that moment:
How could I have been so stupid and forgot my only weapon?
And,
Jackie, no, not again!
The bear's snapping jaws engulf Jackie like she is a rabbit and it is starving. It digs into her skin, tearing through bone and flesh as if it has not feasted in days. The sound of cracking and screaming pierce the air. It takes and takes and-
"Shauna!"
"Jackie!" Shauna screams. Her voice sounds eerily familiar to when she found her lying in the snow. With her bare hands, she wraps them around the bears neck while kicking and screaming. She squeezes so harshly her hand aches under the pressure. Her voice echoes with Jackie's, both of them terrified. One is the soft squeal of terrified prey, the other is consumed by nothing but sheer grief.
Both are tragic.
“Someone fucking help. He’s hurting her!” Shauna cries. Her voice is the only one screaming. “Why the hell are you all standing there. Help, fucking do something!”
She doesn’t realize it but, the bear let go, has let go long ago, but it is too late. Her palms are bloody, but it is not her own, and she heaves. Shauna shakily lifts her bloody hands, bawling into them. Her blood- Jackie's blood- is on her hands, and it is entirely her fault.
”Shauna,” Lottie’s voice is in her ear, a gentle sound. She touches her shoulder, trying to coax her back to the present. “Shauna, I’m sorry. We can’t do anything, she’s gone.”
”What do you mean gone,” She sobs. "We can... we can still save her. Misty, please, you can save her!"
Misty lowers her head. For once, someone so energetic and eager to please cannot look her in the face. "She's dead," She swallows. "We can't do anything for her. But, you might be in shock. We can help you-"
"I don't want your fucking help," She yells. "My best friend is dead and you're concerned about me?"
Her legs shake, unable to carry her weight. Lottie scoops her into her arms and keeps her from falling to the ground. "Close your eyes," She says. "You don't need to see Jackie like this."
"But-" Shauna weeps. "It wasn't supposed to attack!"
"It wasn't your fault," Lottie soothes. "None of us could have stopped it."
"No, it was! It's all my fucking fault. If she hadn't been in the snow to begin with, none of this would have happened!" Shauna is an incoherent mess.
"Snow?" Mari questions. "There isn't any snow."
"Now isn't the time," Tai snaps.
“Well forgive me for not knowing what to fucking say.”
”Close your eyes,” Lottie repeats. “You need rest.”
As her body betrays her, Shauna’s eyes flutter shut. As if pulled by some unknown force, she finds herself falling into sleep. She isn't sure how long it is until she awakes, but when she does, she finds herself laying on her side in the dirt once more. Lottie and Mari are curled next to her and-
For the first time, Shauna realizes she hasn't been dreaming.
No, everything has been real.