[X] Try to get Sierra to open up about what's bothering her. (1d100)
-[X] "Telling people not to worry only makes them more worried. Especially when self-defense weapons get involved. If we take them for your peace of mind, would you share what is bothering you for ours?"
Dice Roll said:
Open Sierra Up = 28 (FAILURE)
[X] Take the knife.
[X] Insist to Eli that the group should backtrack to camp.
"Sierra," You began, a little uneasy. You knew something was up with her, you weren't sure what but it was clearly enough to make her concerned about both your safety and Danielle's. First it was her staring off into the woods and now this. You needed to get her to open up and explain what has her so freaked out. "Telling people not to worry only makes them more worried. Especially when self-defense weapons get involved. If we take them for your peace of mind, would you share what is bothering you for ours?"
"I..." Sierra averts her eyes away from you, choosing instead to look to the ground. Your eyes don't move, you keep them directly on her, watching her as she shifts uncomfortably under gaze.
"Sierra." You say a little more forcefully than you usual do. This was important and you need her to answer you. You cross your arms and give her the sternest look you can muster. She briefly looks up at you and then immediately shoots her eyes back towards the dirt.
"...No."
"Excuse me?"
Sierra sighs and looks back up to you, resolve in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Medea, but no. I can't tell you."
"Care to explain
why?" You just look at her, completely flabbergasted that she is refusing to tell you.
"It's... complicated." She mutters, rubbing the back of her head. "I'm not even sure how I would explain it, and I'm sure you two wouldn't take me seriously if I told you." She gives you and Danielle an apologetic look. "Please understand. I'll tell you guys when we get back to camp safely, but... not right now."
Silence reigned over the two of you. You stared at Sierra, and Sierra stared at you. Danielle stands to the side of you, looking back and forth between you and Sierra uncomfortably. All sorts of emotions and thoughts flow through you as you stare at your long time friend.
You sigh in frustration. "Sierra, you can be so impossible some times..." You walked over to the steps, picking up the knife that Sierra had placed down. You look directly at her, giving her the meanest glare you can muster. "Fine, I'll let it go for now, but you and I are going to have a
long talk tomorrow morning. Got it?" Sierra says nothing, just nodding her head.
You roll your eyes in annoyance and turn away, heading back over to Eli and Lucas. Briefly you hear Danielle say something to Sierra, but she was speaking too quietly and you were too far away to properly make out what she was saying. Soon Danielle ran up alongside you, pocketing the pepper spray.
Eli turns to the two of you, giving you a small wave as you approach.
"So Eli," You say as you tale your place next to Lucas. Danielle stands next to Eli, wrapping an arm around Eli's waist. "You said we are going to be taking the direct path back to camp, why didn't we do that on the way here?"
"Ah, that's simple!" He smiles as he pulls out the map and waves it around. "My brother's friend was the one who told me how to get here. He told me that the way we came here from the camp was the better option than the direct route. See, the direct way has a lot of obstacles, elevated terrain, thick foliage, stuff like that. He said that if we were to come here that way, by the time we got here we would be exhausted and wanted to go back. So he recommended the path we took to get here, saying it bypassed all the obstacles, but it takes just a bit longer."
"And the direct way back is better because...?"
"Well getting
here with that route was what the problem was, but since we are going back that way we are going to have an easier time." He explains, putting the map back in his back pocket. "We aren't trekking up steep hills or climbing small cliffs made by elevated earth, just going down or over them, which takes less effort."
You mulled over this information for a bit. You suppose it made sense, you certainly wouldn't want to try climbing up a cliff or something in the middle of the night... but still.
"Eli, I'm going to agree with Sierra on this one. I think we should take the way we came here back."
"Ugh..." Eli groans in annoyance. "Not you too..."
"Eli, isn't it better if we try to stay safe?" You reason. "I mean, it is dark and we'd being going down an unfamiliar path when we could just retrace our steps. Not to mention we don't know if there any bears traps that might be on this path."
"Are you seriously still on about that?" Eli pinches the bridge of his nose. "We didn't trip any on the way here, what makes you think we'll find any on the direct way back?"
"We didn't find any on the path
here, we don't know if there is any more out there."
"Sweetie," Danielle cut in, resting her head on Eli's chest. "Let's just take the way we came back. It'll take longer, but it would help put Medea and Sierra's minds at ease..."
Eli grumbled a bit, but nodded to his girlfriend. "Fine... Let's get going."
You nod in satisfaction and turn back to look at Sierra who was still standing away from the group and nod at her, and she nods back. Everyone groups together as you all make your way over to the forest's edge, approaching the patch of you entered from. Sierra moves ahead of the group, approaching a tree and aiming her flashlight at it. As you got closer you saw an upside-down V carved onto the tree.
"I marked pretty much every tree I walked by with this mark," she said as she traced the marking on the tree. "We follow these, we'l be back at camp in no time."
"Sierra, are you sure we're going the right way?"
"We've been following the markings, Eli." Sierra says as you all continue to follow her lead into the woods. "Trust me, this is the right way."
"None of this look familiar..." Lucas muttered as he used his flashlight on another tree, illuminating another marking.
"How would you know?" Sierra replied with her usual sarcastic demeanor. "Do you have night vision all of a sudden?"
"Ha! I wish!" Lucas laughed. He waved the flashlight around. "I wouldn't need this anymore."
"Can we stop for a bit?" Danielle muttered. "My legs are killing me..."
You were inclined to agree with Danielle, you all had been walking for what seemed like an eternity. You body ached all over and even being allowed to stop for even a minute would be welcome. Honestly, you didn't remember the way you got to the house taking this long. Maybe it was because you were tired...
Regardless, everyone more or less silently concedes to Danielle's request and stops walking. Danielle promptly puts her back to a tree and sits down on the forest floor with a tired huff. Eli joins her, taking a spot next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. Lucas and Sierra find their own trees to rest against, both of them making strained grunts as they sit on the ground.
You were ready to sit down with them, placing a hand on a tree to support yourself as you got ready to sit down... but the moment you placed a hand on the trunk of the tree, a frown developed on your face. You stood there, feeling at the bark you were touching.
No... This... This couldn't be right.
You moved from the tree and pulled out your phone, and flicked through the screen and pulled up the flashlight app you had downloaded a while back, and aimed the light at where you touched the tree. The sight made you go pale.
"Medea?" You hear Eli say. "What's wrong?"
You take a step to the side, keeping the light on the tree, on the V shaped marking on the tree. Everyone pulls themselves up from the ground and approaches the tree, looking at the marking. Sierra looks at the marking with a face of pure dread, before turning around and going to the tree they had just check before stopping, looking at the marking on it.
"This doesn't make any sense..." She whispers as she starts backing up towards the group.
"Umm, guys?" You all turn to look at Lucas who was shining his flashlight on another tree that was next to the one you were all looking at. It too had a marking. Curious, you went to the tree that was behind your tree, and after you shined your phone's light on it you found a marking on it. You checked a few more tree, and all of them had the markings on them. Every. Single. One.
"What the hell..." Eli muttered as he inspected another tree.
"Is someone out here fucking with us?" Danielle says as she clings to Eli.
"By marking every tree? There would need to be multiple people doing this..." You say as you put your phone away.
"We should have known something was up..." Lucas sighs as he folded his arms. "I mean, it did seem like it was taking us longer to get back to camp..."
"What do we do now?" You ask, looking to everyone. Everyone just looks back at you, looking as unsure as you were.
But then, you hear the sound of wood snapping in the woods to your right. Everyone's eyes shoot in that direction, peering into the darkness. Then there was the sound of movement.
But it sounded odd... You weren't a stranger sounds in the woods, and these woods were no doubt filled with wilds animals. Deer, elk, black bears, and cougars all live in Washington, and you feel you could recognize the sounds an animal would make, but what you were hearing was... odd. It sounded like something was sneaking around, just out of eye sight. With an animal walking on four legs, you would hear a tighter group of steps, but what you were hearing... It sounded more like a human moving around slowly or trying not to make any noise.
Sierra, Eli, and Lucas shined their flashlights in the direction of where the noise was coming from, but the moment their lights were fixed the sound stopped and started up in a different direction, as if whatever was making it just teleported or something. They would point their lights in the sound's direction again and again, but every time they did so it would stop and start up again in a different direction with seemingly no pattern.
Suddenly... there was the sound of whistling. A faint whistling resounding from the dark trees of the forest.
At first you wanted to chalk it up to it just being the wind blowing through the leaves of the tree and what you were hearing was nothing but the wilderness... But something sounded
off.
"Do you guys...
hear that?" Lucas asked, his voice cracking a bit as he tried to focus his flashlight on the source of the sound again.
You don't answer, instead you try and focus hard on each individual sound. The whistling was melodic, playful, cheery... and familiar. The tune that was being whistled sounded like something you've heard before, but at the same time you can't ever recall a time you've heard it before.
It was unnerving how familiar it felt.
Your friends tried pointing their flashlights in the direction of the whistling, and like before it would stop and start up again somewhere else, but this time it sounded like it was louder, like it was getting closer every time they tried to aim at it.
The fear you were feeling was indescribable. Your jaw tightened, your fist clenched, and you feel yourself unconsciously reaching for Sierra's knife. Knowing you were all not ready for whatever was out there, if there was anything out there at all.
[ ] Call out towards the whistling.
[ ] Throw something in the direction of the whistling.
[ ] Stay quiet and listen to the whistling.
[ ] Keep the group moving. Try to put some distance between yourselves and whatever was whistling.
[ ] Walk towards the whistling.
[ ] Run.
