Vindictively Yours,

Choking Younger and Older

The trip to the campsite was lengthy and quiet. It was called Raven's Wood. It was behind a neat row of lodges. The pine trees that were surrounding them were foreboding and so high that their tree tops vanished into the thick fog that lay above. Wynter narrowed her eyes at those thick heavy clouds. "It looks like rain. Maybe we should turn around and do this some other day." Maybe never.

Reggie chuckles, "Already giving up, are we? I think this would help you both to overcome your outside enemies by becoming a bond and tackling them together."

Nigel grunts, almost feeling like he is calling out in his bullshit ignorant words. Wynter couldn't help but feel a sick ick inside of her. Alone with Nigel. In the woods. He would probably kill her and leave her body to rot.

"I don't know. I think we can do this another time when I'm fully prepared and maybe with more people-" She was cut off with Reggie's chortle, "Survival isn't a party, Wynter dear. It springs up on you. With no warning."

Reggie dropped them to the sites closer to the woods, even though the campsites spread far and wide. The little clearing where they dropped their supplies, started to working with the tent with no words exchanged between them.

Fiddling with the tent poles, Nigel simply watched and copied Wynter's movements. With a disturbingly silent but fast pace, they put the tent up. The foot pump used to pump the two air mattress.

Each campsite had their store of cut up logs for fire, soon enough she watched him build a campfire. The flames licking and swallowing the cut up pieces of wood. It was the lack of feeling at watching it made Wynter feel surreal.
As he sat down on the floor, he placed a bag of marshmallows beside him and started roasting the soft pillowy substance on a wooden sticks.

She felt weird that he didn't offer her. Even an attempt to offer. Wynter sat on the opposite side, having brought her sketch pad she began to draw absentmindedly. The woods were filled with whispers and tricks of noises that made her ears peek but she chose to ignore it. Can't have him thinking she was scared.

"I am bored." Nigel announced, making her look up. His eyes were anything but. They reflected the fire, slim flames rousing up from the bottom of his irises.

"What do you want to do?" She paused her drawing. Curious as to where this would lead.

"I don't know. A game, perhaps." He shrugged his lean shoulders. Playing with the sticks in his hands, his eyes still on her.

"How about-uh truth and dare?" She wished she hadn't said the first thing on her mind but it was all she could think of.

"How about just truth?"

Her eyes widened and nodded. He continued, breaking the sticks in his hands. "Tell me a secret."

She looks around, thinking. "Uh, I wish I met my father."

He nods. "Me too."

That took her aback. "You have met your father."

He plucks the grass roots beside him, throwing it into the fire. "You know what I mean."

The conversation drowned in the silent calls of the woods where the breath of trees were heard. She looked around, eyes catching the darkness within the woods where anything could be lurking. The scope of something dangerous was right beyond their campsite. It was soul sucking. In a bad way.

Wynter's voice shook when she attempted to continue the game. "My turn. Do you like coming back home?"

Nigel looked away. His fingers played with the stick. "This isn't my home."