TENDER OBJECTS, Nowhere Boys [1]

[ 002 ] beware the moon

CHAPTER TWO / BEWARE THE MOON
( FOR IT BRINGS DARKNESS AS MUCH AS LIGHT )

Remy was miffed. Felix had said shortcut, but Remy was starting to think they meant the opposite. They had been walking for ages, and it didn't seem like they were getting anywhere. Sam had undone his jumper from his waist to slip it over his head and Remy had zipped up his own jacket, the late afternoon chill beginning to get to them.

"Shortcut to where?" Jake grumbled. Felix cringed slightly. The quintet halted in their movements and came to gather around the map.

"Well, it looked like a shortcut." Andy tried to grab at the paper, but still, Felix kept it out of his reach.

"I'm the map guy," he insisted.

"We should've brought a GPS—"

"Nothing!" Sam interjected Andy's complaint while holding up his phone, showing no bars or signal. Remy wasn't too surprised at that considering they were in the middle of a forest. "We're officially nowhere."

"Meaning, we're lost."

"Great, well done, freak," Jake said, his voice low and bothered.

Felix sighed at the rising tensions in the group. "We're not lost."

Before any of them could voice their disagreement with his statement, a gust of wind arrived and stole the map, making the hairs on Remy's arms stand up. In his grab for the map, Felix began to slip off the edge of whatever cliff they were on. His eyes widening, Remy and the others made a mad reach for him. However, it was all in vain as they all plummeted off the brink. The teens tumbled down the rocks and slopes, their groans mixing together. Remy couldn't hold back a grunt of pain as he landed on something bony and weirdly shaped. Looking upward, the cliff's edge loomed over the group, as if warning them too late of the dangers the forest would bring.

"Ow," Remy muttered belatedly, blinking dazedly at the sky. Something beneath him groaned and shifted, and it was then that Remy realised he had landed mostly on Jake, the taller boy unable to move with him on top. Freezing for a moment, Remy then got up as quickly as he could, clutching his head at sudden vertigo.

"Um, sorry..." he meekly apologised. Jake huffed but brushed it off. Remy looked around. "Is everyone semi-okay?"

Sam coughed repeatedly in response, but from the way everyone was standing and not visibly bleeding, Remy guessed they were all moderately fine. Besides, Remy had gotten into enough scuffles in his life-time to know that he could survive a couple of bruises.

"Did anyone see my backpack?" Andy wondered. Remy shook his head solemnly, then groaned at the movement making him nauseous.

"Or the map?" Felix asked. Oh, this just keeps getting better.