𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐇𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐫 ❥ 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐤𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐳

Chapter One - Zombie Grave

The coo of a mourning dove's call floated through the quiet morning sky, a chorus of rustling leaves and buzzing insects joining it in unknowingly creating background music for the figures who stood amongst each other at the edge of a forest. Sunlight shone through their bodies, reflecting off of the small morning dew.

"Before we start our nature walk, remember these three rules: Follow the trail, stick with your buddy in case you lose the rest of us, and be respectful of your scout leader, or in this case, me!" Pete instructed everyone with a smile on his face.

"We know, Pete," Alberta said, her huff revealing she was vexed, "We've been over this five times already."

"Well, better safe than sorry, am I right?" he laughed, "Does everybody know who they're buddied up with?"

"Flower is with Alberta, Isaac with Hetty, Trevor with Sas, and Thor is with Pete," Thorfinn recited in an impatient, vaguely gesturing to each pairing, "Can we go now?"

"I'm glad that you're so eager for this," he chuckled.

"Well, it's not like we have anything better to do," Trevor muttered.

"The last time we did this was in autumn. It's spring now, so we might as well give it a shot," Sasappis responded. Trevor rolled his eyes though stopped pouting.

"Alright! Follow after me!" Pete declared, beginning to lead the ghosts into the forest, all of them disappearing beneath the cover of the tall trees. Their shoes silently crunched on either the last remaining patches of melting snow or on the now revealed dead leaves that had been preserved through winter by said snow. To be completely honest, the forest didn't look all that bad that morning. In fact, it was actually very pretty. As they started their slow walk, Pete began to describe their surroundings, pointing out the species of trees they passed while trying to match a bird's song to their body.

Unfortunately, the thrill of the experience quickly died down for Trevor and Sasappis only a few minutes into it. To Trevor, barely anything had changed even though the season had changed. As for Sas, he's lived longer than almost all of the other ghosts here, not to mention that he lived his life in these woods. He knew the land and the nature on it like the back of his hand.

"Okay, man, I know you told me to give this a shot, but this is so boring..!" Trevor whisper-hissed to his buddy, a whine edging his tone. "Come on, let's slip away from the crowd! Pretend like we stopped to look at a tree or something and then we lost them!"

"Oh my gosh, yes," Sas let out an exaggerated sigh, "If I have to listen to Pete talk about the moss that's starting to grow on another tree one more time I think I'll die again."

Trevor held his arm out to stop Sasappis, waiting until the others had gotten out of earshot before hurrying off to the side into the underbrush, Sas quickly following after him. While Sas was able to easily avoid the pokey plants and roots that made their escape more difficult, Trevor more or less crashed through it all, tripping over almost everything.

"Ah!" he hissed, "Stupid plant; what are you even doing there?" Trevor snapped at the thin thorny branch that would've left a mean scratch on his legs if he weren't dead.

"You shouldn't blame the plant; it's not like it had a choice for where to grow. It didn't know that some pantless buffoon would run right into it," Sas retorted while Trevor shot him a look. "There's a deer trail nearby. It's a little to our right. If we get to it you can stop tripping on everything, which is weird enough considering you're a ghost and you should just phase through everything. That means you're just tripping on air."

"Ha ha!" he snapped, an unamused look on his face. "How do you even know that there's a deer path around here, whatever that is?" Trevor gasped before pointing back at Sas with an accusatory finger, "Don't tell me you actually listen to Pete's lectures!"