❝People do bad things when they're trying to survive.❞
. . • ☆ . ° .• -ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-°:. *₊ ° .
In which a plane crash brings together Tatum Axel and Vanessa Palmer, providing the girls with new perspectives on the other that never would've happened ot...
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VI. BENEATH THE MOONLIGHT
Tatum found herself unable to fall asleep. She was laying in an abundance of pillows and blankets—the material of her blankets so thick she could barely feel the branches and mulch beneath her.
Her teammates lay scattered around one another, their soft snores echoing throughout the clearing. The brunette tossed and turned as she tried to get comfortable, all other attempts at relaxation seeming to fail her. Instead, she focused her gaze on the flickering fire, the flames threatening to burn out with the night's breeze.
Tatum had always loved the tranquility of nature, but tonight, it offered her no comfort. Her mind was in tumult as she found it impossible to settle her mind down.
The brunette huffed as she sat up slightly, ruffling her pillow. As she adjusted her position to sit up, she allowed her gaze to linger on the deep amber flames.
"Can't sleep?"
Tatum jumped at the soft spoken voice beside her. She turned around, glancing at Van who had sat down next to her.
Van's hair was in a tousled ponytail, messied by the tossing and turning against the blankets. In the light of the flames, Tatum could clearly see the burned and bruised skin on Van's cheek. The cuts on her face had yet to heal.
The redhead was tense, something clearly on her mind.
"I didn't think anyone else was awake," Tatum breathed out honestly, fiddling with her fingers. She exhaled deeply as she kept her gaze fixed on the fire, the trees, anything but Van.
"I don't sleep much normally," Van explained, earning a weird look from Tatum, "I mean—I usually drink a lot of coffee and that does the trick. Until we get rescued, I guess I'll just have to deal with the insomnia and the lack of caffeine exhaustion."
Tatum couldn't help the pitiful chuckle that left her lips at Van's explanation. With all the energy and positivity the redhead carried with her on a daily basis, Tatum assumed she was the type to get eight hours of sleep per night.
Still, she nodded, understanding what it meant to not be able to sleep. She had struggled with it before, but she never imagined it would be this difficult. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the feeling of falling as the plane shot down into the forest. The inescapable feeling of terror that settled deep into her bones. If staying up all night kept those feelings away—she'd gladly not get a wink of rest.
The two girls fell into a comfortable silence, occasionally interrupted by the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind. Tatum found herself zoning out, lost in her thoughts.
Van's voice broke her out of her thoughts, "Someone's gotta find us, right?"
Tatum thought about it for a second before answering, "I don't know. I want to think a rescue team is gonna save us...but I don't have a good feeling about it."
