Love, Blood and Wilderness | YELLOWJACKETS

Chapter 38

    Everyone started to choke on the smoke that was emitting from the burning cabin.

    "What the fuck do we do?" Mari demanded.

    Everyone looked to Nat, whose face dropped.

    "How'd the fire even start!? It's the dead of winter!" Akilah exclaimed.

    "Should we stay here?" I suggested, "The fire might attract firefighters and the police, they could think it's a forest fire."

    "Holy shit... We could be saved," Tai exclaimed.

    "But until then we need shelter," Nat stated, "Police aren't the only thing this fire will attract. Wolves will come if we can't find somewhere to stay."

    Van winced.

    "But if we leave we might miss the police," Gen stated.

"If we stay we might be eaten," Nat argued.

The fire continued to burn and we continued to cough on the thick, black smog.

"We need to go find shelter somewhere else," Nat stated, "and come back here tomorrow. The fire could easily start burning the trees and we don't need to be caught in it."

The wind picked up at that moment. Snow started falling from the dark clouds.

"We need to go," Lottie agreed with Nat.

"We'll vote. Quickly. Who votes we go?" Nat urged.

I concurred with Nat's logic and raised my hand. I needed to rest. Despite being cauterized, I was still in severe pain and still carried a fever. Tai and Van each raised their hands, as did Lottie. Travis stuck his hand up, as did Misty. And to my absolute surprise, Shauna put her hand in the air as well.

"That's majority. Let's go," Nat commanded. She took my waist and helped me through the snow. We followed her as she led us into the forest, the wind blowing harder and the snow drifting down.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

We were caught in what seemed to be a blizzard. The snow hit our faces like pellets and the wind burnt our skin the way the cabin was burning currently.

We had been trudging through the snow for about half an hour. I could feel my body aching from the cold and my teeth chattered. I hands and feet especially felt numb.

"How much longer! We're gonna fucking freeze!" Mari shouted from behind us.

I had assumed that Nat was taking us to Javi's cave that Ben was currently occupying, but if that was her route, it seemed she had lost her way.

"What do you feel? What do you hear?" Lottie called.

"I feel fucking freezing," Shauna moaned and I rolled my eyes.

"I hear the wind," Mari voiced.

"I feel the snow," Van added.

    "I see a cave!" Nat shouted.

    There, being buried underneath the snow, was a cave. It was under a pile of stones that had trees emerging from it, the roots growing in between the stones and wrapping around the mouth of the cave. It wouldn't be comfortable, but it was all we had.

    "Quick, start digging out the entrance!" Nat instructed.

    Taissa, Akilah and Van dropped to the mouth of the cave and started flinging piles of snow away from it. The dug enough to make a hole big enough for us to squeeze through. Nat waved and signalled for all of us to start piling in.