The leaves were heavy with rain, their branches drooping dreadfully, the small droplets gleaming from the light of the sun. Many of the trees were bent at odd angles and curves from this very reason. Dense vegetation covered the forest floor, which made walking difficult. It was barely eight in the morning, but already the heat was rising depressingly fast. Her clothes were clinging to her body, soaking wet from the rain on the foliage and from the humid mountain air. Aurora Amber, a tall, slender girl with long, light brown hair, dressed in a pair of thin jeans and a button-down shirt to keep out the heat and avoid the briar patches common to the area. She was barely out of college and leading her career as a cryptozoologist, on her first expedition into the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States, was miserable with the weather. The night before saw hours of rain, more than she had ever known living in Connecticut. Snow was easy; it was dry and moved out of the way as you walked, and if it fell on you, all you had to do was brush it off. Rain was much different; it stuck to you no matter what you wore to protect yourself, and it only stuck more with every move against a damp leave or blade of grass. She sighed heavily as she sat on the log she and her partner, Pearl Conners, had used as a makeshift bench.
"This is just a fucking mess," she said to herself, her voice a break in the otherwise silent forest. She checked her satellite phone, watching the small red dots that represented the girls' backpacks, cursing when she saw they were still miles from their target. She had had enough of this forest, and it was only the third day of a week-long trip. She
glanced around the forest, taking in the beauty of nature, the fog sitting low on the trees, giving everything an eerie, if not spectacular, appearance. She sighed again, then began trying to relight the fire they had from yesterday afternoon, before the rain set in. Thankfully, they had learned from their first two nights, and had the small dirt patch ringed with stones covered with a crude roofing made from palmetto leaves tied to sticks with some grass. She used her pocket knife to shave down a small branch, barely thicker than her finger, until she had a handful of dry kindling. She took a small piece of black cloth and a lighter out of her pack, lighting the charred cotton piece and using it to start the kindling. She slowly built the flames until she could feel its heat from the log. She smiled gently, watching the flames dance across the twigs. This was a rare moment of peace in her hectic schedule, where days of hiking or riding a boat down a river, hiding from angry natives, and running for her life were commonplace.
"Rise and shine Lovebug!" she yelled to Pearl, throwing a small foil pack at her young friend. The girl groaned and sat up slowly, her hair a mess from the humidity. Pearl was much like Aurora, which was part of why they got along. The two shared many interests, and even grew up just a few houses from one another, becoming fast friends once they started school together when they were young. Pearl was slightly shorter than Aurora, and her hair a fiery red, though otherwise the girls were very much the same physically. This was her second expedition with Aurora, and she was still getting used to waking up before noon. The past few days had been exhausting for her, between hastily packing for a two-hour long flight to the northwest corner of Virginia, where they would be close to their hunting site, and the two days of
hiking and climbing cliffs to the grasslands of Ohio, barely resting for more than a few minutes at a time. She crawled out of the tent and sat next to Aurora, opening one end of the foil package and resting it on a flat rock set next to the log. Aurora sat a similar package next to Pearl's, then set the rock carefully in the base of the fire, resting it right on the still red-hot coals that simmered in a nest of ash. She watched the flames morph around the rock for a few moments before looking at her satellite phone again. She was glad to have it, as it was the only lifeline she and Pearl would have while out in the forest. They were a day's walk from the nearest town, and the last house they saw was nearly six hours away; if anything happened they could be in serious trouble, and their first aid kit was only fit for minor injuries, a light burn or cut at the worst.
