Song: Game of Survival by Ruelle
***
The Next Day. . .
I feel a light jab on my shoulder, and my eyes flutter open. As my eyes adjust to the light I notice something is off. There's light, but it's almost muted.
I look out the windshield, but see nothing but white. A fresh layer of snow covers the winshield, and I can see nothing out of it.
"I'm gonna go brush that off," Mitchell says with a light chuckle, and I nod.
He steps out of the car and I use the opportunity to stretch out as much as I can. Several joints and ligaments pop loudly as I contort my body this way and that, before finally settling back into my seat.
Mitchell's hand appears on the windshield, brushing away a majority of the snow. After he clears most of it he climbs back into the car, rubbing his hands together.
"That was cold," he grimaces, moving his hands to rest underneath his legs.
I laugh heartily. "Well it was your genius idea. Surely you could have used a stick or something," I quip, smirking.
He rolls his eyes. "Do you wanna go check the traps in a few minutes? Preferably when my hands warm up, though."
"Sure. Who knows, maybe we got lucky and caught a rabbit today," I say, nudging his arm.
He shakes his head lightly. "Never in my life have I thought that I'd hear that sentence," he says.
After a few minutes, we step out of the car to go check our traps. The morning air seems more chilly than usual, and I find myself wrapping my arms around my torso as we trek deeper into the tree line.
"We would have died a long time ago if it wasn't for your random yet convenient knowledge of trap building," I say, my breath puffing in front of me in misty clouds of fog.
"Hey, I knew it would come in handy some day," he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. As he does so I notice him hesitate with his right hand. "Which reminds me. . ." he mutters.
He pulls his right hand out of his pocket, thrusting his closed fist in front of me as we continue to walk.
"What?" I say, furrowing my brow in confusion.
Mitchell uncurls his fingers to reveal a very elegant knife, nearly identical to his own. "I want you to have this one," he says. "I certainly don't need another knife, and you never had any kind of a weapon to protect yourself with to begin with."
I take the knife out of his palm, pocketing it. "Oh," I mutter, "well, thanks. I still have, uh, I still have Wesley's somewhere too," I say, scratching my head.
We make it to our traps and begin to check all of them. I check the same four every time, and he checks the other four.
I brush aside the prickly needles of a pine branch to reveal my last trap. The branch scratches my arm through the sleeve of my hoodie, and I wince in pain. To my excitement, in the trap sits a large, brown rabbit. "Gotcha," I mumble to myself, beginning to undo the dead rabbit from the trap. I chuckle, thinking back to a time when doing such a thing would horrify me.
