The birds chirp wildly in the trees around me, gracing us with their unstructured tune. They are the sovereign of the birds. All the rest have flown south to escape the cold weather that descended upon us a month ago. These elitist birds hide their petite bodies in the abyss of twigs and snow covered branches above us, only letting us hear their melodies as proof they exist. The dense wall of snow above and around us makes it difficult to see anything that isn't on the path we create below our feet in the fresh fallen snow.
The wind traveled through the air swiftly. It danced across our faces before greeting the branches above us with an auditable shake to and fro as it took its new dance partner, releasing a sprinkle of snow flurries upon our capped heads.
More sounds tried to attract my attention, but it was quickly torn from the beauty of nature to my best friend Heather laughing and snorting loudly at something she was watching on her phone.
I turned backwards with a glare to see her and Jeremy looking at something on her phone. Jeremy's arm draped lazily over the her blue puffed jacket covered shoulder. Her laughing making the light blue pom pom of her navy blue hat jiggle back and forth.
"Really," I huffed, making my annoyance known in my tone, my breath billowing out around me exaggerating my point further.
Heather looked up at me and smiled. "Sorry, Vi," and slid her phone back into her coat pocket.
"Weren't you the one who said there is more to life than being glued to your phone. I didn't even bring my phone on this trip. I decided to "immerse" myself in nature ," I said with a hand on my hip after making finger quotes around the word immerse. Words Jeremy had said while being glued to his phone when he had been talking about this trip a week ago.
Jeremy tolled his eyes as the continued up the forest path to me. "Chill Violet. It's not a big deal. We haven't even gotten to my secret slopes yet. I promise I'll put it away when we get to the slopes. Scouts honor," he added with a cheesy wink and the crossing of his fingers.
I rolled my eyes in rebuttal, knowing it was a lie. That his phone would be out as we skied and boarded down the hills making some video to post to his "followers". "You were the ones who wanted to take this trip. Let's enjoy nature, they said. It'll be so much fun to stay in a cabin away from it, they said. It'll be an escape from reality, they said. It will be a fun couples trip where we ski, they said," making sure to mock each thing they had said to me a month earlier when we had planned this trip together. The last sentence caused me to pause in my mockery, as it stung leaving my lips.
This was meant to be a couple's trip, yet it was only the three of us now, and I was the third wheel.
A week before our trip my boyfriend Cody of two years decided to become a couple with someone else and leave me for her. Apparently they had been seeing each other the past six months. I had been none the wiser until I went on a girls night out and found him and her cuddled up in a booth at dinner together.
Heather decided we'd still take the trip anyways. That we could make it a girls trip, but here Jeremy was, rubbing it in at ever moment that he was here.
Heather was a great friend and she meant well, but she was a pushover. All Jeremy had to do was say please and her response was yes, of course.
Heather detached herself from Jeremy, noticing the effect my last statement had on me and gave me a hug. She hooked her arm in tightly in mine. We began walking forward down the path again.
"I'm sorry, I won't do it again," she apologized and took her phone out to turn it off for me to see. "There you go. Just you, me, and nature."
Jeremy deliberately coughed behind her causing her to smile and laugh and add on, "And Jeremy."
Jeremy took a few strides forward and caught up with us, hooking his arm around my available one. "Think of us as the three musketeers, inseparable," he said flashing me a smile.
"Great," I said forcing a smile back at him. Jeremy meant well, but he annoyed me to no end. Ever since he and Heather started dating four months ago he was always around. Especially now, when I was getting over a breakup he was just adding more salt to the wound.
We all continued to walk down the path, arm and arm.
"Plus we have to have a phone. For safety reasons. Technically this area is off limits. Too dangerous," he said with an eye roll Jeremy continued, "Someone could get hurt and we'd have no way of calling for help, though I doubt that will happen so don't start up on trying to convince me otherwise Violet. We'll all be fine and we'll all have fun and your worries will be a thing of the past."
Have you ever heard bringing something to fruition? Well, it was in that exact moment Jeremy's words sparked that.
A loud thundering crack could be heard to the left of me. The animals around us had silenced their happy tunes and all that could be heard was the slight whistle of something traveling at an unspeakable pace towards us. Then, nothing. An auditable absolute silence that filled the air for seconds before my heart beat pounded in my ears as blood circulated at a rapid pace throughout the canals of my body.
Time for me moved slowly. My left arm felt heavy as Jeremy dropped down to the ground, threatening to pull me down with him. The thud he should of made was absorbed by the snow when his body made impact with the Earth. All I felt was the vibration it caused to the ground underneath my feet, a silent rumble. All I saw was a red river of blood pooling from a wound on the side of his head near his temple. A round wound. A bullet hole. Heather's shrill scream brought reality racing back to me. My stomach already churning with nausea, my eyes widening in fear, and my heart about to erupt from my chest with its incessant pounding.
"Jeremy," she screamed dropping down to him. Cradling his head in her blue mittens hands, and pulling him into her lap.
My head darted back and forth through the snowy tree line, looking for a hunter who had been aiming for a deer and hit us instead, but I saw no one. Not an animal in sight. Not a hunter. Not a person. No one.
I dropped down quickly to Heather and huddled up close to her, licking my suddenly dry chapped lips with what little moisture remained in my dry mouth.
I gripped her arm tightly. "Heather, get out your phone, now," I whispered nearly pulling it out from her jacket myself.
Her wet glassy eyes looked at me in fear as she sniffled and tried to jam her shaky hand in her pocket.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a voice called out to us.
My body stiffened, as did Heather's as our heads jerked up towards the voice.
I scanned the trees lines, but all was still. It was exactly as it was moments before. The owner of the voice was clearly hidden, causing my heart to go into overdrive and pump at super speed. My breath grew shaky and labored as I eyed Heather's hand still stuffed in her pocket, glove clearly wrapped around her phone.
My wide eyes bore into hers and I tried to convey the words my mouth was terrified to state, "Don't," but either she didn't understand or was too scared to care and pulled it out and tearing off her glove quickly so she could unlock it.
Another crack filled the air, the whistle follows close behind as it made contact with Heather's phone. It flew cracked and broken from her hands and into the blanket of snow on the forest floor. Heather had dropped down in the snow beside it.
She screams as blood drops from where her pointer finger once had been. A jagged raw edge of skin and tissue remained. Blood began to spew from the wound staining the perfect impeccable snow below us with its round red pellets.
Her other mittened hand clamped over it, staining the once sky blue mitten with crimson red.
"I warned you," the voice came again causing Heather and I to stare at each other once more. Her light pale blue eyes twinkled with fear and panic.
I grabbed her injured hand and hauled her up onto her feet. She yelped in pain as I did, nearly withdrawing her hand from mine in the process, but I tightened my grip and pulled her forward with me, off the path and into the forest as another crack could be heard in the distance.
Well that sure started out with a bang!
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