"Dream!" George yelled into his mic, his fingertip nearly turning white from how hard he was pressing down on the 'w' key on his keyboard. Dream let out a tea kettle sounding laugh as he chased after his friend George, quickly catching up because of the other's mistakes in his sprint jumps. Sapnap just watched the two through Dreams live stream, chuckling along with his friends. As time went on the more the trio laughed, cracking joke left and right; they were having the time of their lives if only things could've stayed like that.
Clay shot up from his makeshift bed that was in his tent. He let out a low groan as the pain in his back registered in his brain. It was to be expected though, sleeping on the hard ground would do that to someone. He looked over to his left and saw George still fast asleep, curled up in the blankets he must have stolen from the other two in their sleep. No wonder he was so cold last night. Once the pain had subsided Clay stretched himself out, hoping it'd help wear any other soon to come soars on his body. As the man got up, he began to hear the low whistling of the wind, the cold autumn air strung his skin, making him shiver.
"Mornin' sleepin' beauty, ya finally decided to wake up huh?" Clay's good friend, Nick, spoke out with a slight chuckle at the end. He always was trying to lighten up the mood of the group.
"Yeah, I slept like a baby man, who woulda thought sleeping on top of some rocks could do wonders for you're back." Clay joked back, walking over to where his friend sat next.
George yawned loudly, and rubbed his eyes, trying to wear off the urge to fall back asleep. He glanced at his sides, quickly taking note that neither of his friends was still in the tent. With that in mind, he swiftly got up and out of the tent, wanting to know where his friends were as soon as possible. His anxiety subsided as he soon saw Nick and Clay sitting next to each other by a small fire right in front of their tent. The two of them were chatting, George not too sure what it was about though. It took a moment for the two to realize George was just standing there looking at them, still half asleep.
"George!" Nick smiled out, looking the brit up and down. George just waved in response, still not awake enough to form a proper sentence.
"Come on sleepyhead, sit down with us." Clay chuckled out lightly. He patted the ground next to him, indicating where he wanted George to sit.
George simply nodded again, walking over to Clay and sitting down next to him. His eye quickly shot open once he felt the cold ground beneath him.
"Cold!" The brunette hissed out, cringing back at how cold the ground beneath him was. Nick and Clay let out a loud laugh as they watched their friend struggle to get comfortable. After a few moments pasted, Clay sighed and wrapped his arm around George, pulling the smaller of the two against his body.
"You're such a baby, how have you even survived this far?" He chuckled out, not realizing how much the comment hurt the brit.
"Ahhhh my eyes! My poor innocent eyes! Get a room you two!" Nick laughed out loudly, pointing towards the pair childishly.
"Oh come on now." Clay laughed as well, unbeknownst to Nick and himself, he slightly tightened his grip around George. George, however, did notice the small action. He was always hyper-aware of small details like that. It seemed to come in handy at times, saving the tiro from near-death situations quite a lot.
"Guys shh," George whispered, he heard a small stagger in the wind off to the right of where they sat, right where the woods began to go farther and the terrain was rockier.
"Really George? Stop overreacting there's nothing-" Nick was cut off by a loud snapping of a twig followed by a low moan.
Clay was the first to react, sitting up quickly and reaching for his baseball bat that always was next to him just in case of a situation like this. Just as he was about to speak, out emerged the creature.
It looked like a young woman, her mid-twenties. Her bleach blond hair was tangled and matted down by what looked to be a mixture of blood and mud. Her top was ripped off completely and her pants seemed to be in the process of the same fate. Her moldy pale skin was covered in many large scabs, some were recently opened and dripped with the last remaining bits of her blood.
Fresh blood wasn't a good sign, she must have turned in the last day or so. Could there be more nearby?
Clay shook the thought from his head and quickly ran towards the creature, at the sight of him running she ran as well. Her scabbed arms lifted reaching to grab Clay but he was too fast. In one swift movement, he swung his bat towards her skull, smashing the bones and flesh into chunks that splattered off to the left.
The creature's body fell to the cold forest floor with a thud.
The trio were all sat silent, Clay looked down at his now bloodied boots as the other two just stared at the now corpse.
No matter how many times you killed one of those creatures, it never got easy for the three friends. They looked human just like they were, yet they were forced to kill them to protect themselves.
"Clay-" George was quickly cut off.
"Start to pack up, we need to find a new place to stay." Clays' voice was low, void of any emotions. This would happen every time he gave out commands to his friends, it annoyed the hell out of Nick.
The atmosphere was full of awkward silence, the only things that could be heard were the crunching of the leaves as the three walked and the small whispers from the wind. Not even Nick dared to crack up a joke. George hated it the most when they all got like this, the silence from the three drove him crazy.
After nearly a half-hour of dead silence from the three, Nick thought it was time to lighten up the mood. They were practically finished by now so what could the harm be?
"Did you guys see the rack on that thing? I woulda smashed." Nick laughed loudly at his own joke, silently hoping the other two would laugh as well.
"Oh come on now really? Stop being a misogynist dude." Clay laughed back, slightly smiling as he fully stood up from where he crouched.
"You can't tell me you didn't think the same thing! Her tits were huge! I mean, not mentions the fact she's rotting. Man, what'd I give to fuck a pair of tits like that." At this point both Nick and Clay had stopped working, just laughing at their own gross humor.
"What about you George? Ya, like her rack too?" Nick turned to look around for George, not wanting him to be left out of the conversation.
"George?" Clay looked around as well, Geroge had left the area, he was nowhere in sight, "fuck."
Worry and anger began to rise in Clay's chest, this wasn't the first time this had happened. George had a habit of wandering off when his anxiety got the best of him. Despite the countless times he and George talked about how he can't keep walking off without telling him, he still did it.
"Where the hell could he have gone?" Nick questions, worried for the safety of his friend.
A large gush of wind blew in George's face, bringing him out of his thought, he stood on what used to be a highway. He found it relatively close to where the trio was camping, hopefully, he remembers how to get back.
The highway was littered with abandoned cars, stains of blood on the ground. Every now and then he's seen a small animal, usually, a rat, scurry or from under a car. Or from what just happened in front of him, a rotting corpse.
The sky was overcast and cold, the brit regretted not grabbing his jacket before he walked away. The autumn air stung his exposed arms, making the brit shiver profusely. 'Shit, I need to get back.' George thought to himself.
As he began to walk back, a loud crash sounded off behind him, he froze. Slowly he turned his head to the side, trying to see what caused the crash while making the least amount of movement as possible.
"Fuck."
The more time went on, the more Nick and Clay began to panic. Clay had gone north, away from the woods as Nick went south, further into the woods.
"George!" Clay shouted as he ran, looking frantically for his friend. Before he knew it, Clay tripped down into what seemed to be a man-made ditch, one built for rainwater. He didn't check for any injury's once he regained his balance, he just looked up to notice the guards of a highway.
"George!" Clay screamed again as he climbed onto the highway, unsure of which way to run. He just hoped his friend could hear him, maybe give him some sort of sign as to which way he could be.
"Clay! I found him!" Clay heard a distanced short from Nick, it was off to his right.
How did Nick find him before he did? He ran in the opposite direction.
Clay shook the thought from his head, he'd ask about it later, for now, he just needed to get to George. Quickly, he sprinted off to the right, all he could hear was his own heavy breath and patters against the road.
Nick sat down, holding George closely to his large frame, almost as if he were to let go the brit would disappear. Both of the boy's breaths were staggered, a pool of fresh warm blood layed beside them.
"George!" Clay panted out as he ran up to the two, not yet noticing the body that layed beside them. George looked up quickly at Clay, his eyes and lips were puffy and tinted red, indicating he was just crying.
"Clay-"
"What the fuck were you thinking?! Running off like that? You could have gotten yourself killed! Do you know how fucking worried I was for your dumb ass? Why can't you just fucking listen for once and-" Before Clay could continue, Nick interrupted.
"Dude! Shut the fuck up! You see that?" Nick pointed a finger towards the corpse on the ground, still bleeding out. It was a larger man, he had a relatively stuffed backpack on. His face was crushed into the ground.
"He tried to kill George, and you know what? George kept himself safe. He kept himself safe without us."
"He had to." Clay didn't want to finish his sentence, he already could tell what happened by the bullet wounds the littered the dead man's body. George was the only one who used a gun in their group.
With a sigh, he reached up and gently grabbed the sides of his hair, a habit he had picked up since this whole thing had happened.
"What you're not gonna say anything now? Realized you fucked up and can't even apologize?" Nick didn't wait for a response, he got up, pulling George up with him. The pair began to walk away, back to where they had left all their stuff.
Clay stood still for a moment, just staring as the pair walked away from him. Guilt began to bubble in his stomach, the feeling made him want to vomit.
George sighed loudly, glancing over at Nick. The duo had gotten back to their now back at the campsite before Clay had, now they just had to sit and wait for him to get back as well.
"Do you think he's still pissed at me?"
"Nah he can't be, I doubt he'll ever apologize to you though, stick lodged too far up his ass for him to ever admit he's wrong."
"Yeah, you're right about that one." George let out a soft chuckle, he felt a lot better then he did before.
"I got a question for ya."
"Hit me with it."
"Why'd you let him treat you like that?" Nick's voice was laced with concern.
"Like what?"
"Like you're his pet or something."
George didn't respond, he had no clue what to say. What Nick said was true, George wasn't ready to admit it though.
"Speak of the devil." Nick chuckled out, watching Clay walk over to where the two sat.
"Oh? You were talking about me?" Clay smiled and ruffled George's hair, trying to act as though what had happened early never happened.
George cringed slightly at the action, hating when people touched his head.
"Anyways let's get going. I was thinking we should walk on that highway, maybe it'd lead us to a town." Clays voice seemed off, but no one felt like commenting on it.
"Sounds good to me! We really need to find somewhere to stock back up on food, we're running out." Nick said standing up, stretching his arms out with a groan.
"Its highway 91, if we go south I'm pretty sure if we take exit 17 it comes to a large town. There's also a mall it seems like." George spoke up finally, the brit was always good with directions, especially since he snagged a map off of the dead body from the highway. Clay nodded in response, he had already grabbed his backpack full of his personal items, and two other bags. One had their tent in it and the other was George's backpack. It always ended up like this, Clay would carry George's bag instead of letting him take it himself. It always fulled the tall man's ego to be able to do so. George just sighed loudly, there was no purpose in arguing with Clay about it.
Nick grabbed his backpack and their weapons, except for George, he still held his semi-automatic handgun close to him. It was one of the only things that made him still feel slightly in control.
"All ready?" Clay asked, looking back at George and Nick, the duo nodded in response.
The sun started to set behind the trio as they walked along the highway, there was still about a mile to go before they were anywhere close to a town, assuming George directions were correct.
(2452 words)