Young Writers Society

Quinn gave a small smile at that.

Then she felt something wet her face. She looked up and squinted, feeling another few stray droplets of rain hitting her cheeks. Her stomach dropped at the realization that it had started raining. It wasn't much, but...

She looked over at Gabriel.

If it was rainy, that meant it was cloudy enough for the supernatural beings that relied on darkness to come out.

Ky shivered as the first of the droplets struck her. Great. Now she had to resent the weather on top of her resenting this hike. It didn’t feel like the punishment fit the crime. But that was Aleth for you. And she hated him for it.

"Well," Gabriel said in a casual tone that didn't at all fit the gravity of the situation, "I hope we all have umbrellas."

"I have both of ours," Quinn said. She glanced over at Ky and Pratik, unsure if either one of them brought umbrellas. "...We could always share?"

“I don’t mind the rain,” Ky said stiffly, ducking her head and continuing to walk, expression drawn. The chances of Aleth packing an umbrella for her were almost non-existent. And she wasn’t going to embarrass herself by looking only to end up empty handed.

“Which means you forgot to pack one?” Pratik asked.

“Which means I don’t mind the rain.” Her tone was a bit harsher than she’d meant for it to be.

Pratik eyed her for a moment. She’d definitely forgotten her umbrella, he was sure of it. “Alright… well, I do mind it.”

He stepped to the side and shrugged his pack off onto a large rock and started digging for his umbrella.

Ky hesitated. She knew damn well Aleth didn’t give her one. And yet her morbid curiosity wanted to know what she did have. So she turned away, being sure her body would block the view of her bag, and carefully opened the flap.

As Ky and Pratik started digging through their packs, Quinn slipped off her own. Gabriel stood by her as she started looking through it. It was hard trying to blindly find specific things in a pack that was larger than it looked, but thinking about the umbrellas appearing made them appear at the top of the pack's belongings.

She took both of theirs out and handed Gabriel his. They were simple umbrellas: a dark blue one for Quinn, and a black one for Gabriel.

This was unreasonable. He’d packed her books. Books. No wonder this stupid thing was so heavy. She wondered why it weighed so much when they both knew he didn’t give her adequate supplies. And now she knew.

There were… seven granola bars… three sixteen oz bottles of water… a small flashlight the size of her thumb… a knife about the same size… a single fire starter bit of kindling and a flint and steel — Aleth knew fully well she couldn’t use a flint and steel. Great.

What else was there?

A 4’ x 6’ tarp.

Oh, look, a tiny bag of jerky. Cool. That was a granola bar per day plus a bit of protein. She’d just have to pace herself on the food. It wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t have so many witnesses. How many days in a row could she claim not to be hungry before they called her bluff? And how was she going to explain her lack of tent or sleeping bag or anything else? Perhaps she should find a way to split off.

She didn’t want to be on her own. That was terrifying.

But this was humiliating.

There was nothing else in the pack aside from the entire five book series on mycology.

She shifted them around to redistribute the weight, then closed her pack and hefted it back on her shoulders.

Pratik had found both his umbrella and poncho and, seeing Ky come up empty handed, pulled the poncho over his head and held out the umbrella to Ky.

She shook her head.

“Don’t be bullheaded.” He furrowed his brow at her, looking more intimidating than he meant to. “Take it.”

She furrowed her brow back, but took the umbrella. “Thanks.”

Pratik beat Gabriel to sharing an umbrella with Ky. Gabriel wasn't sure what he would have done if Ky had said yes to his theoretical offer. He wanted to stay near Quinn, but Quinn was noticeably shorter than he was. He'd probably have to hold her umbrella up so he didn't have to squeeze underneath it.

Thankfully, he was just thinking in hypotheticals.

The rain started to fall down harder now, but they were all safe and dry underneath their respective ponchos and umbrellas-

Then the air temperature dropped.

Gabriel looked forward, catching sight of a figure farther down the path. They were too far away to make out most things about them, but they were standing eerily still. If that wasn't alarming on its own, they didn't seem to have anything to keep the rain out. They were just wearing regular, muddy hiking clothes.

Oh, and their neck was turned to the side like it was broken.

Quinn took in a sharp, deep breath beside him.

"Ghost," she said, in a whisper that everyone present could very easily hear.

Pratik looked at it and sighed. He didn’t like fighting non-human monsters. Well. He didn’t like fighting humans, either. But they were more or less easy to kill. But beasts were another matter entirely. And usually left him nursing literal wounds before he took them down.

And he’d never fought a ghost before.

Could they even be killed with a weapon? He didn’t know. But he produced a blade from his sleeve in an instant.


Ghost? Ghost? Absolutely not. Ky stared at it with wide eyes, literally gaping. This was… no. No, it couldn’t be. Ghosts weren’t real. The supernatural wasn’t real. This was just another hiker—

The ghost’s head snapped around towards them with an audible crack and it rushed towards them. It almost looked like it was floating, but Ky didn’t stick around to find out. She turned on her heel and sprinted away.

She only made it three steps before she slipped in the mud and fall flat on her face, literally, teeth clacking together painfully as her jaw struck the ground. She scrambled back to her feet and tried to keep running before she even straightened all the way. She slipped again and again and then suddenly lost her balance and slipped straight over the steep, muddy bank next to the path.

She yelped in fear and surprise as she went tumbling first head-over-heels and then just rolling shoulder to shoulder swiftly down the bank.

Pratik pulled out a knife.

That either meant that he was ready for a regular fight or had been expecting something supernatural here, but Gabriel didn't have the time to figure out which. The ghost was coming closer and closer-

"Ky!" Quinn shouted, and the air crackled with the beginnings of wild magic. Magic that was usually contained within a spell or two, but would seep out when its owner was too emotionally distraught to channel it into something else.

Gabriel turned in time to see Ky falling down the muddy slope.

It must have been an accident, but Gabriel did have to admit it was a good idea.

He grabbed Quinn by her arm and Pratik by his collar, jerking the two of them away from the ghost with a burst of strength that could never belong to a human. Quinn was so surprised by the contact that she dropped her umbrella. Gabriel's own umbrella was forgotten on the path as well.

Gabriel pulled them over the edge with him, and the three all went sliding down the same slippery slope.

Pratik elbowed Gabriel and yanked away, ripping his poncho in the process, but it was too late, they were already tumbling down the hill. With his knife still in hand. Which was stressful. But he couldn’t afford to lose a weapon this soon into the trip so he held on to it tightly, careful of where he aimed it as he struggled to get control of his descent.

Ky crashed face-first into a thicket of briars and flipped, half her body now frozen in place as thorns clung to her clothes and dug into her arm and side.

Pratik glanced at her, considering helping, but instead turned back towards the hill to see if the ghost was pursuing them.

Quinn came to a stop dangerously close to the briars that Ky had ended up in, but miraculously didn't end up in them herself. Gabriel, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky: he went slamming into a tree. He let out a groan as his side hit the trunk.

Quinn only looked back over at Gabriel for a second before rushing to Ky's side. Gabriel would be fine.

"Are you okay?" Quinn asked her. Gabriel, righting himself and sitting up, looked up at the ghost. The ghost was at the top of the slope they had fallen down. He doubted the ghost would follow, but they were very much pacing right now. They would attack the group if any of them tried climbing up back up.

Assuming they'd be able to easily climb up a slope as steep as that one.

Ky was holding very still, expression neutral, though her eyes betrayed her anxiety as she looked up the hill at the ghost. Then she looked back at Quinn. “I can’t move at all.”

Trying was only going to result in her getting hurt even more than she already was. And she was used to just staying out in the face of pain. Perhaps if she just laid very still things would be okay.

Quinn wanted to help. But the more she looked at Ky and the briars, the more she realized she was out of her league. She hadn't ever been in a situation like this one before. She turned to Gabriel with a helpless expression on her face, but he was too busy watching the ghost to notice.

"Gabriel," she said.

Gabriel turned.

"I need help," she said. "I don't know how to get Ky out."

Gabriel left his spot and joined her over by Ky. He looked Ky and the briars over. From the expression on his face, Quinn didn't have much hope.

"It's not going to be pretty no matter what way we do this," Gabriel said, completely ignoring the ghost that stalked the path above them. "We can either use a knife to cut the branches right around Ky, or we can just pull her out and hope for the best."

Ky cringed. Did he plan on just yanking her out? That’s what it sounded like, with him saying it wasn’t going to be pretty. Her entire body was going to sting. Perhaps she should try to free herself, if that was the alternative. “…Or we could try to carefully pull the thorns away from me beforehand?”

Or maybe he was going to pull her out with brute force and ignore her discomfort entirely. That’s what Aleth would do. If he helped at all.

"...That's also an option," Gabriel admitted. He still liked his plan of cutting through the briar bush first, but pushing them away would probably be easier.

He didn't have any gloves on him for either Quinn or him to wear, so it looked like he'd be the one doing all the work. He didn't want her to get cut up by the briars, too.

He reached out for the first, closest branch, and started the difficult process of trying to carefully pull it away from her. It stung when he grabbed onto it, but he did his best to ignore the pain. Compared to slamming into a tree, it really wasn't that bad.