Young Writers Society

The sun went down about an hour or two ago. You're not sure because of how heavily it's been raining. In the forest. Nestled among the mountains. Not a single light, plume of smoke, building, or even human being for miles around. As far as you know, anyways.

You're not sure how you got here, either. You made a mistake. You didn't pay attention to the GPS. You did pay attention to the GPS, but it wasn't reliable. You took the wrong turn at Albuquerque. You might not even be from this world.

That's fine. No matter where you came from, or how you got here, you've got one destination in mind.

You probably spotted it hours ago, when you weren't stumbling over soaked boulders and hiding under trees. It's been looming at the end of a path carved into the side of a cliff. Maybe a path carved out by mountain goats, as many rocks and gaps stretching across it as there are. Still, it's the only shelter for miles, and, if it weren't for the storms, you could hear your pulse in your ears.

Let's face it: you're tired. You're soaked. Your limbs won't take you any further. You want to throw up. You really want to head up that path. Don't resist it.




Rules:

1. Third-person perspective

2. Past tense

3. Ideally nothing 18+. Gore and violence are allowed, as is implied romance, but nothing too explicit.

4. I have a basic plot, but this isn't super strict. Just keep in touch with your fellow writers - so you don't step over their toes - and you should be golden.

5. Have fun! This is the most important rule, by the way.

James's whole body was shaking as he slowly moved forward, one foot after the other, pushing himself down the rocky path with the cave in his sights. The moment he looked away from where he was stepping, his foot slipped, and he almost fell down the face of the rock.

He muttered to himself neither words or curses, only frustrated sounds. He was so close.

After a minute of continuous struggling, he was finally just underneath the opening of the cave, and with the last bit of his mustered strength, he pulled himself up into the cave, flopping onto the floor, completely spent. With a few scoots away from the reach of rain, he laid face-down in the cave, breathing hard.

He hated the rain, and he hated being lost. But at least now he wasn't out there in the thick of it.

"You sure it's around here?" Kendrik shouted, squeezing his way between two boulders. He grimaced as he looked down and found that he could barely see his hand. The rain had been getting worse in the past hour, and nighttime had done wonders for his sight as well. Not that his sight had been all that good to begin with.

"Yes?" came Jaron's voice from ahead. The stammer barely made it above the howling of the wind. Kendrik gripped Jaron's prosthetic arm a bit tighter; it hung limply, but hopefully Jaron would notice.

Kendrik then ran right into Jaron, who swayed forward but caught himeslf. The fox turned around, using his free arm to gesture to a small cliff. Kendrik understood that immediately - Jaron wouldn't be able to climb down. So, as they'd been doing a lot the past few hours, the hound let go of Jaron's arm, lowered to the ground, and grabbed the edge of the cliff. Swinging himself around, Kendrik dangled over the cliff for a second, before dropping down to the bottom.

And, just as Jaron had predicted, there was a cave.

Reaching his hands up, Kendrik caught Jaron when he jumped down. Then, after Kendrik set Jaron down, the two walked into the dry cave entrance.

Sopping wet and miserable, Kendrik was about to start shaking himself dry when Jaron grabbed his arm and pointed to a figure lying on the ground, still breathing. Immediately, Kendrik jumped back and moved behind a rock, Jaron following suit.

They weren't alone after all.

He had spent the past hour walking through these woods and he still hadn't found a house. Statistically, that shouldn't have been all that surprising. This area was far from heavily populated, and the woods themselves were like a labyrinth. As the rain continued to pound against his skin, he checked his phone for a signal.

Nothing.

He groaned and shoved the phone back into his pocket. It was just his luck that his car would get broken in an area with no cell towers. He wondered how long it would take the crew to realize that something had happened to him; filming would have started five minutes ago, and he was never late.

He mulled over his options. Continuing to find a house would be a waste of time if nothing was there. Alternatively, returning to his car if he was only minutes away from a house with a landline would also be a waste of time. Just as he was about to pick one over the other, there was a loud rumbling from nearby. Light filled the sky - brief and blinding - as lightning struck not too far away. Maybe a mile or two at most, but visible enough for him to make out the actual lightning bolt.

"Oh, come on!" he cried out, wanting to curse whatever had brought him into this terrible situation. He needed shelter, and he needed it now. The last thing he wanted for his crew to find his charred body lying in the middle of the forest.

He scanned the forest for something - anything - that would give him the protection he needed. His eyes eventually wandered on a path. When he looked at its very end, he saw a cave. It would have to do. Adjusting the strap of his bag so it wasn't awkwardly digging into his shoulder, he hurried on towards it. He had a bad feeling about this situation, one that he couldn't shake no matter how hard he tried. And that feeling was never wrong.

He stopped the moment he entered the cave. There was a guy in the front of it, laying down. That almost made him turn around - he had no interest in dealing with the dead right now - but then he saw the man was breathing.

"Hello?" he said, carefully making his way over to him.

Any hope that Kendrik had of slipping away vanished when the second human walked into the cave. He didn't seem to notice Kendrik or Jaron, and appeared soaked and sluggish, but Kendrik didn't trust the bag the human was holding. It could be either a weapon or a blunt object. And, small as the cave was, and as few big rocks as there were, it'd be near impossible to escape out the front or head deeper into the cave undetected. Time for something more risky.

Fortunately, the stranger was distracted by the passed-out man on the floor. Kendrik used the opportunity to tap Jaron on the shoulder and point to a nearby rock. "Get over there and get out your wrench," Kendrik whispered. "I'll try to take him down. If I can't, I'll run him over to you."

Jaron nodded. Then the both of them, still crouching, stepped out from either side of the rock. Kendrik made a wide arc towards the distracted stranger, while Jaron quickly darted behind the other rock. Rising up, Kendrik slowly pulled out his rapier, aiming the back of the sword at the back of the man's head.

How fast could the stranger react?

He stumbled through the rain, head ducked against the rain. He could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. This storm was only going to get worse and he was already soaked to the bone. He clambered through the rocky outcroppings towards the nearest shelter he could find: a cave, higher up the hill.

The man wasn't sure how he'd gotten there. He'd been running through the alleys, the backstreets, out of town and then along the winding country roads. He remembered wishing that he had his motorcycle as the clouds came in and a drizzle became pouring rain.

She was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He should've been more careful.

Passing out in a strange cave probably wasn't his wisest decision, but after an hour of running for his life, he didn't know if he could move anymore. It was when he started hearing the quite voices of people around him that he realized he should've at least looked around the cave once before drifting somewhere in between the realm of asleep and awake.

From what he could hear though, the voices didn't sound hostile. He wasn't sure if he should start moving or keep looking like he was passed out. It wasn't hard to do.

But he also didn't want to be attacked by surprise, so with great exertion, he began to push himself up from the ground.

He realized three things simultaneously: the man was in the middle of getting up, someone else had just entered the cave, and there was a currently a sword right behind his head. The actions hadn't necessarily happened in exactly that order - he was almost entirely sure that the sword was being held by yet another stranger - but the combination of the three gave him a growing sense of alarm.

Had this all been a trap of some kind? Where one person pretended to play dead, his accomplices lying in wait for the next unsuspecting victim? Hiding out in a cave couldn't have that high of a success rate, but he researched violent crimes. He knew that sense didn't always dictate the actions a person took.

"If you're going to take my money," he said, "I don't have that much on me. I was going to stop at the ATM."

Kendrik froze and blinked. This wasn't going too well. The unconscious man was starting to pull himself up, and Kendrik was fairly sure someone else had just entered the cave. He couldn't possibly knock them all out quickly enough, to say nothing of fleeing. And the optics - him about to hit a man on the back of the head - weren't good. His breathing grew shallow, and his grip on his rapier wavered. He needed collateral.

"Money?" Kendrik said, resting the blade of the rapier on the man's shoulder. He tried to ignore how his stomach turned. "I, uh, want a hostage. Yeah."

The cool metal rested against his jacket, and he wondered how he had gotten into this mess in the first place. "A hostage?" he repeated.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't figure out why a hostage was needed. Was he dealing with some sort of criminal, one on the run from the law? He could feel the blade of the sword trembling as its owner threatened him with it, so that didn't seem that likely. Was he scared? Was that it? A sword was albeit a strange thing for someone to randomly be carrying, but it would explain the bizarre scenario going on right now.

"Yeah," said Kendrik, trying to keep his voice and sword steady. This wasn't the first time he'd done something like this, but he didn't have the desperation and wits he'd had before. It took him a few seconds to remember to press the rapier against the stranger's neck.

"You'll, uh, come with me, and I'll let ya go if, uh, the others say they won't do anything. Sound fair?"

"I don't even know them?" he said, bewildered. This whole situation was absurd, but especially the way that the threat was being phrased. It wasn't even a threat, really. It was more of a polite request, given by someone who really shouldn't have been in charge of getting a hostage. "I'd like to think they'd want to save a life, but I don't know if that would actually work. And why exactly do you need a hostage?"

Why couldn't this guy be like a normal hostage and shut up? It didn't help that he was poking holes in Kendrik's (admittedly flimsy) plan. "That's not important!" said Kendrik, reaching out his other hand to grab the man by the shoulder. "And they probably will, so, uh, there."

Kendrik took a step back, pulling the man back with him. A few steps later, Kendrik could see Jaron hiding behind the rock. The fox looked up and pointed to the man; Kendrik shook his head. Jaron waved to the man and kept quiet.

James, albeit with much confusion, had heard the following conversation between the others in the cave, and once he was sitting on his knees, finally saw the spectacle before him.

There was an hound holding a blade at a man. The hound was the one trying to hold the man hostage, but to what purpose, he still didn't understand.

Too sore and too tired to interfere physically, he tried to speak reason.

"If you're holding him hostage that means you want him in exchange for something, meaning you know someone who knows him that holds his life at high value. So it does matter why you need a hostage. If you're not holding any exchange I see no need for violence, since it appears neither he - and I should also mention I - plan on hurting anyone, especially in this weather. If any of you are anything like me, you only came here to seek shelter. Let us not assume the worst of one another when we're already miserably wet and cold as is."

Well, wasn't this quite the scene - a man on the ground and a second held captive by...a dog? On two legs? With a fox?

The masked figure blinked as he reached the entrance to the cave. He'd seen a lot of weird things but this was a whole new level of bizarre. His fingers slipped under his coat and gripped his knife but he didn't interfere as he spectated the goings on in eerie silence, like a statue silhouetted by the sparse light scattered across the cave floor from the cloudy sky.