"Are you sure it's in this place?" Dom looked at the path on the map from his position and asked to be more certain.
Luke, who had had a nightmare about that fateful night where he hid instead of fighting to help his friend, looked at Dom and said: "From our location it's about fourteen or fifteen kilometers on foot, but we need to hurry."
It looked like it was going to rain, the whole group felt the same so they decided it was time to honor the death of their dead friend. Everyone had decided to make this trip with that sole purpose.
"We're here, buddy, we'll meet again soon, so don't be anxious to see us again." Luke took a small thermos in which he had tequila and took a drink. Everyone took a drink before pouring the remaining contents over the artificial grave they had made for their friend.
"Yes, we all know you would've died shortly after if you kept drinking." Hutch made a small joke to cheer up his other friends, who had been quiet since the morning.
Everything wasn't sunshine and rainbows, it wasn't pleasant at all, so talking wasn't something everyone planned on doing. But since they had set out to make this trip, there was no way they would stay down the entire time.
This was something everyone understood, so after Hutch made that joke they all started smiling and talked for a few minutes before wanting to resume the trip.
"Alright, let's resume the trip before it rains again."
"The weather is really crap."
Luke looked at the tower of stones he had left for his friend and couldn't look at it any longer despite having let him die. It wasn't something he wanted to repeat, but he would always remember it.
"What a damn coward." Hutch appeared beside Luke and said those words.
"Who?" Luke was surprised by those words.
Hutch looked at his friend with confusion and said: "Of course the idiot who did that to our friend, what do you mean who?"
"Sorry, I had a bad dream today…" Luke sighed once more with sorrow as he remembered everything that had happened the previous night.
"Ah!!!"
But at that moment, Dom, who was walking behind, fell to the ground. Everyone turned around worried, and when they realized Dom couldn't continue through the established route, they looked at the forest thinking of shortening the path.
That was the worst decision they had made in a long time because they didn't know where they had gotten themselves into.
Luke was the only one observing everything much more carefully.
Spending so much time in silence was what he normally did behind the group, and soon things became murky when they discovered a circus performer hanging from a tree with strange runes carved on his body.
"Was it a bear?"
Luke looked at Dom and asked him: "Have you seen a damn bear that leaves its prey in a tree?"
"I didn't mean it like that…"
"We know what you meant." Phil, who was in the group, tried to calm those who were starting to panic.
If the ones who did this were nearby, they should've seen or heard them.
"I've heard a lot about cults, wouldn't this be the work of one?" Dom gave his humble explanation about what he had read on the internet.
Luke looked around and among the trees he could see a huge thing moving, so he quickly signaled everyone to get down.
"What did you see?"
"I don't know… That thing was too big to be considered any kind of animal in the forest." Luke tried to explain what he had seen, but as he expected, no one believed him.
But regardless of what the others thought, they all believed him when a roar worse than that of a bear echoed from the farthest trees.
"What is that?"
"Whatever it is, I'm not going to find out."
Boom!
In that instant, a huge arrow pierced Dom's stomach as he was resting on the ground. He lifted his gaze only to see in the distance a man with a deer head shooting him with an arrow.
"Everyone run…"
"No!"