I. Dawn Is A Feeling

There was a butterfly stain on the ceiling. Sam's eyes drifted towards it almost inevitably during any given session. If Dr. Kroeger noticed Sam's wandering gaze, she never commented on it. Sam knew for a fact she was an attentive patient. Her grade in therapy would be an A. Maybe even an A+ if she did all the mindfulness and meditation extra credit.

"Sam? Did you hear what I said?"

Sam's eyes focused like a telescope on her therapist. Dr. Kroeger looked only vaguely concerned, but Sam didn't want that feeling to spread. "Ahhh sorry, I kinda… drifted off there. What was it, again?"

Dr. Kroeger uncrossed and recrossed her legs. The room was so quiet today the sound of her pants chafing against itself was painful, like sandpaper shakers. "That's all right. What I said was: you seem like you're far away today."

"Ah. So I just… proved your point then. You got me! I am mentally onnnn… I'd say… Saturn today. Possibly Neptune." She thought about tossing in Uranus for a hearty (if juvenile) chuckle, but Sam decided against it.

"Wow, all the way out there huh?" Jotting of notes on the good doctor's writing pad. Sam wondered if her grade would dip down to an A-. "And is anything in particular sending you into the stars?"

The ceiling stain seemed to flap its wings. Sometimes a room became a cage.

"...It's been three months, to the day, since we made it off that mountain. Or seven of us did, I should say. I think that's what's still fucking me up about it. Beyond, you know, all the other fucked up 'fun' we had. No matter what we all went through, we got out. But Josh… Josh didn't. And, in spite of his shit, that's not how I wanted things to turn out for him."

The pen's scrawling skidded to a halt. A slight tilt to Dr. Kroeger's head indicated to Sam she'd possibly divulged too much. Granted the point of therapy was to talk, but some things about the past few years were still too fucked to unpack. She wasn't quite prepared to share that Mike had the personal misfortune of watching Hannah drag him (screaming) deeper into the mines. She couldn't even BEGIN to explain the Wendigo. That entire topic was cordoned off with heavy caution tape and electric fences.

"What would you have wanted for Josh instead?"

Sam considered this. "I mean, to escape with us also? As just like, a base. What could've happened after that… well, I dunno. I don't think any of us would've wanted to get lawyers involved, you know?" (That wasn't true, Emily would've sued, but that was beyond the point.) Sam continued: "I think he just… needed a lot of help. Help he wasn't finding. Help he might've gotten if he came back with us."

More writing, more probing. "So how would you label these emotions you have about Josh, if you can?"

Sam imagined taking a label gun and tagging all the different meaty parts of her heart with snappy summarizations of her PTSD-riddled emotional landscape. "Well, uh… there's regret. Sadness. An immense sense of… of loss."

Dr. Kroeger might as well have been writing a dissertation at this point, there were so many notes. When she stopped, she folded her hands together in a tight clasp. Sam knew this signal. Time to Dive™.

"So it seems like you're more concerned for Josh than, say, embittered by the way he traumatized you and your friends. Sam, whenever you've shared about your experience in Blackwood Pines, you've never once expressed a desire for vengeance or retribution against him. I understand he wasn't the only party involved in the outcome of that night, but even so, usually I find my patients have some modicum of anger to work out. Would you say you've forgiven him?"

Dr. Kroeger wasn't wrong. Three months ago, there'd been a hint of rage, but really that was just the deep sting of betrayal. Rightfully so. When it came to Hannah and Beth… well, Sam had always been closer to the Washingtons than the rest of their friend group (bar Chris), right? It was only natural that Hannah's best friend and the older brother, shocked and lost, would look to each other for comfort.

There'd been a Sam, exactly three months and two days prior, who trusted Josh. Yet trust or not, there was still a Sam who gave a shit about him. And part of her swore to God she could feel him, still roaming around alive out there.

Just like Hannah.

On cue, a ripple of goosebumps spread down her neck and through every nerve in her body. She was waiting for the butterfly stain to flutter and flap its wings.

"For the most part," Sam conceded. "I'd never forget what he did, for sure. But I wouldn't make him carry it like a prison sentence either. I found out that night he wasn't properly medicated, you know that? They thought it was just depression. I really wish more people paid attention to that. To him. I wish people had noticed… before it was too late."

When Sam said 'people', the only face that came to mind was her own.

Dr. Kroeger started afresh on a new notepad; apparently this was a particularly juicy session for her. "And are you alone in this perspective? Or do any of your other friends feel the same about Josh?"

That… was a good question, actually. And here was the point where Sam had to admit to herself she was still lightyears away from trusting Dr. Kroeger with the deepest, meatiest parts of this whole bloody mess. Talking about Josh with any of the other survivors was something like practicing ballet over French trenches littered with landmines.

She never broached the subject with Matt and Jessica, for instance, though that mostly had to do with both experiencing that night in their own (just as traumatizing) ways separate from Josh's "prank"; Emily made it abundantly clear she would never discuss the Washingtons; Mike deflected in favor of dick jokes; Ashley's palpable distress over being manipulated and terrorized bled through any meaningful discussion; really, Chris was the only one she could talk with when it came to Josh. And even Chris, with all their history, questioned the possibility of true absolution.

"Some of them," Sam fudged. "There's never a consensus, obviously. But I know how I feel isn't wrong. Might not make sense to everybody, but I own that. I do."

Dr. Kroeger was exceptional when it came to masking her reactions. At times it seemed like those thick glasses served as a security wall between her and her patients. Sam learned instead to pay particular attention towards Dr. Kroeger's notetaking and questions, the only vulnerable points in her defense. Apparently, today was a goldmine of information.

Sam didn't really like that. Was it good to talk about things? Sure, yes, she had to. But they were edging into exposed territory and Sam wasn't ready to leave her cover quite yet.

By some divine providence, this particular tangent carried them through the last few minutes of Sam's session. The earlier portion of their hour went by like a half-forgotten dream, but this conclusion… well, it certainly woke Sam up. Thoughts and ideas were percolating in her brain.

Not all were welcome.

Dr. Kroeger confirmed next week's appointment and they bid each other adieu. Another week of therapy down, another million to go.

Sam stole one last glance at the brown butterfly-shaped ceiling stain before she left Dr. Kroeger's office. She thought about cocoons, about totem poles, about an icy mountain in the black of night.

She thought about Josh, lost and alone with the horrors lurking in those mines.

And that was enough for the day, the week, possibly the entire month if she could help it.

\/\/\/

In her car after therapy, Sam pumped up the volume and lowered her windows. Once she merged on the highway, Sam floored it and unleashed a sound so loud, so agonizingly primal and pained it frightened an entire family in a nearby SUV. They shot past Sam in the left-hand lane, one daughter dead set on staring from her back window. Sam gazed back briefly. She wondered what she looked like right now to an utter stranger. Wild? Unhinged?

Psychotic, even?

Sam didn't care too much about other people's opinions, especially random strangers. Her healing process was her own, and who didn't need a healthy Scream Alone in the Car™ once in a while? In a fast car, at that. Sam needed that dopamine, that release, that catharsis.

Because see, there was something she'd never discussed with Dr. Kroeger. She'd been practically forced into it with the authorities, when they were all giving interviews in the wake of dawn's rescue. She told them to send officials into the mines and see for themselves. Through the grapevine, Sam found out a month later there was a rescue party sent into the mines.

They disappeared.

Their bodies were found weeks later. Mauled. Decapitated. Partially consumed. The coroner's report chalked it up to a bear attack. Not unlikely, given the Canadian wilderness.

But Sam knew better.

Sam knew better.

/\/\/\

In a cavern deep beneath the earth, mineral water dripped from its stalactites with a plumbing plop. Scarce light filtered in through cracks and crevices. Wind bellowed through on occasion, an echo chorus of wailing banshees; otherwise, all was silent and still.

Mostly still. It appeared a very lost butterfly had flown its way into this subterranean crypt by some misadventure. A gorgeous Purplish Copper, its gossamer wings beat hard as it meandered about the space, as if it sought escape.

From the Stygian black shadows, an emaciated arm reached out with its hand cupped open. The Purplish Copper managed to find this landing pad and gently touched down. A man's head came poking out to consider the butterfly. One could be forgiven mistaking him for normal if it weren't for the jagged teeth jutting through his cheek.

The beast considered his quarry. It was literally in the palm of his hand, docile and vulnerable. He could crush it without a moment's hesitation.

And yet, the Wendigo merely watched as the insect once again took flight. To his dimming eyes, its constant motion transmitted a beacon of dancing light. His arm fell back to his side. At his feet lay a mound of viscera peppered with shreds of fabric and a pair of ski goggles. He stabbed into his meal with one long and spindly index finger, then brought it to the cavern's wall. He scribbled something quickly in blood, then darted off into a tunnel, growling and shrieking.

Only the Purplish Copper remained. The butterfly hovered by the message on the wall, almost like it wanted to read what the Wendigo had to say.

His message (with scrawling, almost childish letters):

S A M