Until Dawn: The Light in the Darkness

Next chapter of my Until Dawn story, enjoy.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn or its characters.

Chapter 18

GRANT POV

I bit back a sigh and tried to stay focused. It wasn't easy, the guilt was eating me up inside. I kept having my mind assaulted by the memories of seeing Jess being dragged through the window of the cabin door. Her horrifying screams echoed in my mind and I was reminded so vividly of my failure.

'Don't think about that, Grant. You can't change what happened.' I told myself, as firmly as I could.

Unfortunately, the other matters on my mind were hardly any better. Josh was dead now, too. Sam and Mike were both on their own and more than likely in danger.

I continued to fret about them. 'I said we'd hopefully run into Mike, but what are the chances? Honestly...I have faith in Chris and Ash. They'll find Sam, and they've got each others' backs...But Mike...'

My current companions did little to alleviate my worries, however.

"I can't believe Josh is dead." Emily said quietly.

Matt shuddered as he replied. "I can't believe how he died."

Emily shook her head. "No, I mean, what if they were wrong?"

"What?"

She turned to him. "Maybe we should've checked the shed, to see if it was really true."

Matt grimaced at that. "I don't know..." he replied hesitantly. "There are some things that, once you see them, you can never un-see them."

Emily sighed, shoulders slumped. "Yeah, I guess...But some things you have to see for yourself."

Matt shuddered. "I'll take their word for it."

I was about to snap at them, but something made me pause. Emily, shockingly enough, could have a point there. Nevertheless, there was an undeniable tension in the air. I could tell that Matt and Emily were still clearly angry with each other over what had happened earlier, and I was certainly not in the mood to deal with any of this right now. I couldn't let them start anything. If they did, I had no doubt that I wouldn't be able to control myself.

We approached the cable car station, only to note something odd, yet in a way, a blessing in disguise, what with there being a psycho running around. An axe was lodged in the door to the cable car station.

"Look, an axe..." Matt remarked, seeing it first. "I feel better with an axe."

Emily nodded and I smiled, now we'd have a means to protect ourselves. Matt pulled the axe from the door and Emily stepped forward to try and open it. But to our surprise, it wouldn't open.

"Oh, what now? This is locked, Matt!" Emily whined.

Matt sighed and shook his head.

"Well, break the door down, will ya?" she added.

Matt froze and I was shocked. Did she really think that that was a good idea? Matt shook his head.

"Whoa, wait a second." he told her. "We start smashing shit down and he's gonna hear us."

Emily rolled her eyes. "You got any better suggestions?"

Matt shrugged. "I dunno, what about...look!" He spotted it right away and when Emily questioned him, he pointed it out, an ajar window.

"That's great, Matt." Emily shot back, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "I can just about fit my lip balm through that little slot."

"No, come on." he urged her.

She sighed and emphasized, "You will never fit through there, big guy."

I rolled my eyes, that was enough of this, even though they hadn't started on what was no doubt the root of their anger. We did not have time for this!

"Of for fuck sake, if you're done arguing pointlessly." I snapped, removing my jacket and shoving it into Emily's hands.

They both looked at me in shock.

"Excuse me, what are you…?" Emily began, stunned.

I just stalked past her and, without the bulky jacket holding me back, I vaulted up and slid through the open window.

Once inside, I gasped at what I saw. The station was devastated, trashed, and to top it all off, threatening graffiti adorned the walls.

"Holy shit?"

"What, what?" Matt asked through the door.

I hurried over and unlocked it, letting them in. "Guys, don't freak out, we got a problem..."

I stepped back, flipping the lights on to aid us, but that just made the damage look worse. They were both frozen with shock when they saw it, too. When we finally recovered, however, we soon found a serious problem. The cable car was suspended midway out, too far to jump, and the key was gone, so we had no way of using the cable car. We started to look around, hoping to find another way. I had something else on my mind, however. Retrieving my jacket from Emily, I quickly pulled her away from Matt.

"Hey, what the hell?" she snapped.

I shook my head. "Look, don't think that you can just push us all around. Some of us are sick of your attitude and what you did to Matt. This is ridiculous, why the fuck would you do that to him, huh!? He's been nothing but good to you."

I admit, I expected anger, even for Emily to scoff and brush me off. But to my surprise, she didn't. She simply sighed and shook her head.

"I just...Grant, I don't know, I just...I moved on too fast from Mike and...my heart just wasn't in it and..."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh for fuck sake. So your heart was never fully dedicated to Matt from the start? Then why play him along? That's low, even for you."

She sighed. "Like Mike was any better than me, moving right on to Jess..."

"I get that, but at least he felt guilty when Jess found out. That doesn't mean you..."

"For fuck sake, I get that already." she replied, sounding desperate. "But despite everything, despite what you might think...I still cared about Mike. I couldn't...I just couldn't shut that off and let him go. That's why I thought that I could handle being with both guys at once."

I nodded slowly. "Fine, fine...I guess I understand what you're getting at. But Matt deserves better. You'd better think about that."

With that, I turned away.

As we returned to the main room, Matt suddenly called out, "Hey, look, a fire tower..."

We approached and saw what he was pointing out on a map. Suddenly, realizing our chances, we immediately made up a plan to get to the fire tower and hopefully find a radio to call for help.

I hoped that this would increase our chances. 'We're going off the beaten path. Who knows, maybe we'll find Mike?'

But still, we had to find a way out of the cable car station. Luckily, Emily spotted a way and tried to approach it; a ladder on the side of the building, but it was out of reach. Sharing a look with Matt, I nodded and, boosting her up, she was able to get the ladder and we made our way down, Emily first, then Matt, while I brought up the rear. After Emily found a large flashlight, which she took, we began to move around the side of the building. Unfortunately, Emily misjudged the length of the ledge and nearly fell, but Matt caught her just in time.

"Whoa, you alright?"

She gasped but nodded. "Yeah, uh...thanks, maybe...um, you should go first. To protect me."

Rolling my eyes at Emily's attempt to maintain her usual persona despite the obvious, I watched as Matt did so and they soon reached the other side, much to the relief of all three of us.

"Okay...okay..." Matt breathed, finally letting the tension release from his muscles.

Emily let out a slow breath, too. "Holy cannoli, thank God that's over."

"Tell me about it." I muttered. 'Dammit, this better work. Things are still tense...If I could just find time to talk to Matt alone...Urgh, I really shouldn't be doing this, but I guess we've already gone through too much. No one else seems to be bothering to fix this, so I guess it's up to me, typical. So much for being the bad boy, Grant.'

Still, we continued and began to head up the snowy path, searching for the best route to the fire tower. Before long, we reached a large snowy path and began looking around, until we were soon stopped by a steep cliff.

"No go here. C'mon." I muttered.

They both nodded and we turned away, only to be stopped by an unusual screaming noise and soon we were surrounded.

'Oh, shit.'

We were surrounded indeed. We were trapped by the cliff edge by a horde of caribou deer. Panic gripping us, Matt and Emily and I stood warily at the edge of the cliff. The deer surrounded us, some moving a bit closer, but we couldn't move back any further.

"Matt…!" Emily cried out, terror coating her voice. "What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do!?"

I looked over at Matt, who tightened his grip on the axe for a minute, but then relaxed it. I nodded and silently urged him to stay calm and focused.

He replied calmly, "Stay calm... relax... they're just deer... they just want to check us out, is all…"

"No, no, no, Matt they're gonna hurt us-" Emily whimpered, not at all reassured.

I rolled my eyes. "Emily, relax for fuck sake! Let's just, take this slow...Matt, whatever you do, do not hurt them or startle them in any way."

Matt nodded. "Yeah, I got it."

Once ready, we began to walk carefully towards the herd. As we began to move through them, the deer stepped back, or moved around us, allowing us to walk through the herd without much issue. However, amongst the deer were their close cousins; Elk. One was now blocking our path. Matt stopped, prompting Emily and I to do the same. The Elk sniffed at him but he did not react. I cringed.

'Fuck sake, Matt, stay cool, stay cool, don't...' To my relief, he restrained himself, but I could see that he was struggling.

The temptation to use the axe against this potential threat must have been strong, especially as more time passed. The Elk sniffed at him but simply would not back down, or even move. I could sense Emily getting restless and trembling next to me. I was edgy myself. Thankfully, resisting the urge to attack, Matt, at last, slowly began to move again and, to our relief, the Elk backed down.

Finally, we emerged from the herd, unharmed, and reached a small bundle of rocks that we could climb. Quickly doing so, both Matt and Emily dropped down and I dropped down shortly afterwards. We now found ourselves on the path that would lead us to the radio tower, amazingly falling into place with our plans perfectly. Almost too perfectly...

End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.