Desmond was sitting on the stairs to the Ferocious Trout cabin. He didn't seem to care that it was late or that he was alone at the moment.
You left him. The thought echoed loudly in the advisor's head, as though in constant repeat. You knew the cassowaries were dangerous, and you left him.
He knew Alex was safe. He hadn't had to watch the klutz get beat up by a bird, or get medivacked. The advisor knew that, although he may have left Alex behind when the cassowary first showed up, he was fine.
But what if he wasn't?
The sound of footsteps startled him. He looked up, only to see Julia was now outside of the cabin, laying down as she put her hands behind her head.
"Isn't it a little late to be out?" He prompted, adjusting his scarf a bit.
"I could say the same to you," the runaway remarked, looking over in his direction.
"Well, you got me there," he laughed a bit. When Julia didn't, he just cleared his throat. "So, uh, what brings you outside?"
"It's loud in the cabin."
"It's…late? How could it be loud?"
"We just got back from the ceremony."
Ah, right, the elimination ceremony. Desmond felt lucky he hadn't been a part of it, although he had a gut feeling about who would've been eliminated if the Trout had lost. And it would've been your fault, Desmond, it would've been all your-
"Who went home?" He asked, deciding that was a good way to change the discussion. Anything to distract him from the constant mental repetition of you left him.
"Jude," she answered bluntly. "Why do you care?"
"I'm just trying to make small talk here," he commented with a frown. "You don't need to be so hostile. Just keep an open mind-"
"You're on the other team."
Well, she was right about that. "I think it's important for people to talk, regardless of what team they're on," Desmond admitted. "So, did you have anything you wanted to talk about?"
"Nope," Julia replied, closing her eyes.
Desmond opened his mouth to say something, but words seemed to fail him. He just sighed and stood up. "Well, just know that if you want to talk about anything, I'm available," he stated with a smile. "Have a good night."
He headed back into the boys' side of the Trout cabin, the sudden drowsiness from the day kicking in. He needed some sleep.
Episode 2 is coming along well. I'm going to be honest, I hadn't thought about doing one of these until recently, so I hope I incorporated it well into the story. Shoutout to the minisode format goes to FreshmEn, Clown Princess Phoebe, and SinWriter7. I'll see you in the next update.