Everyone just sort of awkwardly stood still as the fog faded, Meg clutching onto Dwight like a child with Jake and Claudette beside them, both tangled up in one another yet. Slowly they began unraveling their limbs apart and grimly ushered toward the campfire, having learned quite a bit after that trial.

As soon as Dwight sat down he looked at Jake and Claudette with fear brimming his eyes. "What the fuck was that?"

Claudette grimaced. "The- The claws?" Upon receiving a nod from Dwight, she continued on while trying to untie the sling from her shoulder. "I don't know... I-"

"Wait what are we talking about right now?" Interrupted Meg with extreme concern and confusion evident in her voice.

"When we were put on the hooks for the second time..." Jake started while simultaneously giving Claudette a hand with her sling before trailing off. He wasn't sure just how he could explain it. "These... these huge claws came out of the hook and started to- well I don't know."

He peered up to Claudette for some help, snagging the bloody denim off of her and tossing it to the ground. She shook her head, shutting her eyes tight while she recalled the terrifying incident. "I couldn't hold them back for long. It started- they started to stab me right before Dwight came."

Her voice was weak and watery, tears slipping relentlessly down her face. Meg could tell that she had been through a lot during the trial- much like the last. It was a shame Claudette was always the unlucky one because the girl was so sweet and kind with a massive heart of gold. Some part of the cruel nature of it lit a fire within Meg, making her furious that this was happening to them. Again the questions swirled within her. Why them? Why were they the ones to have to fucking live through this?

"So... what is it?" Dwight finally questioned after a beat of silence. Claudette slowly peered over at Jake, having been at a loss of words. Clearly she didn't know what to call it, barely even grasping what actually happened. But Jake didn't really know either.

With a shrug he shot his empty gaze over the fire at Dwight. "Just an... Entity."

"That explains why they don't just kill us..." Dwight thought aloud. "It's like they're... feeding it. They're offering us to whatever it is using the hooks."

Claudette suddenly slapped her knees before standing, visibly shaking as she spoke. "I'm going to get more plants. We need something to fill up this useless med-kit."

As she hurriedly walked off, Jake stood and trailed behind her closely with something surely on his mind with they way his brows hung low. Meg eyed them as they disappeared off into the darkness, going only a couple yards from the campfire. She turned and made a face at Dwight.

"Are they..." She began, whispering. "... Do they have a thing?"

He seemed a little unconvinced by that idea, replying with, "I think maybe they're just close because of- well- everything."

Meg nodded, "Like an attachment, or a trauma bond."

"Well I think a trauma bond is when you become attached to a person who is abusing you. But you're right about it being an attachment of some kind." He told the girl while looking away, gaze hidden by the reflection of the fire against his glasses. Meg hummed.

"Did you study psychology or something?" She asked, genuinely interested to know. It seemed like he knew a thing or two about it.

"Umm no, I just took an interest in it... to figure things out." He admitted.

"What things?"

At that question, Dwight looked as if he become a little uncomfortable and unsure of what to tell her. Picking up on it, Meg recoiled and embarrassingly apologized for overstepping his boundaries.

"I- I didn't mean to pry, I'm sorry." She told him in a light voice, putting her bloody hands up. He shook his head, seeming to be upset that he made her regret asking.

"No- no it's fine. I- I don't mind. But it's hard to explain. I've never really talked to anyone about that." After he broke it down, he looked to Meg with a bit of apprehension still laced in his face. She could tell he really didn't want to get into it so she scooted back against the log while basking in the warmth for once, choosing to just smile at him before letting her eyes flutter shut.

"It's alright, let's just relax," She whispered, trying to escape this despicable reality for the time being...


Meg came home to her mom lounging on the couch, watching reruns of some horrific reality show full of girls sweating their fake tans off in a dumpy club somewhere in California. Even though Meg hated that crap, she put up with it because it always made her mom laugh hysterically with every over dramatic heartbreak and drunken fist fight that occurred. It's all scripted anyway... but Meg never told her that.

Like usual, she muted the TV and twisted on the cushions to give her daughter a weak smile. "Hey track star. How'd it go today?"

The girl took a moment to knock off her running shoes, dropping her nearly empty backpack right beside them. With a huff, Meg cursed up to the ceiling. "Dana was being such a fucking bitch today!"

Her mom chuckled, sitting up slowly with the help of Meg who hurried over to hold her hand, lifting up carefully. "What's new..." Then once she situated the covers over her lap, "What'd she say this time?"

"Hah- she started talking to the other girls in the locker room while I was taking a shower. And the stupid bitch had no idea I could hear her- or maybe she did and she's just that fucking miserable..." Meg launched a barrage of vulgar words against the girl, coming to pace in front of the TV like she was giving her mom some sort of heated lecture of high importance.

"And then she was saying, like, 'oh her ass is shaped like a square'- like taking about my ass. And also was basically calling me disproportional and just shit talking my body!" She continued on, coming to a near shout by the end while her mom just sat and quietly took it all in with a smirk on her lips.

"So yeah, I ended up walking out of the shower and when she saw me she kept going but was whispering so I didn't really hear what else she had to say but I'm guessing because they could get a real good look at me they didn't stop their gossip there."

Breathing heavy from spewing out so many words in such a short time, Meg stood there with her arms spread out expectantly, waiting for her mom to add her own two cents.

Just as the woman was about to speak, a raspy and jarring cough tore through her frail body. She shook her head after finally getting a hold on her breathing, inhaling with the hoarse sound of mucus in her throat.

Meg was by her side in an instant, hand softly messaging her mother's back while she worriedly waited on her to recover from whatever that was.

"Are you okay?" She asked her after a moment.

Her mom shook her head again. "Yeah... just got a crumb in my throat is all."

With a scoff, Meg gave her an empty chuckle. "That was not a crumb, mom."

"Was that all of your story-" She went to change the subject but her daughter was not having it.

"Did you hear from the doctors?"

"Meg, honey, I don't wanna talk about that right-"

"Please," Meg interjected. A ball was now stuck in her throat. Something was wrong because her mom normally brushed that question off, saying she hadn't heard from them at all. But now that she was avoiding it... well it made Meg's heart sink.

"Don't hide things from me." Her daughter pleaded. The woman hesitantly looked over, a serious expression washing over her tired face. She looked like she was trapped with nowhere to go. Meg recognized it and was sad that she was forcing her to tell her something she didn't want to admit- but Meg had to be kept in the loop here.

"They called this morning while you were at school and... they told me that they still don't know what it is. And then they tried making another MRI appointment for me but..." She looked away, words trailing off leaving Meg hanging onto that 'but'.

"What's wrong? Why didn't you make the appointment?" The girl begged for an answer. "What's going on?"

"I can't afford it anymore. I lost the insurance a while ago and I have nothing-" Her mom took a shallow, uneven breath in a weak attempt to not cry for the sake of her daughter. "But I'll be fine, it's just... we are in a bad spot right now."

All Meg could do was stare at her mom and instantly understood that this was the beginning of the end.

At the thought she burst into tears, feeling the brittle arms of her mom fall around her as a sob wracked through her body. Meg leaned into the woman's touch, grabbing onto her cardigan and held the fabric tightly in her hand, never wanting to let go of her. Ever.


"Meg, Meg- wake up."

As her eyes opened, Meg looked right up at Dwight. That's when she realized a parade of tears were dripping off her jaw, causing her to go and wipe them away when she paused. Her hands and arms were all full of blood, making her second guess wiping them away at the risk of sludging a bunch of blood all over her face.

Just when she was gonna say 'fuck it' Dwight offered her his tie, which had a nearly spotless underside.

"Heh," Meg sniffled. "Thanks."

"It's not the best but I guess it's something." Dwight muttered while undoing it from his neck quickly before gently placing it in Meg's outstretched hand. She went on to dab it around her face, offering it back to him once she finished. He just waved it off.

"I won't be needing it, I don't even know why I left it on this long." He confessed, gesturing to the fire. Meg was about to discard it into the flames when she reeled back.

"Actually we could put it in the med-kit. Probably would be semi-useful." She said, half to herself and half Dwight. He nodded, impressed that he hadn't thought of that.

The girl got up and plodded over to the med-kit, taking notice that Jake and Claudette were still not back. As she opened up the kit and coiled up the tie in a tight bundle, Meg looked off to the side and could just barely see the outlines of the other two survivors standing together in the shadows. At least they were okay- that's all Meg was worried about.

She dropped back down onto the log lazily after adding Dwight's tie to their medical supplies, thinking back on the memory of her mom.

That was one of the most difficult moments of Meg's life. There was nothing more soul shattering than seeing the future so clearly ahead of you despite not having anything concrete to prove its truth. She just knew that eventually her mom would be lost to whatever mystery illness plagued her, taking her from a strong and healthy woman to being nearly bed ridden and hardly capable of walking on her own. To watch your mom crumble away like that in such a short amount of time was heartbreaking, really taking a toll on Meg as she struggled to find outlets that relieved the pressure of such a harrowing experience.

Meg stuck to track and to running but eventually found herself feeling unfulfilled despite the unwavering passion she had for the sport. The people on the track team were really starting to spoil the meditative experience that truly was the working force in clearing her mind. And every time Meg jogged outside of school she was met with some positive thoughts, yet they always crashed and burned as soon as she arrived home and had to face the image of her mother that would never, ever become familiar. The woman was a shell of herself and it refused to stop haunting Meg no matter how many times her sneakers beat the pavement around town.

She needed someone to take care of her because realistically Meg didn't have any sense of that at home. Which she didn't hold against her mother, not by any means- yet there was this indescribable feeling that Meg desperately wanted to get rid of. It was like a shadowy void in her heart, waiting to be filled with whatever unhealthy habit Meg would inevitably pick up. It wasn't drugs, it wasn't alcohol or parties- it was the scummiest and most desperate guys on the face of the planet.

Being held and caressed, even if it wasn't real or sincere, was enough for Meg. After she put her mom to bed she would wait an hour or two before sneaking out and rendezvousing with whoever and wherever it may be. Car parks, musty basements, cluttered bedrooms or big empty houses that looked nothing like hers- they all were places she went to just feel safe and protected, shielded from the heartache that awaited her once the sun graced the horizon. And it worked, which was why she kept doing it over the course of a few years and even a little bit past graduation.

The sexual intimacy never bothered her, not really meaning much in the grand scheme of things. It was like a trade of sorts. The boys got what they really wanted while she was met with her end of the bargain. The true love she encountered was her head nestled into a warm shoulder, arms tucked against the smooth and bare chest of a boy who didn't actually love her while she closed her eyes and reveled in being taken care of for just a few hours. And it was alright. That was all she really wanted. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sometimes it didn't always work out that way because not every guy is Prince Charming, obviously. Every once in a while there would be an incident that would knock her off of this one night stand streak but she always ended up coming back because that craving for affection and care was too overpowering for her to resist. However most of them were drenching her in superficial sweetness, proclaiming their love for Meg just to get her to return the following night- all tactics she saw through but all ones that she didn't mind. She could continuously convince herself it was real and truly delve into that fantasy that kept her heart from breaking into a million pieces.

Looking back on it now, Meg knew it wasn't good but there were a lot of things working against her seventeen year old self. No dad, no friends, about to lose the only person she ever loved in her entire life... yeah it was the perfect cocktail of childhood trauma to send her down the rabbit hole of promiscuity as she got older. She figured it could've been worse. She may have been an overdose in a seedy park or a brutal, drunken accident just a mile up the road at some random kid's place. Instead she just curled up in someone else's bed a few nights a week and desperately tried to forget that a reality of pain existed outside of it.

"Are you okay?" Dwight asked, snapping Meg from her deep thought. Her brows were furrowed together, chin resting in her hands as she continued to glare at the campfire.

"No."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

Mirroring their exchange from earlier, she just peered over at him before saying, "No... it's just something I haven't talked about before..."

He shot her an understanding smile, turning back to the fire.


Claudette trembled as she snapped more stems out from the forest floor. The tears wouldn't stop and she didn't want to continuously cry in front of everyone. She knew they were struggling to get through everything and didn't care to add to the overall distress with her weeping. So she sat in the darkness, trying to make herself feel better by being amongst the plants and mindlessly harvesting what she could find. It was in fact the only thing that had ever cured her of any and all stress, except the recent torment she was going to through still lingered pretty strongly in her mind this time.

Her head whipped around at hearing the crunching of leaves nearing her back, relieving a sigh when she realized it was only Jake.

"You didn't have to come out here," She told him before focusing back on the plants while feeling bad that she was making him do anything at all for her. Claudette blamed herself for the harm that befell Jake- her arguing with him over the flashlight for too long being what led to them both getting injured and met with... with the "Entity". Had she just forced him to leave or at least follow her away could have caused everything to go over better, rather than them both being diced nearly apart.

She could hear him cross his arms. "I don't want you getting hurt again."

"And I don't want you getting hurt again." Claudette mumbled with her achy throat nearly devouring the words. Her fingers picked apart the plants faster, more aggressively now.

"You shouldn't have done what you did back there..." He said in a more quiet tone so that the others didn't hear him.

Claudette stood up, turning to face him when she suddenly jutted her arms out, waiting for him to palm the pile of leaves and flowers she was forcing onto him. After a moment he extended his gloved hands, letting her dump all of them there.

"I know, I heard you yelling at me..." The botanist told him, not sounding thrilled as she recalled his cursing and disbelief that she had taken the Wraith's hit for him. She rubbed her hands together above his, getting all of the leaves off of her dirty palms and onto the pile. "But I was just trying to help you."

"Well, I was trying to do the right thing and help you. You were more injured than I was." He argued, an edge to his voice that didn't really sound mad but bordered more so on aggressively caring.

But Claudette wasn't having it. "I was also trying to do the right thing. There's no use in you getting even more hurt when I can take the hook again and be fine. We need more healthy people to get us out than injured."

"That's the thing," Jake countered. "I wanted to take the hook so you didn't have to."

"But that's not the only thing," Claudette said, raising her voice. "It's not just about the hooks Jake, it's the fact that I had a broken collarbone and a trillion other things wrong with me while you were walking around with a paper cut in your stomach."

"And the hook injury!" He added, matching his voice to hers. She only laughed.

"Oh I'm sorry! Right, the same hole in your shoulder that I ALSO HAD on top of everything else." She came right back at him with her finger jabbing into her chest, taking a step closer before realizing how silly this all was. "Why are we even arguing about this right now?"

Jake now seemed to realize it too, slumping his shoulders down while digging for a genuine answer to her question. After a few moments he shook his head slightly, looking down at her with a far more soft expression than before.

"I just care, I guess." He offered.

She shrugged, raising her brows pointedly. "Me too."

And that was it, the argument was immediately over and both of them realized it was just simply a shared fact of their personalities. There would always be a never ending cycle of one saving the other and that was how things would be, whether they liked it or not. But one thing was for sure- they'd always have each other's backs no matter what happened, which was the sweet conclusion of the whole trivial ordeal.

The thought made Claudette smile to herself the tiniest bit, distracting her from the painful tears from before.

"Do you mind holding some, uhm, more stuff for me?" She asked him a little shyly now that the girl realized she'd just been yelling at him not a moment ago.

Jake just nodded with a usual 'Jake' sigh. "Not at all."