There are strange noises as we walk, but I just pass them off. Rustling? Must be the wind passing through the trees. Footsteps? It's just us walking.
"A- are you sure it's just that?" River asks every time I try to find some kind of logical explanation.
After about five rounds of back and forth, I snap.
"OF COURSE I'm not sure, but EXCUSE ME for trying to find SOME KIND of LOGICAL SOLUTION FOR THIS FUCKED UP SITUATION!"
After that, River goes quiet. I can't help but feel bad, but I'm still too pissed to apologise just yet. In the sudden silence, a strong, throbbing pain reminds me of my gash. I look down at it, and all of a sudden it looks a lot worse than before. It seems deep, too deep. With an unreasonable amount of blood coming out. I look behind us, seeing the small trail of red that I've left behind, and start to feel a bit faint.
I drop to my knees, grasping my side. My friends rush over to me, although the sudden realisation that it might be too late seems to hit all of us. I try to look up, but I feel too weak. I'm completely collapsed on the floor, a small pool of blood forming around me. My vision blurs, and I start to fade in and out of consciousness.
I hear fabric ripping, but I can't tell what's going on. There's pressure on my wound, but I fall fully unconscious too fast to see what my friends are doing.
As I wake back up, I see a rag, soaked with blood, tied around my waist where my wound is. I look at my friends, still woozy, and see Jess's shirt ripped at the bottom with a chunk missing. Piecing two and two together, I realise they saved me.
"You… how? Even I thought I was a goner."
"Well, putting pressure on the wound helps stop blood flow to the area. Then we tied part of her shirt around it to cover the wound and apply pressure for us." River speaks immediately with their knowledge.
I can't help but laugh, immediately regretting it as my wound reminds me of its existence.
"You always were a bit of a nerd, weren't you?"
River laughs, although its nervous.
"Yeah, I guess."
I stand up, wincing and almost falling back down with my friends immediately holding me, but I push them away, insisting I walk on my own.
"Dude. You can barely stand, let alone keep walking through the forest. Lets go back. We can return in the morning." Jess seems genuinely concerned. At least, as concerned as she gets. But that's not the detail I'm focused on.
"Morning? It's still morning, isn't it?"
River speaks up.
"…you were out for quite a while. Its nearly night."
Despite my injury, I'm determined to keep going.
"Well then, we adventure into night. But we need to figure out what's going on."
Jess and River sigh at the same time, but they don't argue, knowing that they wont win.
We keep walking, and it just gets darker and darker. I pull out a flashlight, lighting the way. We reach the point where there's practically no light coming in, but we just keep walking. The flashlight picks up dust in the air, lighting up the path that's getting more and more overgrown.
"Its… dark. I don't like it. I want to go back." River speaks up timidly.
"Come on, you'll be fine!" I try to convince them.
As we keep walking, a stench starts to fill the air. A disgusting, rotten stench that sticks to everything. And it only gets stronger as we walk further, making me physically gag.
"What the hell is that smell?" I say through clenched teeth. Usually, me or one of my friends would make a joke about my accidental rhyme, although this didn't really seem like a good situation.
"Uh… I think I found the source…" Jess speaks up, looking a bit traumatised.
I look at her, surprised.
"What is it?"
"Its some kind of pile of… meat…"