Run or Hide

Happy Halloween, friends

Mike didn't make it out. Mike didn't make it out, and it is your fault. You moved under the pressure, couldn't stay still, couldn't time it right. He died, and it is your died for you. He died because of you. He tried his hardest to save someone that night.

And any chance you might have had to save him, died when you flipped the switch, and everything went up in flames.

You can't feel regret over it. Not when it killed the monsters, who spent the night, stealing friends from you one by one, dwindling in numbers, until the horrible truth is staring you in the face.

Heads washing out the door, dead eyes staring accusingly at you. Bile rising in your gut at the sickening smell of death. Emily's death stands out as particularly gruesome to you. She is still dripping.

You try to close your eyes, try to look away, but you can't. Ashley's dead eyes stare out at you from her heads, separate from the rest, special somehow.

You told yourself to look after Ashley, after she watched Chris die in front of her. She needed comfort, attention and care, and you failed to give her any of it. You were so focused on moving ahead, so intent on taking any distraction to get away from the waiting and the fear you were all filled with as you sat in the basement. You don't look back as you marched on ahead. You didn't wait, and you didn't think about it, and kept not thinking about it, until you meet Ashley's lifeless eyes, and see the accusation in them.

You don't want to see it again, and you take any other opportunity offered. You choose to climb out of the mine, and leave your remaining friends to their fate. In a cave full of Wendigo's. While Josh was in no state to cope with anything.

You wish you had thought that decision over better in retrospect. You wish you were more surprised that only Mike made it out. You don't press for details. Maybe if you had stayed you could have made a difference. Maybe you could have helped them climb the walls. You don't know if it would have made a difference. Perhaps you would have all died together. And it's terrible, but you are horribly selfishly glad that you didn't.

You want to live, you discovered tonight. You want to live, and you are willing to be selfish to achieve that. Later you might feel horribly guilty over it, but when the helicopters come all you can feel is relief. Exhaustion setting in, as the adrenaline leaves you. Thankful to Emily, because who else would have the forethought to call for help.

Not you. You don't think far enough ahead to consider the consequences. You live in the present, focus on the now. Not the past like Josh, stuck in guilt and vengeance, not the future, planning ahead like Emily.

Is that what saved you? Or was it luck, pure and simple? You like to think that you played a part in your own survival. You friends have died because of things you didn't do. You've tried, and tried to be giving, and caring, and be there for them. But you are human. Simply and plainly human, and you can't give all of yourself away. At some point, there must be enough.

You have to save yourself, before you can pull anyone out of the darkness with you.

And you have. And maybe using that knowledge, you can save someone else. End the monsters on this mountain.