The first thing Josh remembered was a feeling of isolation. It came to him after he got home from lunch with Chris. Chris, who was supposed to be his best friend, who refused to tell him what happened at Blackwood Pines. His reason was that he didn't want Josh to worry; Josh was beginning to think maybe it was because Chris didn't trust him. This encompassing loneliness was familiar. It grew each time he entered another room of his house. There was no laughter or bickering from his sisters upstairs. His parents were at work, struggling to maintain their image after their son supposedly burned down a mountain lodge. As soon as they confirmed he was "okay," it was back to business. His heart ached and he couldn't put his doubts to rest. He paced back and forth down a hallway, wringing his hands while trying to overcome an extreme case of déjà vu. Eventually he decided to watch the news. It might tell him what his friends wouldn't. Josh climbed the stairs to his bedroom, mentally prepared himself for what he might see, and turned on the television.

The first news station he could find filled the screen with a frontal view of the lodge at Blackwood Pines, its frame charred and crumbling. Some areas had completely caved in. Firefighters were grouped around it; a few of them were carrying something out of what used to be the great room. They stood with their backs to the camera, blocking the object from view. "...where twin sisters Beth and Hannah Washington, daughters of movie mogul Bob Washington, disappeared last February. The family faces yet another tragedy after their winter getaway caught fire two days ago. Sources say that the last remaining Washington child, Joshua, was hosting a gathering in his sisters' memory. The Blackwood County Park Ranger Service received a distress call from the nearby fire tower at two twenty-one A.M. but could not send help until the blizzard calmed five hours later. The message was unclear, but hints toward a, quote, 'maniac' terrorizing Joshua and his friends. When the police arrived at dawn, the lodge had already caught fire and its guests were outside, battered and bruised. The flames have recently been put out. There are teams working on the Blackwood Pines Sanatorium several miles away, which had also ignited."

In the background, the firefighters draped a sheet over whatever they had retrieved from the cabin. They dispersed, and for that brief second Josh realized with horror that it was a corpse. His heart sank to his stomach. All his friends were safe at home. Who could that be? They were too tall for the sheet to cover them entirely; a hand poked out almost as pale as the snow it rested on.

It was elongated, skeletal. Unnatural. It sent a shiver down his spine. Scenes like this did not bother him. Being a scary movie fanatic, Josh was used to dead bodies on television. Whoever that was filled him with such dread that he had to turn off the television.

His mother left her cell phone on the kitchen counter in case of emergencies; Josh's phone was lost on the mountain somewhere. He went to pick it up and typed out a message to Sam - since Chris was no help earlier.

[TO: Samantha Giddings]
It's josh. Was anyone else at the party?

Her response took a few minutes.

[FROM: Samantha Giddings]
Hey J. How are ya? It was just us…

[TO: Samantha Giddings]
Then who tf is this they just got out the lodge on the news

[FROM: Samantha Giddings]
What!?

[TO: Samantha Giddings]
Someone is DEAD sam. They're talking about a maniac? And the sanatorium? Chris wont tell me anything

[FROM: Samantha Giddings]

You didn't do those things. I want to tell you more, but I've decided to trust Chris for now. It will all come back to you. I'm really sorry.

[TO: Samantha Giddings]
WTF

Sam was never this standoffish. It had to be true; he had done something horrible. For all he knew, that corpse could have been his doing. He needed more answers. Before it drove him crazy. He wished Beth was here to jump to his defense even when she had no idea what the problem was. He wished Hannah could give him a comprehensive list of reasons why he should or should not trust his friends. While he trudged upstairs to his room, Josh imagined them walking beside him, bickering over whether or not they should send out an angry group text. Walking past their bedrooms, their imagined voices became so clear he had to double-check that they weren't truly there.

Josh stopped at his room. He stood in the threshold and scanned over every detail. In the past, his mother would nag him to clean it. Now it seemed to have fallen into disarray - more so than usual. Clothes were strewn carelessly on the floor. The writing desk where he kept his laptop was littered with papers. A bottle of phenelzine sat on the corner, only a few pills left. He must have gotten angry at some point; his Psycho poster was torn off the wall, crumpled in the small trash can by his dresser.

Cleaning up would keep him occupied. If his friends wouldn't explain anything (what a bunch of assholes), he would have to wait for his memories to return. Josh walked to the desk and collected the loose papers in a stack. The handwriting on every sheet was his, though it was almost impossible to read. He opened a drawer, thinking he might decipher them later.

Inside that drawer was an unmarked marble notebook. It wouldn't have caught his attention if not for the fact that it was beat up, with sticky notes and extra sheets tucked in between its pages. Josh wasn't exactly neat, but his notes from school were never so disorganized. He picked it up and tucked the stack of papers into the drawer. Despite the foreboding aura, Josh flipped open the notebook.

Emily didn't believe in luck. Growing up, she was taught that success came from hard work. If one put forth enough effort, they would have a good life. She studied until her mind was fried so that someday in the future she could get a decent job, buy nice things, and marry a guy who gave her too much attention. It was what her parents did. They picked on each other occasionally but they were comfortable. That was because they poured their hearts into everything.

She had failed in that aspect. She had not devoted herself entirely to Matthew Taylor, the one person who saw her as more than the honor student playing hard to get. She got hung up on Mike, treated her boyfriend like shit, and almost paid for it on the mountain. Emily had to acknowledge it was luck that kept Matt by her side today.

The rich scent of soy sauce wafted from the stove where he was making stir fry. His puppy-dog brown eyes watched the pan with utmost concentration. Ever since they returned from Blackwood, he would act like this, like he wasn't just as scarred as the rest of them. It had to be a coping mechanism. He must have thought that if he could act mostly normal, they could too. Emily admired him greatly, but she also hated it. She wished he would stop pretending it never happened. If he would just get mad at her - acknowledge her infidelity, even - she wouldn't have to worry so much.

Emily rubbed his arm and leaned her chin on his shoulder. The corner of his lips curled upward. His expression looked hollow. "Matt?" she asked while he continued to monitor the pan. He hummed.

"Love you," she said. Again he hummed. A short, noncommittal sound, as if he wasn't actually listening. Emily frowned and looked up at him. "Matt, come on. I love you."

"Love you too, Em."

"I love you and only you."

Those beautiful puppy eyes darted sideways to meet hers for a second. Then they went back to the stir fry. Matt remained silent. His fake smile vanished.

"I was being a bitch the other day. Not the good kind of bitch. I was being the awful kind. And the thing with Mike-"

"Can we not do this? I… don't feel like getting it right now. I'll get over it."

"No," persisted Emily, "I don't want you to get over it. Like, not immediately. You have a right to be pissed. You're supposed to be. I had this weird thing for Mike since he was my first major boyfriend, but that's not cool. Me and him are done. All I should care about is you and I. That's how it's gonna be from now on."

Matt heaved out a sigh. "If you're serious about that, great."

"That's it? You're not curious if we've, like, been talking behind your back, or hooking up in secret..."

"What do you want, Em?" Finally, he showed a sincere reaction. He let go of the pan's handle and turned to face Emily, throwing one arm out to the side. "You want me to kick his ass? Is that it? Are you pitting us against each other for entertainment? You like watching us fight over you? Yes, I was pissed about whatever the hell you were doing back then. I wouldn't have cared if you talked to him as a friend. But you were sneaky about it, so I did think you were cheating. None of that matters anymore though."

Emily glowered, her nose scrunching in disbelief. "It doesn't matter?" she repeated.

"Babe. We fought for our lives against wendigos in mines that could've caved in on us. There are things in this world that are totally out of our control. We don't know if we'll live to see tomorrow, or even the next five minutes. I'd rather spend what I have left being happy than miserable. So yeah, I was mad about the Mike thing… then you apologized. And I still want to be with you. So it doesn't matter," Matt concluded. His expression softened as he lifted a hand to Emily's chin. He kissed her tenderly, like he hadn't revealed that inside he was terrified.

Which was what Emily had been searching for: Matt's problem. Now that she knew it, they could work on a solution. She wouldn't fail Matt ever again. She reached for his hands and intertwined their fingers. When she parted from the kiss she smiled, albeit glumly. "That's what I wanted. For you to be real with me. You can't keep it bottled up. That's what got us into this mess."

Matt pursed his lips and replied solemnly, "I know. Sorry. I'll work on it."

"You passed step one. Step two: stop burning our lunch."