You needed food and it was undeniable, but you were the first to take sides against the idea of Travis going alone into the forest to solve the problem for everyone. Natalie had not felt well during the night and the girls had decided to let her rest the following morning, taking turns applying a cloth soaked in cold water to her boiling forehead. Travis, had decided to go anyway despite your protests. You had spent all day fighting against your own anxiety, sitting on the dusty windowsill waiting for him to come back.

Your worries only got worse when you didn't see Travis come back that night and woke up the next morning in your makeshift bed, cold and empty on the side he usually occupied. The others had gone out of their way to console you, telling you that the snowstorm had probably pushed him to find shelter for the night, but the girls's reassurances began to dissipate when Travis didn't even return in the following days. You could see how each of them avoided saying out loud what they all thought: Travis would not come back, the forest took him and it would never let him go again.

After almost a week you had begun to lose hope of seeing him emerge from the woods. Natalie, seeing how bad that reality weighed on you, had also proposed to go and look for him, but you and all the others had prevented her from doing so. Too risky, it was useless to lose a second person.

However, that rationality did not have the power to cheer you up. You spent your days trying to chase away the tears as you engaged in your role at the cabin and all your nights had all begun to be sleepless. Yet on the seventh day, boots in the snow and small exclamations whispered in a low voice had convinced you to turn around only to see Travis coming from the vegetation dragging a deer by its hind legs. His clothes were torn in several places and from where you were you could see wounds that he tried to cure at the best of his possibilities.