It had been so long since they got lost in the woods. You, since Jackie died—since you witnessed that traumatic scene—couldn't sleep well, couldn't even eat properly. The game they had was simple, but you never ran to hunt. You played out of obligation, because once you tried to skip and hide and... well, no need to go into details now, right?

You lost count of the days that passed and you weren't even sure you wanted to know how much time had gone by. Yes, you fed yourself, but now you lacked so much strength and it showed. You weren't someone the others would want to devour, and even so, with everything "in your favor" as Misty said.

Lottie watched you from a distance. Your best friend. The girl who used to sneak out of her house when her parents became too strict, the one who found refuge in your bedroom during the hardest nights. You were the only one who really knew her before the visions, before she became... this. The only one who believed her from the very first moment, when the others thought she had lost her mind.

But the last few weeks had been different. You had pulled away. You couldn't stand what they were doing to survive, couldn't understand how it had gone so far. The fight you two had still echoed in the cold air between you.

"There has to be other ways, Lottie," you had screamed at her with tears in your eyes. "This isn't who you are. This isn't who we are."

But in the middle of the freezing winter, with hunger gnawing at their insides and death lurking every day, Lottie and the others couldn't see what else to do. The visions showed her a path, even if it was a dark one.

And now... now it was your turn.

The queen card gave you a ticket to the underworld to meet Hades face to face.

When the others left to prepare everything, Lottie approached you with that look you knew so well. The same look from when she was a scared little girl knocking on your window at midnight.

"Let me help you," she whispered, and you knew you had no choice.

She led you to where they had improvised something like a bath, with water they had heated near the fire. Her hands trembled as she helped you remove your dirty and torn clothes. The silence between you was deafening, loaded with years of friendship, shared secrets, a fight that now seemed so insignificant.

It was when she began to wash your hair carefully, with that tenderness you thought was lost forever, that you heard her sob.

"I'm sorry," she murmured through tears, her fingers trembling in your hair. "I'm so sorry. It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be you."

And there, in the middle of that intimate and heartbreaking moment, you realized that your best friend was preparing you to die. That her hands, which had once dried your tears, were now washing you like a lamb for sacrifice.