Chapter Text
The wilderness has always been haunted.
Not like an old house full of spiders and dusts with ghosts flickering the lights and slamming doors.
Haunted in the way that it feels alive. Like it remembers. Like it can hear you.
The trees tower them, triggering the same uncanny feeling like the looming scale of the deep waters. Watching.
Their branches bend toward the windows like fingers that dragged across glass. Waiting.
Wind that groans through the rusty cracks of the cabin, like the walls were exhaling. Breathing.
Everything out here feels like it’s breathing.
The snow, the trees, the darkness.
The wilderness itself.
The snow though, is what haunts Shauna the most.
Sometimes she catches herself staring too long at the endless white crystals lying in front of her.
Miles and miles of frozen silence. A blanket that fell upon the world.
It covers, buries, and preserves.
She thinks about that too. How it preserves. Because the snow didn’t kill Jackie. It simply kept her. Turning her into a perfect statue, a permanent portrait of youth. The snow preserves detail, her lashes, every strand of hair, her freckles, every tiny crack in her lips.
The wilderness wanted something pretty.
Like a child picking up a smooth stone from the ground and slipping it into their pocket.
Just because they like looking at it. Just because they can.
And every day Shauna finds herself asking the same question:
Why?
All the nights God could have let down his frozen breath, it had to the one night Jackie stayed outside.
Maybe Jackie just wanted to join the wilderness. Be one with it. The way Lottie always preaches about. To breathe the way the forest does.
No that wouldn’t make sense, Jackie clowned Lottie’s theatrics. Always hated all of the weird prophet bullshit. Rolled her eyes every time.
There’s no reason to go through the maze of ‘why?’ because Shauna knows why.
It’s her fault. All of it.
“Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve” people say. Shauna should’ve listened. She had a journal to write in for a reason.
She doesn’t believe in God and she doesn’t believe in Lottie’s wilderness.
Honestly, she doesn’t even know what she believes in anymore. She doesn’t know what happens to a soul when the heart stops. She doesn’t know if guilt can become its own kind of ghost. She doesn’t know if there’s a point for hope. She doesn’t know who she is without Jackie.
And that’s the one that scares her most.
Because before all this, she always had someone who did know. Jackie.
What to wear. What parties to go to. Who to talk to. What music was cool. What their future would look like.
Jackie always had an answer. Shauna hated it.
Resented how easily Jackie moved through life, how effortlessly she seemed to belong everywhere. How everyone listened to her. How everyone looked at her.
Looking back, Shauna wasn’t even sure when it started. Maybe there had never been a beginning, just simply a drift towards whatever Jackie wanted until it became second nature. They always did what Jackie wanted. Not because Jackie forced her to, but because Shauna had convinced herself it was easier that way. Shauna started treating Jackie’s happiness like a responsibility. She assumed she knew every reaction Jackie would give before it happened, every answer before it was spoken. So she surrendered her wants before they could become arguments. It was always Jackie's way or the highway anyways. So what was the point of saying anything when the answer felt predetermined?
But maybe that was the real problem. Maybe Jackie never silenced her at all. Maybe Shauna had been speaking for Jackie inside her own head for years.
Shauna spent years convincing herself she wanted freedom from Jackie. Freedom from all her decision making. The expectations. The orbit she constantly found herself trapped inside.
And now Jackie is gone. And Shauna is completely free. Or she’s supposed to be. But she felt freer when she trapped for some reason.
Sometimes Shauna catches her doing something horrible. Blaming Jackie.
This is all Jackie’s fault.
She decided to start a fight. She decided to walk out of the cabin. She decided to sleep outside.
Even though Shauna was the one who agreed she should leave. Even though Shauna watched her from the window as Jackie struggled with the most basic of survival skills, lighting a fire, with her numb shaking hands. Even though Shauna could’ve gone outside and apologized, even after all the screaming, crying, and every awful thing they said to each other, one apology and Jackie would’ve jumped into her arms.
Shauna could’ve gone outside, wrapped a blanket around Jackie’s shoulders and said two words: I’m sorry. Jackie would’ve folded instantly. Whenever they were angry, Jackie always came back.
Of course, Jackie wouldn’t completely forgive her. She would torture Shauna about what she did to her every waking moment of her life. But Shauna would rather have that than this dreadful silence.
Instead Shauna stared at Jackie through the cabin window and a vicious, cruel part of Shauna was being fueled knowing Jackie was being hurt. She just wanted Jackie to feel what she made Shauna feel.
One apology and none of this—
Shauna needs to stop thinking. She’s going through the loophole again, her own brain constantly punishing her.
Jackie is dead. Jackie is dead. Jackie is dead.
Jackie will always be dead.
She’s gone. It’s over. Emotions spilled as voices barked. All was heard. Decisions were made. The fire burned and now the frost of heaven extinguishes the dying embers.
Shauna knows it but she still struggles to say it out loud. But she repeats it in her head constantly because if she stops saying it, some naive part of her still expects Jackie to walk through the cabin door.
Still expects to hear:
“Wowza Shipman” and a funny comment about her winter outfit she has on.
The others call Jackie a body or a corpse now.
Shauna hates it.
Because Jackie’s not just a body.
A body is empty. Jackie has never been empty. Even now, especially now.
Shauna knows it because for the past two months she has spent nearly every afternoon talking with her. Laughing with her. Arguing with her.
The others think she’s talking to a frozen corpse but that’s not what it feels like.
She knows it because today is just like any other day, she’s talking and sitting with Jackie in the shed in the freezing cold. Well.. not really talking. More like Shauna writing in her journal and Jackie sitting around looking at the walls as if it could magically entertain her.
They’re just enjoying each other’s presence.
Just like they would back at home, Shauna sitting at her desk, reading a book, while Jackie is sprawled across the bed kicking her feet in the air, filing her already perfect nails, as she tells Shauna the never-ending gossip she learned that day from being apart of student government and Shauna letting out short ‘mhms’ and reactions to make sure Jackie knows she’s listening.
Jackie always filled silence naturally and Shauna thought she hated that about her, that it was annoying how she could never stop talking but now she realizes how much she envied her for it.
Well dead Jackie still knows how to fill the silence, just not as much as alive Jackie did. Shauna doesn’t know why.
In the shed, Jackie sits exactly where they left her after the accident. Ice preserving her face almost perfectly. Her lips slightly parted. Skin pale blue, veins dark beneath the surface like cracks inside porcelain. She looks like that vintage doll Jackie’s grandmother gifted her for her 12 year old birthday party. Even when dead, Jackie Taylor looks beautiful. Not peaceful or serene, just beautiful.
Taissa keeps urging Shauna to stop her visits saying it’s not healthy. That “we can’t keep pretending she’s still here”, “Staring at her dead body isn’t going to bring her back”, “We should move her further away from the cabin.” Shauna knows Taissa is only saying it because she cares for her as a friend but it still doesn’t remove the bitter feeling of wanting to punch her in the face whenever she mentions even touching Jackie from her given spot in the shed.
Taissa doesn’t understand. None of them do. Because they think Jackie’s gone, but Jackie is still here. Maybe not literally and Shauna knows that. Well at least she thinks she does.
Grief works in strange ways. The way it bends reality around itself, after a while your brain starts filling empty spaces automatically with something else, anything else, whatever helps the inability to tolerate the absence. Some pick up new hobbies, some become religious, some throw themselves into work, and some replace the ones they lost with others. But Shauna can’t move forward. She’s stuck. Trapped inside the exact moment Jackie died.
So when Shauna sits in the shed across Jackie’s frozen body, every afternoon, her mind does what it has to do.
It makes Jackie talk. Even move a little.
Jackie sighs dramatically, the sound cutting through the shed, Shauna looks up from her journal.
“What?”
“I’m bored, Shipman. Entertain me!”
Shauna snorts and lowers her pencil.
“Okay what do you want me to do?”
Jackie grins lazily, points towards the suitcase Shauna brought, “how about we go through your suitcase and take a depressing little walk through memory lane?”
For a second, Shauna just stares at her.
Shauna knows this isn’t real, maybe that’s what makes so horrifying. She knows the shed is silent, Jackie’s mouth isn’t moving, isn’t asking for anything, knows the frost sealing her lashes together isn’t blinking. But grief is a living thing. And the loneliness, guilt, and regret that comes with it, can twist itself into something almost hallucinatory after enough time.
Especially out here.
A place where reality already feels thin.
Shauna shrugs, “okay fine,” as if she wasn’t the one who brought the suitcase and planned it as the activity she wanted to do today with the totally-notso-dead-Jackie.
That’s how every one of these ‘hang-outs’ go. Make up, cards, brushing her hair, old magazines, stories, whatever she could do to entertain. I mean what was she supposed to do out here, talk to her endlessly? About what? Mari’s boyfriend breaking up with her to hook up with his own cousin? That jokes gotten old. She already didn’t talk that much when Jackie was alive.
Jackie did the talking. Shauna listened. That was how they’d always worked. Jackie filled every silence like she was afraid of letting one exist and Shauna spent most of her life hiding her thoughts inside journals.
The same journals that also caused all of this. Wow. Maybe she should’ve spoken more. Maybe she should’ve told Jackie things when they happened instead of collecting all her hurts and storing it between pages.
Maybe if that first time Jackie made Shauna feel like the second choice when she chose to hang out with Jeff instead of doing their weekly traditional fast food runs, where they play fancy music as a joke and act like food critics as they munch it down in Shauna’s car, also the only time Jackie would ever fucking eat something, then this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if Shauna stood her ground and told Jackie that she wanted to listen to Liz Phair because she liked it and actually got to see how Jackie would’ve truly reacted, seeing that Shauna is visibly upset and is communicating her wants, the outcome would’ve have been different. Maybe after that fifth ‘practice’ kiss she admitted this didn’t just feel like ‘practice’ anymore, none of this would have happened.
Maybe Jackie would’ve hated her. Or loved her. Maybe Jackie would’ve lived.
Fuck. There she goes again. The same never-ending loopholes of what ifs and maybes.
Shauna slams her journal shut and moves to where her suitcase is sitting and shoves it so it between the both of them and then she opens it and goes through it.
Jackie raises an eyebrow. “Took you long enough.”
“It’s just a bunch of clothes Jax”
“Well take them out, clothes hold memories too shipman—wait oh my god. I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes.”
“No.”
“Close them.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re playing a game.”
Shauna groans and Jackie grins wider.
“You randomly pull something out and I’ll give hints to what it is by connecting it to a time you wore it.”
“That sounds dumb.”
“It is.”
“Fine.”
“Yay! See? That’s why we’re best friends.”
Shauna roll her eyes and finally closes them. Then she reaches in and grabs the first thing she touches. Feels like cotton, a shirt, and holds it up. “Well?”
Jackie immediately starts laughing, “you threw up all over this like it was bad. Still can’t believe you didn’t throw it away.”
Shauna suddenly remember. It was when Shauna’s mom was working the night shift and Jackie snuck in a bottle of vodka she stole from her parent’s basement. It was Jackie’s idea saying they were going to a party one day and they can’t look like they don’t know how to keep their liquor in and act like complete doofuses in front of the ‘cool kids’ so they had to learn. She doesn’t think she’s ever laughed so much before in her life till that day. She remembers after the fifth shot was when she started gagging, she ran to the bathroom and Jackie followed behind, tripping all over the place, giggling, but still behind her. She kneeled down with her as Shauna started lurching into the toilet. Jackie held her hair back, while rubbing circles into her back saying “It’s okay, Shauna, just let it out” while also giggling.
Shauna listened to her voice, warm like honey, and then she looked up with her eyes watering and stomach twisting and seeing Jackie smiling at her like she was the funniest thing in the world. After, Jackie said it was a good thing this happened because now they know their limits. Shauna like usual rolled her eyes but laughed at it. It was so dumb.
“The Nirvana shirt. And for your information I washed it a million times and there’s not one spot left.”
“And I told you, you didn’t have to do that cause I’d get you a new one” Jackie says. “Well whatever, next!”
Shauna picks up the next random piece of clothing and automatically wants to put it down when she realizes she’s holding something by its strap.
“Ooooh! Fun one.” Jackie says.
“Shut up.” Shauna snaps, no real aggression in it though.
“Aw. We were having a mall day and this store was having a crazy sale and I helped you get it fitted.”
Shauna feels heat crawl into her face despite the freezing cold. She remembers that day too clearly. It was a week after Black Friday during junior year and Victoria secret was still having a sale. Like always, Jackie convinced Shauna she needed some new bras, or at least ‘sluttier’ ones, ones that had lace on the edges and would pop out under a top, one’s that would apparently get ‘all the boys creaming’ once they go to college together.
Shauna didn’t care for it and felt that she was fine with her old ‘raggedy’ ones but Jackie always got her way.
Jackie picked up a couple for her to try on and they both entered the changing room and Shauna took off her shirt, feeling painfully aware of every inch of exposed skin as Jackie was staring at her through the mirror from behind and Shauna could feel her eyes crawling all over her, especially with the room being so tiny, they were basically pressed together.
Shauna wondered:
Why is she looking? Maybe she likes what she sees.
Shauna laughs to herself under her breath
No she’s definitely judging. She takes after her mother anyways.
Jackie’s seen Shauna in a bra multiple times because they always changed in the locker rooms for soccer practice in front of each other. Something about this felt different. The air. The way Jackie looked at her. Or maybe Shauna just wanted it to.
Shauna was going to take her bra off and Jackie still didn’t look away, Shauna shook her head at Jackie to indicate why is she still in there.
”Hello? Earth to Jackie? Aren’t you going to get out so I can change?”
“Oh! Right! Whoops lemme just-" Jackie turns around instead of leaving. “Okay continue on m’lady, your servile maid is at your service” she said in a medieval accent and they both laughed
Shauna changed and put on the new bra. It’s a black floral laced bra that kinda pushed at her chest. She kept looking at it, didn’t know how to feel.
“You done or….?”
“Yeah.”
Jackie turned quickly, “Oh my god Shipman yes! This looks soo good on you. If I was a guy I’d totally start drooling” Jackie started touching the sides and adjusting the straps a bit and Shauna’s breath hitched as she can almost feel Jackie’s fingertips on her bare skin. The way Jackie put a hand on her waist to make her turn towards the side like it was nothing. Well, it was nothing. Shauna’s just.. sensitive.
Maybe even desperate. For a sign. Any sign. Anything that explained why her heart did what it did whenever Jackie smiled at her like she was the only person in her world that mattered. Something other than the obvious answer, the terrifying one. The answer that would ruin everything. “Yeah whatever let me just put on the next one so we can finally get out of here.”
They went through the rest of the bras. Shauna ended up buying two. Both floral lace, one a dark blue and the other black. Part of her hated herself for going through with it. She didn’t like the reason behind why Jackie said she should get them. To impress some ‘guy’. Like Shauna cared how her bra looked like for some random future hookup.
Honestly, it was kind of weird how Jackie was always so intrigued whenever it came to something boob related with Shauna. Well Shauna’s not exactly complaining but from the boob dress to this? Whenever it came to an outfit Jackie would make for her, Jackie always complimented the way Shauna’s chest would pop out. I mean like, what?
Some part of Shauna thought maybe, just maybe, this is finally something Shauna has over Jackie. Something she could make her jealous for. Yeah that’s right, her having bigger boobs and Jackie was jealous of it. I mean that’s like the only thing that would make sense unless they’re living in some alternate universe where Jackie’s attracted to girls. No, that definitely couldn’t be it.
“The blue lace bra from Victoria secret,” Shauna mutters
“Bingo! See Shipman, you’re good at this.” Jackie says.
The next item feels like denim. Something short.
“Oooh okay interesting, well you probably fucked my boyfriend in this one.”
Shauna immediately opens her eyes and Jackie was right. It’s the same denim skirt she wore to Mari’s birthday party, the first time her and Jeff…
The beginning and the end of everything.
Jackie looks amused and Shauna looks away.
“You’ll never let it go, will you?”
“Nope.” Jackie says, popping the P.
Shauna feels anger and regret billing up in her throat and throws the clothes back into her suitcase, harder than necessary, and as she’s about to slam the top, Jackie stops her.
“Shauna what are you doing, we were having fun!”
“You tormenting me about the past isn’t my type of ‘fun’ Jackie,” Shauna glares
“C’mon please just one more round.”
“Why?”
Suddenly Jackie starts to look cold. Not emotionally, literally. Frost clings to her eyelashes and ice crystals glitter in her hair. For a moment Shauna can almost see the body underneath the illusion. The dead.
“Because,” Jackie says softly, “you’re gonna leave me here when you’re done.”
The words make something twist inside Shauna, a painful ache.
“Jackie—“
“All alone in this freezing shed.. you might as well entertain.”
It's silent for a moment, then:
“Fine, last round” Shauna opens the suitcase and reaches in blindly and pulls out a jacket.
“Uhh, you wore this a couple days before nationals, when we went to that weird witch store.”
Shauna scrunches her face “my big GAP hoodie?” Shauna opens her eyes and looks at it. Yup. She sees an indent in the pocket and puts her hand in it and finds the triangular prism box that says One Wish Willow.
The good luck trinket they bought as a joke.
The woman running the store had promised that each willow contained the ability to make a wish come true once broken and Jackie had to immediately buy two.
“Wow I forgot about those,” Jackie laughs, “weren’t we supposed to use them before Nationals?”
“Yeah, not like it was going to work anyways it’s just some dumb scam.” Shauna mutters.
Shauna turns the tiny box over in her hands.
The shed grows quieter as the wind outside dies.
“Okay but what if it wasn’t. Like right now, what would you use it to wish for?”
Shauna hesitates “I don’t… I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I’d wish to get out of here?”
“Another lie.”
Shauna doesn’t answer. Jackie tilts her head.
Jackie rolls her eyes “Seriously? No wishes for the dead cold body sitting right in front of you?”
The shed feels colder.
“You already know what I’d wish for.”
“Then say it.”
“No.”
"Why?"
“Because you know!”
Jackie laughs, “it’s just nice to hear how desperate you are for me out loud.”
Alive Jackie probably wouldn’t say that. Maybe instead she’d say: “it’s just nice to know you care about me, that you miss me.” But for some reason, making Jackie a little evil makes this all
hurt less.
“Right.” Shauna finally packs her things, the activity for the day is done and it’s getting late and the others are probably talking behind her back about how Schizo Schizman is getting worse, a nickname that of course Mari made for her.
Shauna goes back to the cabin. It’s completely dark now, she must’ve lost track of time.
The woods feel different at night. Bigger. Hungrier. The trees stand like endless rows of witnesses stretching into the obscurity. Waiting. Watching.
Warm orange light leaks through the cracks between the logs of the cabin. As she enters, the smell of the smoke from the chimney burns her nose. Most of the girls are already asleep, sleeping bags scattered all over the wooden floor. Someone snores from across the room, fire crackles low, creating shadows that twitch when the flames shift.
For a moment Shauna stares at them. Everything feels strange tonight. Maybe it’s the silence. Or the wind outside. Or that she spent more time than usual talking to a dead girl.
Shauna climbs up the ladder into the attic, puts her suitcase back into place, and walks towards her bed, then crawls beneath the blankets of her bed. Her mattress is stiff, lumpy, and every inch of her body aches from exhaustion.
Shauna closes her eyes and she immediately sees Jackie. Not the frozen version, not the one sitting in the shed, instead she sees the real Jackie, the alive one. The one laughing, rolling her eyes, screaming song lyrics through the open windows of Shauna’s car while summer wind flew through her hair. The one who would make her sit down and do her make up. The one who would grab Shauna’s hand and drag her through parties or squeeze it as hard as possible during scary movies. The one who looked at Shauna like moments like these are all that matters.
Shauna furrows her eyebrows as she feels her heart starting to ache.
Ever since Jackie has passed, the ache has become permanent. It hurts so much. Her heart doesn’t feel hollow, it feels like it’s going to burst. Her heart feels swollen. Not from love, but from grief. But where else does grief come from? From the profound, painful continuation of love that has no where to go, instead redirected into memories.
Grief that circles endlessly. Into memories. Into guilt. Into obsession.
There’s always a price to pay for everything. Grief is what Shauna must pay because she loved too deeply.
Shauna opens her eyes and shifts against her bed and tries to redirect her thoughts to anything else. Food, chores she’ll have to take of soon, tomorrow, anything.
Instead her thoughts drift back towards the tiny triangular box hidden inside her suitcase.
The One Wish Willow.
Honestly? It’s stupid. Embarrassing, even.
A cheap tourist-trap knickknack from some small hidden store in the corner of the mall ran by a woman who looks like she snorts her daily vitamins to get a placebo of a high.
Obviously it’s not real. Shauna knows that. Jackie knew that. They bought it as a joke. They literally spent half the time in the store making fun of everything inside it.
Shauna remembers holding up a tiny bottle labeled LOVE ATTRACTION PERFUME and Jackie looked at her and used her worst seductive voice imaginable:
“Ooooo Shauna, maybe if you put this on, Randy Walsh will finally get the balls to ask you to finger him behind a Chili’s.” They both laughed.
Shauna laughs to herself even now. Then her smiles fades because just like always, reality hits.
Jackie’s dead.
Frozen in the shed.
Gone.
The thought hits harder tonight for some reason, it feels like it’s going to eat her alive.
It felt something crushing was sitting on her chest. Something relentless.
She needs to do something.
Anything.
Shauna rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. Her brain starts doing that horrible thing again.
What if?
What if that stupid willow does work?
What if there is something out there listening; that the wilderness is alive the way Lottie preaches?
What if God decided Shauna’s suffered enough?
What if—
Shauna laughs to herself about how ridiculous this all is.
The idea is insane. Completely insane.
People don’t come back from the dead. Magic isn’t real. And this isn’t some Jesus Christ resurrection movie.
Yet—
The plane crash that happened, the bear that was sent over like a gift, Lottie knowing things she shouldn’t, the way the woods feel aware.
Shauna sits up in her bed with her hands on her knees, her pulse is suddenly too loud. She looks at the suitcase across from her.
What if?
That’s always been her problem. This never ending mind loop, she can never stop at one thought, she goes through a million possibilities, drowning herself in them.
What if Jackie came back?
What if she got another chance at all this?
Alive. Warm. Breathing. Mad. Laughing. Existing.
She carefully gets up and her pulse quickens as she quietly reaches for the suitcase.
“This is so fucking stupid,” she whispers while unzipping it.
Her fingers find the triangular prism box and she pulls it out.
ONE WISH WILLOW.
Shauna stares at the designs and flips the box over to see the instructions. She snorts under her breath.
She opens it, pulls the willow out and the second she touches it, music suddenly starts playing in the quiet of the cabin and Shauna nearly launches it across the cabin.
“The fuck…”
The tune sounds broken, like an old toy running out of batteries.
She looks at Van and Taissa, making sure they haven’t awaken from the noise.
Shauna swallows hard. Her throat feels dry. Like obviously nothings going to happen. Why the hell is she nervous. She’s just ready for the disappointment because obviously nothings going to happen.
Her best friend coming back from the dead? Are you kidding?
She grips the stick tighter. Her hands shake a little.
Hope is a dangerous thing.
“I wish…” the words catch “that Jackie would come back alive…” her voice cracks “and be my best friend again.”
The words sound painfully small after everything. Everything she felt and lost.
She breaks the willow in half.
She swears she felt the air shift for a second. Like the whole cabin inhaled; a different type of pressure.
Shauna freezes. All her senses heighten.
She listens. Waits.
Nothing.
Just silence. A long silence. Heavy and awkward.
And Shauna goes back to feeling stupid again.
“Oh my god,” she mutters as the embarrassment rushes in, she laughs nervously under her breath. “I am losing my mind.”
She tosses the broken pieces back in the box and throws it into her suitcase and walks back to her bed.
Of course nothing happened.
Shauna lays back down again and forces herself to close her eyes; eventually her breathing slows. The wind becomes background noise and the cabins creaking turns soft. Everything becomes still.
Until—
BANG.
Shauna’s eyes snap open instantly. Maybe snow just fell against the door—
BANG.
This time Van and Taissa wake up too.
Violent knockings continue to rattle the front door.
Shauna, Taissa, and Van all climb down the attic to see everyone awake and panicked.
“What the fuck?” Natalie says with her voice cracking.
The knocking isn’t random, it’s not the snow or the wind, and it’s only getting louder and heavier. Intentional.
Shauna’s stomach drops so violently she thinks she’s going to puke.
No.
There’s no fucking way.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Everyone is standing, staring at each other wondering what to do.
Natalie grabs the gun.
Taissa takes hold of the axe.
Gen and Melissa cling onto each other.
Both pale.
“Who the hell is that?” Akilah asks with a trembling voice.
“Oh my God…” Misty whispers.
The knocking continues in a steady, loud rhythm, never ending.
“Holy shit maybe it’s—“
“Javi?!” Travis shouts.
Hope explodes across his face like he just won the lottery, it hurts to look at. For months he’s been searching, waiting, praying and now Travis runs towards the door.
“Travis wait—“ Taissa snaps.
Travis yanks the door open violently and—
Screams.
Not from joy, but from horror.
Everyone recoils instantly as Travis stumbles backwards quickly, almost falling.
Because standing in the doorway—
Is Jackie.
The world stops.
Her skin still frozen, bluish-white beneath the moonlight. Frost clings to her honey-blonde hair. The same varsity jacket she wore the night she died, clinging stiffly from her body. Her lips are purple. And her eyes—
Her eyes are open.
There’s no warmth in them. No light. But they’re open.
Watching.
Everyone stares in absolute terror.
“What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck-” Natalie stammers.
“Oh my god are we having a shared hallucination or is that Jackie fucking Taylor standing right infront of us?!” Van says as she grips Taissa’s arm.
“Misty, did you fucking drug the soup again?!” Mari shrieks.
“N-no- what? I didn’t- I swear to God!“ Misty shrieks.
While everyone is terrified, Lottie looks intrigued. Awe spreads across her face. It’s like she’s witnessing a miracle.
She slowly steps forward.
“It heard us” she whispers breathlessly. She mutters something under her breath, a prayer or gratitude or something.
Shauna can’t tell because she barely hears anything anymore.
Because this can’t be possible.
Jackie was frozen solid an hour ago. Shauna knows exactly how frozen. She saw and touched her frozen body every day. Sat beside her, talked to her, imagined conversations with her. Dead people don’t stand up or open their eyes or knock on a door.
Every part of Shauna’s body locks up.
Because this can’t be possible.
Jackie slowly turns her head. Her movements felt wrong. Too delayed.
Like her body forgot how to be human, always a half second too late.
Her eyes are staring directly at Shauna.
Waiting.
Shauna feels horribly certain that Jackie was only here for her.
Everyone behind her, every background noise, it all fades away. None of it matters. Shauna’s only focus is Jackie.
Shauna steps forward slowly before she can stop herself.
“Shauna, what are you doing?” Tai says immediately.
But Shauna barely hears her. She doesn’t hear anything. Other than Jackie’s breathing. Was she breathing though? Or was she just hoping she’s breathing?
Ever since the crash, Shauna—honestly none of them—can tell from real or fake.
Jackie keeps staring. Her big captivating tiger-eye colored eyes. Unblinking. No specific expression. Up close she looks worse. The pale skin. The stiffness. The impossible wrongness of her existence. But she’s still beautiful. She’ll always be beautiful to Shauna.
Tiny crystals of ice cling to her long lashes.
Shauna’s hands tremble as she slowly reaches towards her.
Jackie doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch.
Shauna touches her face. She’s cold.
So cold.
Shauna wants to check for a pulse. But she’s terrified of what she’ll find.
What she won’t find.
“Jackie?” Shauna whispers.
For one dreadful second Jackie doesn’t respond.
Then slowly. She smiles. Warm, despite the cold. Soft, despite the terrifying. Familiar, despite not knowing if this is her Jackie.
Everything at once. Right and wrong.
“Shauna,” Jackie says gently.
She sounds so normal. Too normal.
Shauna’s heart was beating out of her chest.
Before Shauna can say anything, Jackie steps forward and wraps her arms around her.
Shauna hesitates just for a moment.
Then hugs her back.
Despite Jackie’s movements, her body feels stiff. Rigid.
The cabin is silent. No one moving or breathing. Nobody understands what they’re seeing.
Shauna doesn’t care.
The only thing that matters is this.
Jackie is here.
Jackie is alive.
Jackie buries her face into the crook of Shauna’s neck and exhales slowly.
Shauna feels nothing.
No warmth. No breath.
“I missed you,” Jackie whispers.
And Shauna thinks she’s about to have a panic attack.