#star trek's gone woke by which i mean it went woke with its creation back in the 1960s

[evviejo]

STAR TREK - S3E10 Plato's Stepchildren

[littlehastingsliar]

Hunted- part 3- Pack imagine

A/N: it seems I do a part every 2 years! This part isn’t as horror-based as the others, hope you enjoy!

Words: 1670

part 2 here  

part 1 here

Part 3:

You had been walking for hours through the gloomy forest, following the stars so you were sure you weren’t going around in circles. Your feet ached, blisters undoubtedly forming as your shoes rubbed against your skin over and over again.

“I’m so thirsty” stiles moaned. You hadn’t had a drink of water since before you went to sleep. “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to continue, there were buildings back there, shelter. It was scary but let’s face it, we could have defended a room, and we could’ve taken shifts sleeping and kept guard. If there was someone there, surely they’d have water to drink. Maybe even something to eat.” He continued, slowing his pace, fatigued.

“Stiles we’ve been walking so long, if we turn back you know it’s going to take hours to get back. Plus there was a reason we left; the eyes, the shed, the man over our tent, the creepy house and the person watching us from outside”

“what shed?” stiles cut you off, thinking maybe he was so delirious he’d completely blocked that out of his memory.

“Before any of this happened me and Liam came across a shed. It was old. Eerie. Nothing compared to everything else but I suppose looking back it was almost a warning we should’ve moved camp.” Stiles stopped walking, choosing a tree stump to collapse dramatically onto, mouth agape as he pulled his shoes off his feet like they had been glued on. “Easy to look back and say that now though” you had no interest in stopping, knowing if you did your muscles would tense up and continuing would be impossible. You’d gotten used to the pain in your feet and it was now background compared to the thoughts in your head. 

“What if the others can’t find our scent? What if we’ve gone too far?” obviously you were both considering the same outcomes to your situation. Starvation. Dying of thirst. It was all a possibility.

“How about we set up camp here? If someone was watching us there’s no way they would’ve followed us this far. We also haven’t seen anything other than bark and brambles for miles, maybe in the daylight it will all seem different and we can form a proper plan.”

You both agreed that was the right decision, the exhaustion was overwhelming. Using sticks and leaves around the forest floor, you made a flimsy tent-like structure, not enough to protect you from rain but enough to vaguely camouflage you. It was a tight fit but you didn’t mind being close to someone, it was comforting. Before either of you said a word you were asleep, the world outside your small creation fading away as your eyes dropped.

It could’ve been hours since you’d fallen asleep or it could’ve been minutes, but the rising sun cast beams of light that woke you from your slumber. Not bothering to crawl out of the makeshift tent, you whacked it with stiles’ baseball bat, leaves and branches falling on him, waking him up.

“Rise and shine” you laughed, wiping the sleep out of your eyes as you went into a crouch, testing your feet.

“Very funny” stiles grumbled, starting to stand up as well. This part of the forest looked different in the light, the dark bark no longer seemed menacing and the thick brambles looked as if sweet berries grew on them, giving it an enchanted aura.

“I feel like hansel and Gretel” you joked, tossing his baseball at him. His reflexes were surprisingly fast and he caught it mid-air, flipping it to his other hand as he beamed at you with new energy.

“Pity we didn’t leave a trail of breadcrumbs” stiles added, the realisation hitting that without the stars, neither of you knew which way you came from. “If we followed the North Star and the sun rises in the east, north must be that way” stiles pointed, but all directions looked the same to you.

“ok scout leader stiles” you kidded, his idea was the best you had and so you continued on foot, not noticing your pocket knife lay by your destroyed tent, having fallen out of your pocket in your sleep.

Only a few metres further and your foot sunk into the ground, covering your boots in mud. You turned your nose up at the squelching noise your foot made as you pulled it out.

“Well this is gross” you commented, noticing half of the other boot was caked in mud as well.

“This is good!” stiles smiled, scanning the floor. “It means there’s water nearby”. Sure enough you found a small stream of running water.

“Finally something to drink” you said, aware animals probably washed and urinated in the water. But it was something to drink and by now you felt like blisters were forming in your throat, rather than your feet. And so you and stiles drank the water, refreshing your senses, giving you a new burst of energy and motivation.

“Let’s keep going. We have nothing to store the water in anyway” Stiles suggested. Once more you trekked through the woods, the familiar bark surrounding you until the ground was dry and crunched under your feet. The air became thicker again, only allowing you to see a few feet ahead. Stiles froze as he looked up into the distance. You followed his gaze to a parting in the crooked trees, where a little dark window could be seen, surrounded by a pale tree that curved around it.

“That isn’t what I think it is, is it?” stiles muttered. “We went north, we kept going north, how are we back here.” he waved his arms in front of him as he spoke.

“Maybe it’s not a bad thing. You said last night you wished you were here, maybe there’s food and water. We haven’t got anything to survive in the woods, this is a good thing. Plus its daytime, maybe we were in shock from the white eyes and the shadow over the tent. The human mind can hallucinate when under stress and panic.” Stiles didn’t look convinced by your speech and neither were you, but it was all you had in this maze of a forest.

You walked up to the front door with determination. The house looked pretty much the same in the day time as it had in the night except the golden chandelier which was covered in dust had a more brassy texture and you could see the faint floral pattern on the wallpaper that was hidden by the darkness before.

“Ok this place doesn’t look as threatening now” stiles assured himself. “There must be a kitchen somewhere” you could hear the growl of his stomach at the mention of food. Both of you stuck together, still uneasy after your last visit but calmed by the sunlight that exposed every corner of each room.

The house itself seemed like a labyrinth, corridors with random, small staircases intertwining with one another. You hadn’t noticed this last time. Eventually you found what resembled a kitchen, a small table was placed at an odd angle in the centre of the room with one chair positioned at it. Stiles wrestled with the first jar he saw, the seal unbroken for so long it was impossible to break. He kept digging, until he found some old, unlabelled tins. Pulling them open he discovered soup.

“Lunch?” he cheered, not bothering with a spoon and placing it straight to his lips. He gulped down the thick liquid, sighing with relief when he finished. He opened another, passing it to you. You copied him, drinking it down.

“I feel a lot better already” you said as you emptied the tin. “Let’s see if there’s any glasses or bottles to fill with water.” You rummaged through each cupboard, finding small glasses coated in cobwebs. “These will do for now, ill wash them while you look for something we can take with us when we leave.” You walked over to the sink, twisting the tap. It squeaked but nothing happened. Furrowing your brow, you twisted it some more causing the pipes underneath to groan. Suddenly the tap spat out a chunk of brown mass, followed by what looked like clean water. You investigated the mass, picking it up. It was hair. You threw it back in the sink, shrieking as you wiped your hand on your top multiple times. “Hair just came out of the pipes!” you gasped at stiles, who had found two glass bottles for you to take with you.

“Let’s see” stiles chuckled in disbelief. But you were right. He peered over your shoulder at the clump. “Odd, but the water that’s running now looks fine, just don’t touch it again”.

You filled the bottles up, inspecting them in the window for any hair, the clump making you paranoid. Both of you decided it was a good idea to return to the study, the natural light allowing you to search properly. Stiles entered the room, grabbing a handful of notes from a nearby shelf, spreading them on the empty desk. He mumbled to himself as he flicked through a bunch of unpaid bills and warning letters.

“Do you remember where we put the picture of the couple?” you questioned, wiping the dust off a couple of old books on the bookshelf. You tried to read their titles, but they were all in Latin.

“I can’t find it here and I don’t know where we put it” he replied. “Come look at this” stiles held up on old newspaper clipping. “1830. Could be to do with the couple, after all, whoever lived here kept it for a reason…” you carefully took the clipping off stiles.

“February 4th 1830-

FIRE SPREADS THROUGH MINE, SEVERAL BELIEVED DEAD.”

You looked at the picture below the headline, a rickety mine stood in ruins. A shiver ran down your spine as you read the last sentence of the article “out of 155 employees, several have been confirmed dead, the rest unknown as they are trapped beneath.”