Narrator

I clenched my jaw until my teeth hurt and kept moving.

Night four, the shelter that wasn't a shelter.

We moved until full dark, until the only light came from our headlamps and the rain made the beams feel like they hit a wall.

We crossed the creek three times because the banks got too steep.

My boots filled with water.

My hands shook with cold.

At some point, my body started doing that thing where it tries to conserve heat by making everything feel unreal, like you're watching yourself from a few inches behind your eyes.

Tessa finally stopped at a place where the creek widened and the ground formed a shallow overhang.

Rock jutted out above, creating a crude shelter.

It wasn't comfortable.

It was just less wet than everything else.

She turned her headlamp off and motioned for me to do the same.

We sat in darkness, listening.

At first, all I heard was rain and water and my own ragged breathing.

Then slowly, other sounds layered in.

A distant whistle.

A branch snap.

Footsteps?

Hard to tell.

Everything in the woods at night sounds like something else.