They left me to go search for the next clue in the morning. The sun had come out and it glinted harshly down in the forest. It would've felt weird without hearing birds chirping but I guess I was used to the oddity of the forest already. It had been established that nothing was normal. Okay, not everything but whatever.

That bitch, Tanya left with them, fortunately. I really didn't know what to say to her. I didn't want to say anything in fact. If we ended up staying here forever, I was fine not speaking or even looking at her.

I sat by the shed for most of the day. I had  some fruit and a can of cold meat for breakfast. After that, I changed into some clothes I found: jeans that were twice my size and a plain black t-shirt. It seemed clean fortunately. After spreading my original damp clothes on a cloth line I made, I grabbed my backpack and rummaged through it. I saw the arrow, folded pieces of clue paper that I didn't know why I even left in the bag, a flashlight, my journal, my dead phone, my toothbrush. I searched deeper and then I stopped.

My fingers brushed something thin and wooden. Louie's pencil. I took it out and tears filled up my eyes immediately. I blinked them away and twirled the pencil between my fingers. A smile crept to my lips as I remembered all the crazy drawings he used to make. He used to doodle all these weirdly shaped human beings, like men with four arms or girls with no eyes. When I asked him he'd tell me that that was how he felt aliens would look if they were real. He never believed in aliens or anything supernatural though. I wish he was here with me now. Not just so he'd believe that there was some crazy shit in the world but also because I'd have loved his company. At least he'd make me laugh.

I took out my journal and filled about five pages. I wrote about being stuck in a forest I couldn't seem to escape from, about the girl I met and liked, about looking at the stars with her, about the interesting clues we'd found, about telling the girl that I liked her, realizing that I couldn't be with her, about her telling me she liked me back, me telling her that it couldn't work, the girl a few days later talking about my dead family like that, me feeling hopeless and confused, feeling that nothing could possibly make me stop feeling this way. I wrote until my thin wrists hurt and then when I decided it was enough, I sighed and dropped everything back in my bag.

For the rest of the day, I just sat there, staring off into space, enjoying the occasional breeze that brushed my face and caused the light t-shirt that I was putting on to billow. The smell of the fall breeze, the sight of the orange leaves littered all around, the clouds drifting across the sky slowly. It was eerily silent but I liked the silence. I'd always preferred it.

Suddenly the serene moment was over because I heard the sound of footsteps and barely audible chatter.

I groaned and covered my face with my palms.

“Hey! Larry!” Michelle ran over to me when they arrived and I gave her a tight smile.

“Hi.”

“You've been here all this time?”

I nodded, still staring off into space.

“Well, we found it! The clue!” Peter said as cheerily as he could and walked over to me with an unfolded piece of paper in his hands.

“I don't want to see it.”

He paused in his tracks.

“Larry, you can't keep doing this.”

“It's a good one."  My chest tightened a bit at the sound of her voice. I didn't look at her. I wasn't going to even give her a glance. “It’s something I know a lot about.”

Why was she talking to me?

“Larry, come on. At least hear it.”

“I'm not stopping you,” I said with a shrug.

“Okay.” He walked over to sit by me and the others sat down as well. Michelle sat at my other side while Tanya stood a good distance away.

“So the last one was about blood that has been open to the air for a long time so it has lost its oxygen that keeps it red.”

“It was creepy…” Michelle said, shivering slightly beside me.

“What do you mean?” I turned to look at her.

“Well, we found the new note stuck to a bloodied nail stuck to a tree trunk. The blood didn't look fresh but still. It's crazy because we've probably gone past that area before but didn't see it.”

I nodded. “And what did the new note say?”

“It was a haiku. It said

Itching on the skin
Very sensitive don't touch
You will be in pain”

I chuckled. “That's the most simple one we've got. It's suspiciously too easy.”

“It's poison ivy,” Tanya said quietly.

“Yeah…if you noticed, the first letters of each line spells out ivy and those are the symptoms of poisoning by the plant,” he explained.

“Oh, well, good luck then.”

Peter was silent for a while.
“Larry, come on.”

I sighed and got up without a word, walked into the shed and lay in there. I was stubborn. That I knew. I could be being stupid but when I was like this, I didn't care.

I think they all left after I got into the shed. Either that or they were just really quiet for hours. I didn't mind. I liked the alone time.

Unfortunately, as usual, the alone time didn't last long. I heard the shuffle of feet outside and moments later, Peter was walking inside the shed.

I groaned and faced down. He chuckled and nestled himself at the opposite edge of the wall."

“Can we talk?”

“No we can't.”

He chuckled again softly and tried again.

“Please. Can you just listen? I understand that the whole thing with your past, Tanya…it's overwhelming. But I need you to just… listen. Please.”

I sighed heavily and sat up. I matched his cross-legged sitting position and looked straight at him.

“Can you reduce the eye contact a little, please?”

I looked away.

“So what do you want to say?”

“Larry we need you. We need everyone to work together so we can possibly find our way out of this weird forest. Anything could happen, we might need someone else for something and you might not be there and…” he shook his head. “You never know! Maybe we were all chosen to be here together Larry. I wonder if maybe some other people have been here before or something or if…”

He took a deep breath. “What I'm saying is that you should please come back and help us with the clues. Do it for me, even if you don't want to leave. Do it for Michelle.”

“You guys are handling it pretty well without me,” I commented with a shrug.

“What if we need your help for the next one? Or it's something you know that we don't? Or–”

“Peter, you're smarter than I am. There's probably nothing I know that you don't.”

His lips were pressed into a thin line.
“I just want everyone to be fine again!”

I scoffed. “You can't just expect me to forgive someone and be fine just because you say so or because you're some kind of peace maker.”

“I know. I can't. Okay, you don't have to talk to her. Ignore her, whatever, but just please come back. Be a part of us again.”

I stuck my tongue in my cheek in thought.
“I'll think about it.”

He gave a little nod.

I ran my hands through my hair and lay down. Suddenly something popped into my head.

“Hey, by the way, there's something I haven't told you?”

“What's that?”

“I heard a…buzzing sound yesterday.”

“What? Where? When?"

“A buzzing sound. Outside the shed. Yesterday when I was sitting alone in the rain."

"And what was it?"

"I don't know. I didn't see anything. The sound just came and then left. It's not like it flew past or anything. I just heard buzzing and then no buzzing."

He was silent for a while.

"Larry can I tell you something?"

I raised a brow at him. "Yeah, sure."

"I know I'm not acting that way but... I'm really scared of this place."

+_+_+
A/N

Do you ship Tanya and Larry?