Again, if sensitive to blood, skip this chapter. Or maybe stop reading the book altogether.

So this was supposed to be a cute- lighthearted chapter- but my dark brain-

"Why have I never had one of these until now?" Rose burped and fell of a log, wiping some gooey marshtato off her lip. "These s'more things are delicious."

Mandy's eyes were sparkling from the delicious flavors. "It's like heaven is on my tongue."

"I want them all." Acorn pleaded, pulling more marshtatoes out of Biggie's hands.

Verdana hugged Biggie, "Thank you for blessing our taste buds."

Biggie grinned while eating his own, he had saved all the ingredients to make s'mores from the previous night. "Don't eat too many, I'm running low on chocolate and you're going to get-"

Verdana screamed and fell over, "MY STOMACH HURTS!"

"-a stomachache." Biggie sighed and led her into her bed.

It only took a few minutes for the rest of them to feel the same pain, one by one, they dropped to the ground and clenched their stomachs.

Biggie shook his head, "Are your stomachs not adjusted to digesting all that sugar?"

"No-" Acorn crawled into bed with his wife and groaned.

"We've been living off of berries and critter for years, we don't have a ton of sugar in our diet." Rose dragged Mandy into a bed and then hopped into her own.

"I'm Troll Village all we eat is sugar, basically." Biggie ate one last s'more, before getting read to fall asleep. "Branch, do you want one? There's only one left."

Branch looked up and hesitantly shook his head, "I'll just end up burning it. It'll be a waste of marshtato."

Biggie took Branch's free hand and pulled him over towards the fire. "Just try! Take your time!" He handed him a stick with the final marshtato on it.

Branch stared at it deeply, still considering whether he should risk the waste or not.

Again, he refused and turned to walk back to the bed he claimed. "You can have it, Biggie."

Biggie put it back in the bag thing he had and stored all his ingredients in his hair. "You'll learn, someday."

"Good night, bOyS." Verdana weakly waved at them, before she passed out.

"Good night!" Biggie waved and hopped into the one available leaf bed, taking up most of the space. "Are you coming, Branch?"

Branch glanced back at him then stared into the fire. "Uh, I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Okay, then! Night, Branch!" Biggie rolled over and fell asleep immediately.

"Night..." Branch looked around, checking to see if everyone had fallen asleep. They did, of course.

He went through his hair for paper and a pencil and sloppily wrote a note with his left arm. He was leaving the group to search for Troll Village himself. He wrote a badly written letter explaining it all.

'I know it's dangerous out here, but I really want to find a way home. I know it hasn't even been a day since the storm, but being away is unbearable. I need to know if Poppy and everyone is okay. I'll be back if I find it and I'll bring you home, Biggie.

See you soon, sincerely Branch.'

He set the letter on the end of where Biggie slept then carefully pulled the bag of Graham crackers from the big Troll's hair.

He looked back a last time, then fled, running through the woods and dropping a trail of crackers to know where he's already gone.

He refused to admit it, but he was terrified of being alone in this situation. "The village is probably somewhere south- and since the moon is-" He glanced at the sky, but he couldn't find the moon. "Oh-"

Branch searched for something he could use to find a sense of direction, but there wasn't really anything useful. His compass was still in the field, possibly broken from the wind's strength. "My compass!" He ran off where he remembered the meadow was, watching the ground for his compass, and anything he could trip over.

He found it lying in the grass, next to a few glass shards. The glass was broken, but it still seemed to work. "I'm finally going to find Troll Village!" He grinned.

Branch was taking his first steps across the field, but he heard something. There was something rustling in the bushes.

He jumped a little from the sudden sound, dropping the compass back on the ground, not realizing he did so.

Branch quickly ran back into the woods, assuming the source was a predator, but fell right in the ditch again. "Seriously?" He ducked down, hoping whatever it was wouldn't look over where he was.

~

Poppy looked out from the bush and sighed, "I thought I saw Branch."

Creek patted her on the back and held her hand.

Guy picked up the compass off the ground and looked at it, "This looks like Branch's compass!" He sniffed around, "Wait-"

"What?" Poppy raised her eyebrow at him.

"I think I found him!" Guy walked towards the ditch.

"That can't be possible... because I see him over there!" Creek grabbed both of them and pulled them across the field. "You two should search where I saw him! I'll go check over where Guy could've seen him."

"Oh- um, okay!" Poppy skipped excitedly towards the opposite end of the meadow and looked around.

Creek peeked into the ditch, and sure enough he found Branch sitting there, waiting for the muffled voices he could hear stop.

Branch couldn't clearly hear the sounds he heard, so he wasn't aware they were trolls.

"Branch.." Creek looked down at the troll.

"Creek?!" Branch had never seemed so happy to see that dirty, lying, cheating, stupid, son of a—

"I can't believe I found you." Creek said flatly, looking away, and hiding his hands behind his back.

"I can't believe your here too! Is Poppy here? Can we go get Biggie before we head home?" Branch was so excited, he could hardly contain himself, he squealed a little after he spoke.

"She's here, but listen, mate," Creek sighed, "Since you two left the village, I've never been so close to Poppy, I have a chance at dating her-"

"But she likes me and I like her-"

"Exactly, which is why I don't want you to come back."

"Excuse me? What?"

"I don't want you to return to the village, because I have a chance with Poppy, now." Creek restated.

"First of all, that's greedy, second, why can't I come home then?"

"She'll focus her attention on you, you focus on her, you'll be dating, and bing, babies popping out of everywhere!" Creek crossed his arms.

( in world geography one day my teacher goes "then, bing, babies popping out of everywhere" and I probably will never forget it. )

"What is your problem with me dating her? I love her."

"She was mine first!" Creek lowered his voice, not wanting to draw the attention of the others.

Branch's spirit was already too low, he couldn't argue much with him. He kind of just forfeited. "Fine-" He bit his lip and slid down into the ditch, "Can I see Poppy one more time, at least?"

"She'd bring you back to the village- unless you were dead." Creek looked back, and got an idea. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He smugly grinned.

"That I pretend to be dead?" Branch gave the same smug grin back.

"Eh- that's close-" Creek revealed the knife he hid behind his back.

"Why do you have that?" Branch nervously backed up as far as he could from him.

"So I don't have to worry about you interfering with me or Poppy," Quickly, Creek jabbed the knife into Branch's leg, then removed it after several seconds, confident that the victim would end up dying shortly.

Branch was in extreme agony, as if hundreds of needles were being pushed into his skin. "I-I said pretend!" He groaned, and tried to cover his leg with his hand, now spreading a puddle of blood to his hand. 

Poppy's ear perked up from the screams, alerting her that something was seriously wrong. She rushed towards the purple creep, "Creek? What's going on over here? Are you-"

"Everything over here is fine! I thought I saw something, but I was wrong! There's nothing to see." Creek hid the knife in his hair and rushed Poppy away, glancing back at the ditch a couple times.

Guy raised his eyebrow, "What are you looking at?" He grew slightly suspicious.

"Nothing!" Creek lied, and urged them forward.

They were gone, and Branch's weak screams were pointless. No one could hear him.

-

Rose was roused awake, by Biggie shaking her.

"Rose, Rose, Rose!" He whisper shouted.

"What?" Rose rubbed her eyes and sat up, yawning.

"Branch is gone!"

"WHAT?" Rose gasped.

The others woke up from her exclamation. "Huh?"

"He left a note! We have to follow this trail and find him! He could've gotten hurt!" Biggie was feeling confident and determined for once. Normally he didn't take charge like this.

"Not we, only one of us should go. It's too risky to send two of us out there. The rest of us could stay and get food or something ready." Verdana suggested.

"I'll go." Rose said, sprinting into the woods before anyone could stop her.

"But mom!" Mandy wanted to chase her back, but it was pointless. There's no way to talk that woman out of anything.

"Who's cooking then?" Acorn picked up a wooden frying pan, but dropped it.

( I tried making all these characters on the Sims 4. Rose has died twice, maxed out her cooking skill, and Acorn has started a fire. )

"Biggie? Can you cook?" Verdana handed him the frying pan.

"I can!" Biggie happily picked the pan up and went over to the fire, to figure out how he was going to cook without proper ingredients.

Mandy put her hand oh her cheek and took a deep breath, "What if it finally happens tonight?"

"What? What if what happens?" Biggie was curious.

Acorn rubbed Mandy's shoulder, careful Verdana wouldn't see. "Every single day, Rose pushes herself too hard, but she's not young anymore. She's become more exhausted quicker recently, and she might exhaust herself to death."

"But, she seems so strong! She couldn't die from that." Biggie assured.

"Compared to last month, she's incredibly weak now. If she continues this activity, she might be gone before you two get home." Verdana covered her face, beginning to fear that the yellow troll, that's slightly absent-minded, but a wonderful leader for them, the best cook, the best at everything, might not return.

"I'm going after her!" Mandy hopped up and marched towards the trail.

Critz rugged on her skirt and pulled her back. "AJDIAOAIDHANSJDOAOAJA!"

"Are you sure?" Acorn knelt down and stroked the furry critter.

"AJDISIAN!" Critz rolled a yes.

"Fine, then hurry!" Acorn nuzzled him then rushed it off into the woods.

"Is he going to find them?" Mandy asked, waving at the critter.

"Hopefully."

-

we gonna end this cringe where