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pain.
it hurts, and thats the first thing jess notices. the second is that she's in a freezing, dark cave, completely alone. she's so cold it stings, sharp needles pricking her bare skin. she's only wearing jeans and a tank top and the blood staining them is still fresh. it freezes her skin.
jess stumbles through corridors, boots soaked through by water. she manages to find a lantern and lights it with shaky, bloodstained hands. everything is bloody, damp, frozen, and the flame is a welcome change. the cave stretches on. she gets a look at herself in a rippling puddle. tells herself it's just the water that's distorting her features, and she's not that fucked up. she can't bring herself to believe it.
jess wants so badly to be a model. its her dream, her driving force. she's hot. she's always been able to use her looks to get people, jobs, useless items.
is this karma? she's starting to believe that. as much as she tries to forget, or rework the thought, beth and hannah remain a constant in her mind. it's not her fault- not really, not fully.
(but they never would've ran into the blizzard if it wasn't for that stupid prank, and jess was the one to come up with it. not mike, not emily, just her. jessica's not innocent. hannah wasn't guilty.)
whatever is keeping her going is quick to run out and jessica wants nothing more than to curl up and die. every move is agonizing. jess gasps and wheezes and sobs through her breaths, wounds never stop bleeding and maybe she'll bleed out before she freezes or starves. that would be a mercy.
then something screeches.
it echoes around the caves walls and rattles her bones. jess turns, heart racing, and.... something moves. nothing should survive down here, not in the collapsed frozen mines. it's just a shadow. jess picks up her pace anyway.
hours, minutes, maybe days pass. jess doesn't know how much time had passed, and there's no way to tell there. daylight has no place to come through the rock.
another noise. it's not the bloodcurdling screech that she heard before, and its not inhuman but she can't trust it yet. someone or something dragged her through the snow and tore up her body and jessica has no idea who it was. the person in the mines might be a friend, but she can't trust anything anymore. not after her entire sense of safety was shattered. she sees a figure nearby, form flickering in the lamplight.
so she picks up a piece of wood and uses all her strength to swing at the figure. it's useless- he turns and catches it, and its all jess can do to keep from collapsing.
"...jess?"
matt looks at her incredulously and jessica almost sobs. it's someone safe, someone good. she stutters and gasps through an explanation but it doesn't clear much up. jess realizes that she has no idea what happened. her time has been spent focusing on surviving and running, finding an exit, that she hasn't given much thought into what the fuck is going on. matt doesn't seem to know either. there's some solace in knowing she's not alone in her confusion, not the only one who's in the dark.
there's another screech and matt looks behind her. she doesn't need to. she feels it's steps bounding through the caves, hears skin slap against the stone as it leaps. matt's eyes widen and he takes her wrist, guiding her through the mines as he sprints. she can't keep up. she's freezing and in pain and she's about to give up, but matt looks at her. he tells her she can do it. if jess can't fight for herself, she can fight for her friend.
the next events are blurry. jess finds herself shaking at a snowy ledge, but almost laughs in relief because the wind is hitting her skin and she's out.
matt's presence is warm, even though he's just as terrified as she is. he never leaves her. not in the mines, not at the snowy ledge, not when they begin to walk back to the lodge, their only guide being the black smoke in the air. she sobs half the way back and stares into nothing the other half. matt is next to her all the way.
hours later, jess is in an interrogation room with a blanket and a cup of coffee. jess still shakes. if she was in pain in the mines, she was in agony now. the cops keep her interrogation short- both due to her injuries and because she's too out of it to give a real answer. one thing is clear, though, and she makes sure the police know.
"there's something in the mines."
(emily, her ex best friend, visits her hospital room. it ends with tears and a hug and many apologies. jess feels a tad lighter as emily leaves, with a promise to text her.)
(they say it was josh’s fault, but jess knows that the thing in the mines wasn't human; maybe it was once, but not anymore. josh couldn't have controlled it, known about it, nothing because it was not something to be contained. josh might have brought them there but what attacked her was the aftermath of a terrible thing, and jess had a feeling she had been the culprit.)
(guilt keeps her awake and fear haunts her sleep. she is, and will never be, safe.)