A Distant Memory (Josh Washington Fanfic)

Chapter 10: The Biggest Betrayal

 Artemis took in heavy breathes as she laid in Chris's arms. 

"Artie, you okay? Still need time to... uh... process?" Chris whispered as he rubbed her arms in comfort. 

Artemis rubbed her eyes and sniffed loudly. "I-I'm fine. Let's just find Sam already." She got up and helped Chris up. "Chris . . . Thank you." 

Chris smiled wearily, "No problem." He rested his hand on Artemis's shoulders. "Look. I'm sorry. I . . . I killed him. I knew that you loved him. And I made the decision without you." 

"Chris," Artemis said as she wiped away any stray tears. "I just . . . I needed to cry." 

Ashley pulled off her gloves and tried to clean off Artemis's hands. 

Artemis scrunched her eyebrows in weary confusion, "W-What are you-" 

"I never did say I'm sorry." Ashley whispered. "For everything, I never said sorry." As she dabbed the cloth against the bleeding flesh, she whispered. "You lost the most out of everyone here. You lost your best friends and then the one you love. No wonder you broke down today. I guess, you were the person everyone relied on and that you really didn't have time to grieve yourself. And I'm sorry about that. I'm pretty sure everyone is sorry for putting you through that." Artemis watched as Ashley blinked away the tears. "Really, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for being in that stupid prank, I'm sorry for making Chris choose me. I should've been the one to die-" 

"You stop right there Ashley, don't even finish that sentence." Artemis ordered. "I was mad when Chris pulled that damn lever and killed Josh. Hell, I'm still fuckin' pissed. But I need to put this anger behind me so we could work together to find Sam. I don't know if I could forgive Chris for killing Josh, but I could understand why he did it. He was trying to save the one he loved. And honestly, at the end of the day, we would all make the same decision in order to save our loved ones." Artemis  showed Chris and Ashley the smallest smile she could muster. "I don't think I could forgive now, but with time, maybe I could." 

"That's all we need," Chris and Ashley said, reciprocating the small smile. They all wandered through this seemingly endless basement of the lodge when Ashley pointed at something. 

"Look, are those fake newspapers?" Ashley said as she touched the old stacks of newspapers. The trio started to investigate and found something even more startling. 

"Are these cameras?" Artemis gasped. 

"What is going on?" Chris seethed. 

"Chris," Ashley bit her nails in thought. "What if it was that psycho doing all of this?" 

"What do you mean? You think the person who strapped you to that thing with Josh is the one who is doing all of this?" Artemis mumbled. She felt her heart skip a beat at the mention of Josh's name. She couldn't bear to think of him. She felt disgusted to even think of him, still hanging like a pig. 

 "It's just . . . It feels like he's constructing the whole story for us . . . then watching us run around, freaking out, seeing what we do, like it's . . . like it's some sort of fucking experiment!" 

Artemis looked at her with wide eyes. It made sense. 

" Yikes, that actually makes a weird sort of sense." Chris said.  

"We, we need to keep going. If this theory is true, then Sam might be in even more trouble than we thought." Artemis said darkly, fearing Sam might meet the same fate as Josh. 

 So they began to walk into a new part of the lodge. It was unfamiliar, new but yet old. Ashley spotted an old pair of scissors and kept it in her pocket.