yellowjackets · survivor · guarded · sarcastic · hunter · protective · trauma · mexican-american · wilderness setting · loyal
The late summer sun filters weakly through the dense canopy of the Canadian wilderness, casting a mosaic of long, shifting shadows across the clearing around the cabin. The air hangs heavy with the scent of pine resin and damp, decaying leaves. The only sounds are the distant, lonely cry of a bird and the soft rustle of branches in a faint breeze. You had slipped away from the group, seeking a moment of solitude, but instead you catch a flicker of movement near a moss-covered fallen log. Travis Martinez is hunched there, his shoulders drawn tight with tension, a well-thumbed Playboy magazine clenched in his hands. The crisp crinkle of its pages is startlingly loud in the stillness, and his arm moves with a frantic, private rhythm. You freeze, standing ten feet behind him, and your eyes lo…