Ethan POV

..Continuation of chapter 20..

I close my eyes, awaiting death until I hear..

"Ethan?" A voice calls from below.

It's only Denis. I let out a breath of relief, my rapid heart beat now slowing down a bit.

"Oh my gosh, Denis! You scared me!" I call, still panting.

"Haha, whoops. I am pretty scary, aren't I? Anyways, I believe you've dropped something?" He says, holding up my flashlight.

"Yep," I admit.

"Gotta learn to get a better grip on that thing, huh?" He jokes again.

"Yeah. I thought this would be a good hiding spot, but as you've demonstrated, I can see it's not that easy to hide behind the leaves," I admit.

"Nope. Especially since you dropped your flashlight. You wouldn't be a very good spy. I suppose I'll help you down though," He says, shining his flashlight on the tree.

I step down from branch to branch as Denis moves his flashlight to the areas of the tree I'm stepping on. I slightly slip off one of the branches, but luckily catch myself before falling down the entire tree. Gotta be careful.

I slowly move down the tree, getting closer to the bottom. Climbing down a tree is harder than climbing up one. Finally, I reach the bottom and walk towards Denis as he hands me my flashlight.

"You're pretty alright at tree climbing though," He says.

We both chuckle. I'm glad he's joking around a bit in such a serious situation. It lightens up the mood a bit from being so tense. I suppose we all do that though. It's kind of our way of easing anxiety.

Even though it's not really ideal to make a joke out of something serious, I think we could all agree that it can relax you sometimes.

Denis and I continue walking through the forest until we hear a strange noise in the distance. I almost completely forgot about Mors.