UD: Bitter Understanding

Ash hugged her knees to her body as she sat in a lone rolling chair, isolated within the basement of the Washington's vacation cabin. The temperatures of the room sent a chill through everyone's body, but it paled in comparison to the tensions left after the recently unfolded events.

Emily had been bitten. No one amongst the group knew what the wendigo's were, or how they spread, so it didn't take long after Ash had pointed it out for the group to erupt into an argument over the right thing to do. Ashley had loudly advocated for her to be separated from the group, put out of the shelter in case she turns. But Mike took a more extreme approach, pointing a gun to his ex's head and only pulling away when he realized he couldn't do it.

Not long after, he and Chris left the shelter to reunite with the flamethrower-wielding stranger and save Josh. Leaving Sam, Jess, Emily, and Ash in the confines to sit in silence and try and keep warm.

With nothing better to do, Ash turned around and pretended to be preoccupied investigating the bag the Stranger had left behind. Inside was a journal, filled with descriptions and notes he had made of the beasts. She inquisitively looked through them, skimming until she found one passage that made goosebumps spring onto her arms; The Stranger had been bitten before, and had already deduced the wounds to not have any kind of transferal properties.

"Oh, no..." She whispered to herself, eyes widening at the sight. Not just ten minutes before had she been trying to get Emily exiled and left in the freezing cold over something that a quick glance at the journals would have solved. Ashley looked behind her worriedly, wondering if she should tell her the truth or not.

'This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening!' Emily repeated the same sentence over and over in her head as she was still trying to comprehend what just went on not so long ago.

She almost died. Mike aimed a gun at her and almost shot her! Not that Ashley's idea was much better, offering to kick her out of the house, which was practically suicide! Emily would be cussing that girl out right now if the bite on her body didn't have her too afraid to move. What if she really was going to turn into one of those monsters? The thought causes her to shudder.

This trip was stupid. This house was stupid. These people were stupid. Everything was just so stupid!

Ash's eyes darted inbetween the text, and Emily's general direction, not being brave enough to look at her fully. Em could definitely be... uncivil, but she deserved to know the truth. The look of fear in her eyes despite, despite trying to keep a straight face, only guilted Ash further into solidifying her decision.

Spinning her chair around so that she was facing Em now, looking up only for a second to see the resentment her expression held before darting her eyes back down to the floor, Ash spread her legs out and touched her feet to the cold, hard flooring. Ever since Mike and Chris had left, silence had reigned, not one of the four girls daring to speak a word.

That same silence was broken by Ash clearing her throat, which perked up Sam's ears as well, before she stood up and stepped towards Emily, her movements passive but her heart beating a thousand miles an hour.

"Em, I, um..." She opened uneasily, trying to ignore the pressure of three pairs of eyes on her at once, "I read through some of that old guy's journal, and he says the bites aren't contagious. S-So you're not gonna turn into one of those... things." Pushing the journal down to where Em could see it, open to the page with said information, Ashley stepped back and braced herself.

Sam watched this occur, her shoulders relaxing instantly as Ash spread the word. If anything, she was calmed to know there wasn't any danger, but she could tell there was going to be hell to pay before Emily was calmed again. Her hands came out of her pockets reflexively in case of a confrontation.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Emily finally finds enough courage to stand up and take a step towards Ashley as the words that came out of the red head's mouth process through her head. Em glances through the pages Ash laid out for her to see four words underlined in red ink: 'THE BITE IS HARMLESS'

Everything is finally finished processing as all the fear and uncertainty she had felt just moments ago suddenly transform into anger.

"Mike almost shot me!" Emily charges towards Ashley but comes to a halt when her face is only mere inches away from hers. "A-and you almost let him!"

Jessica raises one of her eyebrows as she watches the scene unravel before her. Things were starting to get heated in here! Unfortunately, Sam wasn't as interested in watching things play out for themselves as the other blonde hesitantly attempted to defuse the situation.

Waiting for Emily to read the writings on the page was like watching the timer tick on a bomb. As soon as that counter reached zero, the taller girl was onto Ash, their faces only barely separated by height. Ash's pupils shrunk in fear and she wrapped her arms around herself, placing one foot behind her as she tried to back away.

Sam watched through narrow eyes, letting out a deep breath of suspense as she turned her back to the two arguing. She shot a wayward, brief glance at Jess, but it didn't take long to deduce that she had no intentions of stepping in.

"I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry, Emily, I didn't know!" She tried to rationalize, her mind racing to think of a justification, "I never wanted any guns involved, I just wanted to protect us, a-a-and-" Ashley stammered off, not knowing how to explain herself more than she had.

Emily wanted to slap her...though that would only relieve her anger for a second. Em had a much better idea on how to release her pent-up frustration in the long term.

"There's no excuse for this!" Emily takes a seat on the rolling chair, grabs Ashley before she can even begin to react, then slides the girl over her lap with her jean shorts clad derriere sticking out into the air. "You're not getting out of this with just an apology, Ash!"

Emily made sure to draw out Ashley's one syllable nickname just to taunt the red head as she gives her butt a sharp smack.

Ashley didn't have enough time to react before her wrist was grabbed and she was being pulled over towards the nearby chair. She was already fearful that Emily would hurt her, but she had no way of expecting what happened next as she took a brief fall through the air, grunting in both surprise and discomfort as she was swiftly dragged across her aggressor's jeans.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Ash whimpered, instantly trying to get back up before a sharp pain shot through her rear. The strike took her off-guard and, temporarily, she dropped her recovery and grasped hold of Emily's jeans tightly. "Ow! Emily, that hurt!" She whined, trying again to get back up. Her cheeks burned bright red with embarrassment.

Sam had turned around the minute she heard a struggle, but was temporarily taken aback to see Ash's backside helplessly hanging over Emily's lap, the latter bringing her palm down fiercely onto the other's bottom. Samantha herself was blushing with second-hand embarrassment, and quickly took the first step forwards towards breaking the two up, muttering "Emily..." as she approached.

"It's supposed to hurt." Emily growls as she slaps Ash's other cheek with the same amount of force. She begins to get into a steady rhythm of switching sides after every swat as she doesn't hold back one bit on the girl's buns.

Jessica's eyes widen as the unusual display unfolds in front of her. Of course it's a shock to see Ashley getting spanked like a child but shock transforms into curiosity as the blonde begins to wonder: How far was this really going to go?

Unfortunately, the sight of Sam blushing and then making her way towards the fun little show going on sends alarms through Jess's head. There was no way she was going to put an end to it this quickly! Jessica jumps to her feet and holds Sam back. "Come on! You know Em will hold a grudge against Ashley forever if she doesn't get some sort of revenge on her and this seems harmless enough while we wait for the guys to come back! Besides, aren't you a little curious about how this is going to turn out too?"

As Sam opened her mouth again to catch Emily's attention, instead what came out was a slight yelp of surprise as she was tugged backwards and face-to-face with Jess. Both her eyebrows rose upwards at her accomplice's request and she gave her an uncertain look to find out if she was joking or not.

Since it soon became clear she was fully serious, Sam put her hands to her hips and argued "What, are you crazy? Haven't you had enough drama for one night?" She chastised, "Emily's going to hold a grudge either way, letting her pummel Ashley won't fix that." Then, with an annoyed sigh, she turned back to once again head over towards the two.

"Let me go, let me go!" Ash's voice whined over the sound of Emily's hand reconnecting with her shorts again and again. The three layers of clothing she had on provided enough protection but what little sting broke through wasn't the problem compared to the embarrassment factor of it all. "I d-didn't even do anything, and none of us understood what was happening! Emilyyy!"

"Stop whining, that isn't going to help!" After a dozen solid swats to Ashley's rump, Emily stops for a second to shake the sting out of her hand. These jeans were definitely not making this spanking easy; It would probably take hours before the girl started feeling any sort of real pain! So Emily grabs Ash's shorts and unbuckles them before beginning to pull them down to reveal the black leggings underneath.

'Well, that didn't work.' Jessica thinks to herself as Sam walks past her. 'Time for plan B!'

"Hold on one second!" Jess once again jumps in front of Sam. "If you try and stop them, then...well let's just say Ashley isn't going to be the only one getting spanked!"