A Fool's Guide to Paradise

William

Flashlight…check, chocolate bars…check, extra chocolate bars in case I finish those chocolate bars…and check. Now whatever that camping trip throws at me, I’ll be ready.

Why am I going camping with only these supplies you might ask? Well, I was going to bring my grandma's special lasagna, but I didn’t want to share it with my friends. Plus, we won’t even have a microwave, so it wouldn’t taste good anyway. Arthur says he wants this trip to be a time for us to “discover our primal selves”, away from the comfort of society. But hey, I’m pretty sure chocolate bars are a part of my primal nature (though others don’t see it that way). Either way, I think this trip is going to go great!

Once I finished packing, a posh silver BMW pulled through my driveway: it was Robert! He rolled down the window, and without even looking at me yelled,

“Hurry up man! I can’t believe I’m wasting my time picking you up!”

My hands started shaking, and my breath quickened. With my head lowered to the ground, I hurried over to his car and got in the passenger seat.

After five minutes of agonizing silence, I decided to try and break the ice.

“Hey! So uh, you excited?”

My sentence seemingly disappeared into the darkening sky as he continued driving without even acknowledging me.

I hugged my jacket a tad tighter, as my head pressed the cold window of the car door. As I tilted my head to look out the window, I figured that Robert maybe just wanted to enjoy the view, and I was bothering him. And so, as the buildings whizzed past, I rested my eyes, listening to his peculiar taste in music: of people singing about guns, drugs, women, and money.

“Get up man!”

Robert’s stern voice jolted me awake. As my grip loosened from my chest, I got out of the car and looked around in the darkness. Although it was dark, I could make out that we were near the top of some kind of hill, and that everything around us was just trees. By instinct, I pulled out one of my bars and started eating. I could hear Robert scoff, and mutter, “What a pig,” but I didn’t care. I just kept walking while staying attentive to my surroundings. After all, the last thing I wanted happening was to encounter a wolf or coyote because, let’s be real, I would make a pretty hearty meal.

The sounds of branches snapping under my feet gave me an eerie sense of comfort in such an unfamiliar place. My strides felt freer and my shoulders lightened, as if a massive load they carried disappeared. As uncertain as I was about this trip, my brief five-minute walk in the depths of nature revealed my “primal nature” to myself.

“This is who I would have been if others didn’t judge me?”

This revelation made me feel confident in myself, confident that I could—

A loud howl ripped through the calmness the night offered, scaring me shitless.

Robert and I both looked at each other, nodded, and we ran for our lives. Robert’s tall and slim frame allowed him to run much faster than me, leaving me all by myself within a matter of seconds.

“Why is this happening to me? Why? Great fucking timing, I’ve never been good at running!”

As my short, stubby legs turned to jello, my pace slowed until I came to a halt. With my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath, a demonic voice suddenly pierced through the darkness: “Gluttony, your time has arrived. Time to die.” My head naturally turned in the direction of the voice revealing a tall figure in a mask, holding a knife in his hand.

I wanted to run so bad at that moment. I wanted my body to move. But I was paralyzed in fear, tears gushing down my face as the figure stepped closer…and closer until it was right in front of me. I tried to scream, but he pushed me, knocking the wind out of me. I tried to get up and run, but my body froze. I looked down to where the apparition pushed me and saw a knife in my stomach.

The pain instantly consumed me.

I want to live, I don't want to die! After I just figured out who I really am, I’m just gonna die like this?...Really?

“If only…I could have her lasagna…one last…time.”

Robert

My legs ran faster than ever before.

Once I heard the howl, I couldn’t care less about William and ran for my life. Before long, I saw our campsite and finally felt a sense of security.

Walking into camp, I was immediately greeted by Delilah, who asked me where William was. I told her that I had something to tell the entire group, and that she should rally everyone together quickly.

Within three minutes, we all were huddled around a blazing fire, and I could feel my friends’ stares of curiosity scan me, as if I was some valuable commodity in ancient times.

Feeling relieved, I broke the silence:

“We have a problem guys. Umm, William and I heard the loud howl of a coyote, and we both could tell that it was extremely close to us. And since coyotes always travel in packs, we decided to run for our lives until we reach camp. Bad news, I…don’t really know where he is.”

“So you mean to tell me you just left your friend and didn’t do shit?!”

Arthur’s comment strangely pissed me off, and I clapped back.

“That's rich coming from you Arthur, when you are the biggest sissy out of ALL of us!”

“Enough guys! Just…calm down. The most important thing now is to get back to our cars safely and get the hell out of here.”

“And what about William? We just leave him here by himself, Amelia?”

“I think Amelia’s right. We need to get away from here. It’s just too risky for us to go look for William in this thick wilderness. Man, why did Arthur enforce a ‘no-phone’ policy on this trip?”

“It’s okay babe, we’ll get through this together,” and Amelia kissed Samuel.

Ugh—these disgusting lovebirds.

Arthur didn’t hesitate to take control of the situation as usual, and he decided that we should follow Samuel’s advice to go back to our cars. Since there were three cars and five of us present, we decided to go to each car in two groups of two and one group of a single person. The single person would be armed with the only firearm brought on the trip, while the others, with hunting knives. In our random selection of groups, I somehow ended up with Delilah as my partner.

“Robert, do you remember the path well?”

“Yes.”

“Which direction do we go?”

“Straight.”

“Wow, there’s a lot of branches here.”

“Yes.”

A palpable moment of silence passed until she spoke once again,

“Remember I asked you if you liked me in an area like this a year ago?”

My body froze.

Why is she asking me about that?

“Umm, yeah, I do.”

“You know I still love you, right?”

“Uhhh, Yeaaah?”

“Do you like me?”

Silence.

“I just wanted to ask one more time before I was going to do this.”

My sense of unease exploded. As my head whipped behind me, she closed the distance and stabbed me with a knife in my stomach. As I was screaming in pain, she hugged me; her left hand tightly wrapped around my back, and her right hand still holding the knife.

“I had to do this for William’s revenge. Leaving him in his time of greatest worry just so you could go hook up with another chick is a sin, Robert.”

What the fuck was she talking about?

“What other chick! We’re in the middle of the…fucking forest.”

Like a broken tape recorder, she kept repeating, “I’m doing this all for William, and only for him.”

Suddenly, she leaned forward. Still in the embrace, I fell on my back, crying and now begging for someone to come and save me.

But it was to no avail.

This sick and twisted monster started kissing me, and I was too weak to resist.

“I should have done this a lot sooner!”

She started laughing in a psychotic gleeful mood, until her expression turned stern.

If I can’t have you, then no one else can!”

In one swift motion, she pulled the knife out and stabbed me again in a different spot on my stomach.

“AAARRGHHHH—”

She kept me quiet by continuing to kiss me.

I’m in so much pain and I’m so scared. Is this what William felt like?

“I’m really sorry man…I’m really…so…ry”

With my eyes gradually closing, I saw a vulture tearing at my mouth looking for my soul…

and I was powerless.

Delilah

Everything was going as planned.

He loved every event I had planned, because I already knew that he was a sporty person who liked nature as well. When we had fun talking about the events that transpired throughout the day, and shared our moments of joy with one another, I believed that it was the right moment to finally be brave and ask him.

“Hey, so uh I kinda planned this whole day so I could ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Could I be your girlfriend?”

I said it! I was ecstatic once I got the words off my chest. But looking at him changed my whole mood: his face was lowered towards the ground and his eyes filled with pity. I dreaded the next words he said.

“Delilah, you’re my best friend, and…I don’t really think of you like that. I have someone else I like, I’m sorry.”

As he got up to leave, all my senses fixated on only one thing.

He already has someone he likes?

Why would he toy with my emotions like this then? What magical quality does that bitch possess that I don’t have?

These questions fueled the divide in my relationship with Robert, and we were strangers after a week. But, irritatingly, I still liked him a lot. And just when I was trying to figure out what I would do from now on, I got invited on the camping trip. A trip I also knew that Robert was invited to.

I had to go.

Although I knew I could never be with him, I still wanted to share more pointless and fun memories with him. Memories that would be robbed from me by this other girl. Our memories. I would not let them get tainted by some random chick who only looked attractive and knew nothing of Robert’s personality. But how? How would I do it?

I found the perfect opportunity when Robert talked about the wolves and the implied possibility that these wolves could have killed William.

That’s when a new course of action I hadn’t considered appeared: murder.

And when I learned of the plan to split the 5 of us into groups consisting of two people or just one person, I knew that I needed to get in a group of two with Robert. So I lied to Arthur and told him that we became boyfriend and girlfriend recently. Hence, I said I wanted to pair up with him. Arthur said openly that he would group us randomly, but in reality he told me he would group couples together while he would go alone.

Once I got this reassurance, I was filled with joy inside!

I get to make one last very fun memory with Robert!!!

As we started walking to his car, I found the courage to do to him what I had wanted to do for so long. I walked up to him from behind and stabbed him in the stomach when he turned. Rather than feeling bad for the pain I caused, I was strangely turned on, and started making out with him. But once the memory of that other girl flashed through my mind, I drowned it with the scream Robert made when I stabbed him again. As I continued kissing him to stop him from making loud noises, I heard a rustle in the woods to my right.

I saw Samuel staring at me lying on Robert’s lifeless body. Then he started running.

“Wait!” I said, “Wait! I’m not gonna hurt you!”

“Oh yeah, why don’t you tell that to Robert's dead body? HELP!!”

I tried to catch up to Samuel, but he was too fast. Before I knew it, we were at camp, and Samuel was making a huge ruckus. I tried to shut him up, however, I was too late. Amelia and Arthur rushed out of their tents and saw me holding a knife rushing at Robert.

Samuel shouted, “It's her! I saw her kill Robert and she most definitely killed William too. Help me!”

Consumed by his duty as the leader, the sissy Arthur ran at me and I stabbed him.

My only choice now is to murder them all so I don’t get caught.

Yet, he somehow still had the strength to try and wrestle the knife from my control. As we tussled on the ground, he pushed his bodyweight into me, causing my wrist to turn inward, pointing the knife towards me, and eventually his body pushed the knife into my chest.

With my breath growing increasingly shallower by the second, I could only think about the moments I shared with Robert and of my final, greatest moment with him.

With my lips curved upwards in the face of death, I rejoiced.

“I’m coming…Robert…I’ll have you…for eternity…in heaven.”

Amelia

The situation happened so fast; one minute, Delilah’s chasing my boyfriend with a knife, and the next, she’s on the floor dead alongside Arthur. It seems he used up everything he had to wrestle the knife out of her hands after getting stabbed to save us.

My tears started flowing uncontrollably as this scene of carnage imprinted itself in my mind. Samuel came closer and hugged me until the tears subsided.

“Okay, well thank God this incident is finally over. There’s been far too much killing for one night. Let’s go get some rest and try to find a functioning vehicle tomorrow.”

As we entered our tent, I was restless. I just couldn’t sleep after everything that just happened. As I turned to Samuel, I also saw that he was wide awake and could tell at a glance that he had a lot on his mind.

“Hey Samuel, you awake?”

“Yep, wide awake.”

“You want to talk?”

“Sure.”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

I leaned towards him and began desperately making out with him.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. When I groggily woke up and turned to my side, I saw that Samuel was gone. The fear from yesterday’s events instantly consumed me. In a second I was completely awake and ran out of the tent yelling his name.

After a few seconds, Samuel emerged from the woods, fixing his pants. He told me that he had to use the restroom.

I spent the rest of the day with Sam, knowing the danger had passed.

Night time soon overtook the sky, and we were back in our tent. When I began to wind down while hugging him, he suddenly hugged me and whispered in my ear,

“I’m the killer.”

“That’s not a funny joke Sam!”

“I killed Kevin and Oliver before the trip, and I slashed all the car tires.”

With unease setting in, I tried to pull away from him, but his grip around my waist was too tight.

“I went after the weakest on the trip, William. I knew his death would inspire Delilah to kill Robert. We both know she’s a crazy bitch.”

“Samuel, LET…GO…OF ME!”

I tried to break free, but I was helpless.

“When we were starting from the camp to check the tires of our car, I told you I had to use the restroom badly.”

“Please, let me go,” my voice breaking.

“I let Delilah see me. I knew she would try to kill me, so I manipulated her to kill Arthur. Honestly, it was unexpected that he killed her as well.”

Listening to his sudden confession to me filled me with a deep sense of unease.

I gulped.

“Why…are you telling me all this?”

“I’m…going to kill you too.”

He immediately punched me in the stomach, and when I tried to fight back, he again hugged me very tightly, constricting all of my movement.

“...Why?” I said weakly.

“Why? I’ll tell you. It’s because of the seven vices in Christianity. I read a secret ritual, where sacrificing seven people whose identities each revolve around a different vice allows one person to become a perfect being, free of the vices, with immeasurable strength and vitality.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I…really didn’t want to do this to you, the only person who ever cared for me…but it must be done.”

He let go of me, and when I gasped for air after the suffocating hug, he plunged his knife through my heart.

I started coughing blood, and my vision darkened.

In his arms, I looked at him endearingly one last time and said,

“I’m…sorry.”

Samuel

Her death rocked my core. I didn’t care about the others, but I really cared for her. I cried for a few minutes when I confirmed she had passed. But a thought struck me:

Where’s the power?

Maybe it needs time. I’ll wait.

A month went by, and I still had no power. I now understand that I have been duped and actually ended up killing my friends and Amelia, my beloved, for no reason.

I found the knife I stabbed her with, and plunged it into my own body:

“Darling, please…forgive me.”