Dear Aimee,
Hi.
It's not Joel, sorry.
It's Arrow.
Joel said I could write a letter to you if I wanted to.
Which I kind of didn't but I wanted to say it somewhere.
You're a lucky girl.
Y'know why?
Because Joel is head over heels in love with you, he is. I mean it.
And I, unfortunately, am realising that I might be head over heel in love with him.
So yeah.
I'm in love with your boyfriend.
Sorry.
But if you reject him when we've travelled all this way to you...
I'm gonna attack you.
With my sword.
Then I'm gonna ask Joel out.
Anyway we're in a spooky forest now so I'll write to you later.
Signing off- Arrow 🏹

Joel had promised Arrow he'd never look at what they wrote to Aimee, and he kept that promise.

I swear he did.

No plot twists here.

Arrow and Joel had become closer as they travelled on their own. They were both more open to talking about more personal things. The one thing Joel remembered out of everything was that Arrow's favourite colour is Purple and that if anyone ever touches their sword again then they'll cut their hand off. He learnt that more from personal experience however.

Arrow looked around the terrifying, grey, murky looking forest. They don't get scared very easy but the atmosphere wasn't the best. Arrow and Joel noticed that Boy had stopped following them, he just stood still.

"Come on, we have to keep moving. I know, this place is terrifying but we have to keep going" Joel said. Arrow nodded and caught up with him.

Boy started to whine and bark, something was freaking him out and neither of the two could figure out what. Boy ended up running away to hide under what can only be described as a massive, plastic, yellow duck with just enough space to fit a dog under.

Joel and Arrow ran after their dog, hoping that eventually Boy would be brave enough just to come out from under the duck. The two got on their knees and looked under the duck.

"Boy? Whats wrong? Come on. I need some kind of communication here!" Joel said, after Joel spoke, the two of them could here a faint chatter from a creature. They both rose to their feet and looked around to find the origin of the sound.

Joel realised how bad the situation was, considering the chattering was only getting louder.

"Okay we need to go" He said and looked at Arrow before kneeling back down to try and convince Boy to move.

"Come on, would you please get out from under the duck?" He said, hoping, begging that Boy would get out. To his disappointment however, Boy didn't move.

That was when spiked arms started to rise out of the soil, they needed to get out of here and they needed to do it NOW!

As the creature started to lift out of the ground, it looked to be a mutated millipede, both Joel and Arrow got prepared to fight it. Arrow pulled out their sword and Joel pulled out his crossbow. Arrow wanted Joel to attack it first so that he would get over his freezing problem but if he didn't, they'd be ready to kill the creature. Joel pulled out his arrow and placed it on his crossbow.

That was when everything went silent.

Joel tried his best to be as quiet as possible, he locked in his arrow and aimed for the creature. The millipede couldn't see very well but heard the locking mechanism of the crossbow, it's antenna went forward and felt the crossbow, it wondered what on earth it was.

The back end of the millipede rose out of the ground, and in one swoop, Joel was thrown against a tree.

"Joel!" Arrow called out to him. That caught the creatures attention.

Arrow raised their sword to fight it but the back end of the millipede came crashing back, knocking them to the ground. Their sword fell out of their hand, their arrows fell out of the strap on their back. All they were left with was a bow.

They were defenseless.

They were scared.

The creature was going to eat Boy first before going after Arrow. Arrow took the last bit of courage they had in that moment to pull Boy out from under the duck. They kicked the creature's face before they pushed Boy to jump over the millipede and run to Joel, which he did. The kick messed up the creatures senses for a moment so it didn't know what happened to Boy. Now it was just circling Arrow, every time they got up to escape, the creature would knock them back down again. They were in pain and terrified and there was nothing they could do about it.

Joel was still on the ground, all he could think about was how he couldn't save his parents from being crushed in their car. He felt guilty, he didn't know if he could save Arrow. Something inside him gave him confidence. Gave him a reason to save Arrow, to be a hero. Joel sat up and saw the creature getting closer to Arrow, it had several tongues sticking out of its mouth, ready to consume them. Arrow was curled up, covering their face, trying to hide the fact that they were crying.

"No" Joel said, determined, as he got up, he picked up his crossbow again.

"Hey!" He called out to the creature before shooting it in the neck with an arrow.

The creature shrieked and clawed at the arrow in its neck, it turned its attention to Joel, who was preparing to shoot his second arrow at it.

No freezing.
No fear.
No turning back.

The creature rose up higher before lunging straight at Joel.

No fear.
No turning back.

A needle through water.

Joel shot the arrow and it landed right in the middle of the creatures spherical head.

No fear.

It fell to the ground.

Dead.

He did it. He killed one. He actually killed one.

The creatures body was skidding along the ground before coming to a hault at Joel's feet. Joel's entire body was shaking, the crossbow in his hand nearly fell to the ground because of the vibrations from him shaking. Joel looked to the ground beside him and saw the small brown dog that joined him on his journey days before, which felt like a lifetime ago.

"Boy? You're okay!" He said and knelt down to him, he was afraid that the creature had eaten him and that's why he could only see Arrow being surrounded.

Oh god, Arrow.

Joel quickly stood up and ran over to them, they were still curled up and crying.

"Arrow!? Hey, it's okay, it's dead now" He said softly before grabbing their sword and the arrows that fell.

"Here, I know you want them back" He said placing the items in front of them, he'd never seen them this scared.

In fact he'd never seen them scared. Ever. So this was a brand new experience for him and he didn't know what to do.

"I was useless"

Were the words that joel heard once the cracked and squeaky voice of Arrow finally spoke.

"What? You weren't useless, you saved Boy! Thats a pretty big accomplishment I'd say" Joel said, trying to cheer them up.

Arrow finally moved their hands away from their face. Joel could see the strands of dark hair that was stuck to their face from the tears they cried, their eyes were red and slightly puffy but I don't think either of them were paying attention to that.

"It's okay, you're safe. I promise, and no one is judging you here. We've all been attacked by a monster, and I'm just glad you trusted me enough to save you" Joel didn't actually know if that was the truth but he wanted to believe that it was.

Arrow teared up a little more.

"Wait no I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you-"

Joel was stopped mid sentence by Arrow doing another thing he'd never seen them doing before.

They hugged him.

They hugged him so tightly it was like the end of the world.

Oh wait. It is the end of the world.

That's besides the point. They hugged him tightly that's what I'm getting at.

Joel smiled and hugged them back.

"See? You're fine, everything's okay" He said and rubbed their back gently.

"You're way more of a hero than I thought, Joel Dawson" Arrow said

"And you're way more of a trusting person than I thought, Arrow Mckenzie" Joel smiled

"Hey, now you can officially call yourself a monster killer!" They said, after pulling away from the hug to wipe their eyes.

Joel smiled once again and chuckled at their comment.

"That's us! The monster killing trio!"

Arrow was surprised at Joel's heroism but they were grateful that it existed because if it didn't they would be dead.

Joel saved their life.

Dear Aimee,
Arrow again. Sorry.
But I needed to write to you again.
Your boyfriend just saved my life.
Yeah, he really did.
I was all sobbing and gross and useless and he stepped up!
He saved me and Boy.
If Joel hasn't mentioned yet, Boy is our dog.
He's great.
Very cute.
Joel and Boy.
Both equally cute.
But in very different ways.
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.
Just writing to say your boyfriend is a hero and you, yet again, are a very lucky girl.
Just remember that.
Or I'm coming for you.
I'm kidding.
Kinda.
Anyway!
See you in a few days.
Signing off- Arrow 🏹