Yo.

Last time, Rylo made eye contact with a naked girl. Although he mostly wishes she would gtfo and leave him and his riverside in peace, he kinda secretly liked it. For three whole nights Rylo stays at other camps, avoiding the riverside like the plague. Eventually it gets to be so hot out that he needs a swim to cool down, and creeps warily back to his camp. Thankfully, the girl is nowhere to be seen and he is able to enjoy a quiet day alone.

The next day, however, the girl seems to be back. And this time she’s on his side of the river.

Rylo glares at her, and she stays a safe distance away. Any other day and Rylo would have taken off for another camp, but today is so hot that he’s stubbornly holding his position by the river. It makes him a little bit nervous to have her so close, but he resolves that no dumb naked girls are going to chase him off.

She seems to get the hint that he wants nothing to do with her, and he doesn’t see her around for another two days. By this point he’s nearly forgotten all about her, and is back to his usual lazy routine. At the peak of summer Rylo spends most of his hours floating on his back in the river with his eyes closed against the sun. He could almost fall asleep like this, and it’s the best way to lose track of time.

Idly he muses that now might be a good time to go hunting for fresh strawberries, and begins swimming back to shore. As his eyes adjust to the bright sunlight he tells himself he has to be hallucinating.

It seems his camp has been infiltrated, and this trespasser is even less welcome than the undead ones he usually gets.

He lowers himself in the water and stares the girl down. His menacing expression seems to have absolutely no effect on her, so he changes tactics and ignores her completely.

She stares unashamedly at him as he walks out of the water and hastens to put on his clothes. The only change he registers in her is an expression of mild amusement at his discomfort.

Once dressed, Rylo uses Mean Look again. But it’s not very effective.

Yeah, basically, he’s got himself a little stalker. He takes off for another few days, and returns back to the beach camp only after he needs a bath so bad he smells worse than the zombies he’s running from.

He hasn’t even finished cooking his freshly caught rabbit when she casually walks up to his fire and joins him. He grinds his teeth as she sits herself down on his favourite stool without even asking.

He sighs and looks back at the cut of meat he’s cooking. His only comfort is the fact that she hasn’t tried to talk to him. Rylo has no interest in talking to this invader, and is only able to somewhat relax knowing that she’s keeping her mouth shut.

She’s not even such a horrible guest. She mostly just stares into the fire, and doesn’t really bother him.

It’s only when he starts eating does she look up at him with clear blue eyes. From her expression Rylo can tell that she’s as hungry as the kids in the Madhouse basement. But that’s not his problem.

He takes a few more bites before his perfectly cooked cut of meat starts to feel like sand in his mouth. He looks up. She’s still there, staring at him with her starving blue eyes. Rylo furrows his brow, sniffs angrily, and tosses her a small cut of his rabbit.

She beams at him as she skewers the meat on a nearby stick. And then she does the unthinkable.

“Thanks. I’m Kayliss.”

Rylo focuses his eyes on the horizon and tries not to hear her, but she goes on.

Kayliss: Do you have a name?

He glares at her before speaking.

Rylo: No.

Kayliss: Well you sure have a good camp. Is it just you?

Rylo stares silently at the sky.

Kayliss: I’m all alone too. I had a group, but then my boyfriend and I had sort of a breakup thing, so I’m kind of on my own for now. It’s tough, huh?

Rylo finishes eating, throws the bones into the river, and huffs off into the forest, away from Kayliss.

He spends the day wandering aimlessly in an angry daze, and returns at nightfall to find his camp empty. He seems to be turning into a bit of a broody teen, huh?

He hardly gets five minutes of broody peace when she shows up again. She stands just outside the warmth of his fire with a hand on her hip and a flirty smile playing at her lips.

Kayliss: I had to come back here. I heard howling in the forest and I knew it would be safe out here by your fire. Do you believe in werewolves?

Rylo snorts in disbelief, still not looking at her.

Rylo: I believe in coyotes.

Kayliss: All the same…

And then, to his complete astonishment, she curls up next to his fire and closes her eyes.

He stands up and crosses his arms. No amount of glaring would help now, she had fallen asleep. Rylo paces back and forth, grinding his teeth and furrowing his brow. He debates waking her up and making her leave. Or he could just go somewhere else.

The sun is starting to come up again when he decides to just go to sleep and hope she disappears.

I think he basically just adopted a cat. Or, the cat adopted him. His strategy actually works, and she does take off before he wakes up the next morning. But she’s back by lunch. And he’s already fed her once, and he catches so much extra fish that he might as well give it to her. And then she’s back again at night to fall asleep by the fire. Rylo tells himself it’s fine as long as she only comes during certain times and doesn’t talk too much.

But then she starts breaking both those rules, coming at random times during the day and trying to start conversations. Rylo mostly shrugs her off with grunts and glares, but she’s pretty hard to deter.

Kayliss: You must have other places you go back to when you’re not here, huh? Are there people there?

Rylo: ….

Kayliss: I bet not, if you’re this quiet! You’re pretty good at surviving, I bet you’ve been on your own for a long time! Do you even remember your name? What your parents called you?

Rylo: Some kids called me Rylo.

Kayliss: Some kids? That’s okay, I don’t remember my parents much either. I left them when I was eleven.

Rylo: ….

Kayliss: Well it’s nice to make your acquaintance Rylo. Maybe now that I know your name you’ll start talking to me more!

Rylo recoils from her hand which had been reaching out to touch his arm. Disgusted with himself for telling her so much, he stalks off. He grunts at the sound of a girlish giggle behind him. When he returns to the river that night, he’s pleased to find that Kayliss is nowhere to be found and falls asleep, perfectly happy and perfectly alone.

For a while. The sound of her footsteps wakes him up in a panic, thinking a zombie has shown up and it’s time to run.

In fact, it’s much worse. Kayliss giggles and sits down next to him.

Kayliss: Wow, I scared you, huh? Sorry I crept up on you, you must have thought I was a zombie! The truth is, I couldn’t sleep so I went and picked some blueberries from over the hill and I brought a whole bunch back. We can eat them in the morning if you like.

Rylo stares incredulously at her and starts inching away.

She throws herself forward onto the sand next to him. Her face is uncomfortably close to his, and he sits up to get some distance between them.

Kayliss: I still don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. Warm summer nights do that to me. We could stay up and tell our life stories, although I get the vibe that you’re not the type.

Every muscle in Rylo’s body is tensed, and he stares intensely at the sand.

Kayliss: Ghost stories? I like a good ghost story.

Rylo: No ghost stories.

Kayliss: Something else then?

She says this in a breathy whisper, and Rylo barely registers her hand creeping up his inner thigh before he leaps backwards into the chair. He and the chair go clattering painfully together into the sand.

His face burning red, he stands up and walks off into the night.

His last glance back at her reveals Kayliss giggling and curling up next to the fire, her eyelids already beginning to droop.

Lolllll. This isn’t even real and I think it’s hilarious how uncomfortable Rylo is. Kayliss is kinda fun.