The Sixth Member of the Hiking Club

I wasn't going to post this but it's been living in my head since a senior told it to me back in high school. Apparently this happened a few years before I got there.

So there was this hiking club at school. Five members total, all second-years, barely keeping the club alive. Then one day this one kid joins. Frail, kind of sickly, not exactly your typical hiker. But whatever, they were THRILLED to have him. Six members now. And honestly they clicked immediately. Like genuinely close, the kind of friend group where you spend every day off hiking together, no excuses.

Then his health just... crashed. Out of nowhere. They rushed him to the hospital.

The other five showed up. Of course they did. His parents were already there in the room, and his dad looks at them and goes, "Stay by his side. He'll be happy you're here." His mom was crying while she said it.

So the five of them squeeze in close. Sit right by his head. And they whisper, "we'll always be with you. whenever."

He nodded.

He died not long after that.

After he passed, the five of them slowly stopped seeing each other. Nobody planned it. It just happened. Third year of high school hit and suddenly everyone was buried in exam prep, and the dead friend kind of... faded. The way these things do.

Then near the end of summer break, all five got a letter.

Same letter. All of them.

It was an invitation to climb a mountain called Dokakushi. Far from where they lived, but graduation was coming and it felt like a sign. A proper goodbye. So they all went.

The trail was rough. No real path. And it got dark way faster than they expected, so they decided to camp overnight and head down in the morning. They'd brought a ton of beer, they sat around talking, trying to burn the last summer into their memories.

Then someone pulled out a disposable camera.

"Last memory," they said.

It was pitch black so they couldn't actually see anything. The system they worked out: someone shouts, you point the camera at the sound, hit the flash, hope for the best. They went around taking turns. One by one.

Last shot was all five of them. Arms around each other. Someone shouted, flash went off.

Next morning on the way down.

They fell from a cliff. All five. Gone.

Search teams found them a few days later. The bodies weren't in a state to be properly recovered. They took the belongings.

Including the disposable camera.

When the film got developed, the group photo came out fine. Five of them with their arms around each other, smiling.

Six people in the photo.

And that day? Exactly one year to the day their sickly sixth member had died.