The Gospel of Ordnance Survey

"It's left," Ewan said, stabbing a finger at the map, its plastic cover slick with condensation. "The path contours around the base of the crag. See? Here's the standing stone, here's the fork. We go left."

Rhys didn't even look at the map. He was squinting into the grey void, his head tilted as if listening to something Ewan couldn't hear. "No. It's right. I can feel it."

Ewan folded the map with a sharp crackle. "You can 'feel it'. What does that even mean? Does your spleen have a built-in compass? This is an Ordnance Survey map, Rhys. It's been meticulously researched by professionals. It's not a bloody tarot card."

"Maps can be wrong," Rhys said, pulling the zip of his waterproof jacket up to his chin. His hair was dark with damp. "The landscape changes. And anyway, my gut has a better track record than your laminated bit of paper. Remember the shortcut to the distillery?"

"That was blind luck!" Ewan retorted, his voice tight with frustration. "For every one of your gut-feeling triumphs, there are ten disasters. The 'haunted' shortcut that led to a bog, the 'scenic route' through a field with a very angry bull, the time you were convinced you could find north by looking at moss on a fence post!"

"The moss was inconclusive," Rhys muttered. "But this feeling is different. It's... a pull. The path to the right feels warmer."

"Nothing feels warm!" Ewan gestured wildly at the oppressive gloom. "We are inside a cloud! The ambient temperature is about six degrees! The only thing you're feeling is the onset of hypothermia bringing on hallucinations! We are going left."

He turned and took a determined step down the left-hand path, a faint track disappearing into ferns and mist. He expected to hear Rhys follow. He heard nothing but the drip of water from unseen branches and the distant, mournful bleat of a sheep.

He stopped and turned. Rhys hadn't moved. He stood at the fork, arms crossed, a stubborn set to his jaw.

"Are you serious?" Ewan called out, his voice sounding thin and small in the fog. "You're actually going to stand there?"

"I'm not going the wrong way!" Rhys shouted back. The mist muffled the sharp edges of his words, making them sound ghostly.

"It's the right way!" Ewan bellowed, his control finally snapping. He was cold, he was tired, and his GORE-TEX trousers were starting to feel suspiciously damp. "It's the scientifically, cartographically proven right way!"

"Well, my spiritual-navigational-intuition says otherwise!" Rhys yelled back, taking a defiant step down the path to the right.

The Fifty-Metre Divorce

"Fine!" Ewan shouted. "Go on then! Go and get yourself lost! See if I care!"

"Fine!" Rhys's voice echoed back. "Enjoy your soulless, government-approved route! I'll be at the pub ordering you a pint for when you finally see sense!"

And with that, they separated. Ewan marched down his path, fueled by righteous indignation. Every step was a declaration of his correctness. The map was his shield, the compass his sword. He was logic personified. Rhys was... chaos in a good-looking but impractical jacket.

He walked for what felt like ages, but was probably only three minutes. The path grew fainter. The silence, once Rhys's voice was gone, became immense. It pressed in on him. He couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. The only landmarks were shades of grey and darker green.

He stopped. This was stupid. Monumentally, colossally stupid. Arguing was one thing. Splitting up in the fog on a Scottish Munro was an entirely different category of idiocy. What if Rhys fell? What if *he* fell? They'd be shouting for each other and their voices would just be eaten by the mist.

The anger drained out of him, replaced by a cold knot of dread in his stomach. He was right, he was almost certain he was right, but what was the point of being right if you were also alone and in potential peril?

He turned around. "Rhys!" he called out. No answer.

He walked back, faster this time, his heart thumping a nervous rhythm against his ribs. He reached the fork. The standing stone loomed out of the grey like a rotten tooth.

"Rhys!" he yelled again, louder, a tremor of real fear in his voice. He started down the right-hand path, the 'wrong' path. "This isn't funny!"

A shape emerged from the fog ahead. It was Rhys, walking back towards him, his face pale.

"My path turned into a stream," Rhys said, his voice quiet. "My spiritual intuition is apparently waterproof."

Ewan stopped in front of him. He opened his mouth to say 'I told you so', to unleash the torrent of smug victory he had been preparing. But then he saw the look on Rhys's face—the mixture of embarrassment and genuine relief—and the words died in his throat.

He looked at Rhys, with his stupid, wonderful, confident face, standing in the middle of nowhere, having led them into this mess because of a 'feeling'. He looked at himself, clutching his map like a holy text, willing to let his best friend wander off a cliff just to prove a point.

A laugh bubbled up inside him. It was a strangled, incredulous sound.

Rhys looked at him, confused. "What?"

"We are such idiots," Ewan said, and then he was laughing properly, bending over with his hands on his knees. "Such monumental, prize-winning idiots."

Rhys stared for a second, and then his own face broke into a grin. He started laughing too. "My gut feeling... was probably just hunger."

"'The path feels warmer!'" Ewan mocked in a high-pitched voice. "We're going to die up here because your stomach was telling you it wanted a Scotch egg!"

The shared laughter was a relief, a warm thing in the cold air that pushed the fog back, just for a moment. They stood there, two small figures in a vast, indifferent landscape, laughing at their own absurdity.

When they stopped, the quiet that returned was different. It was comfortable. Companionable.

"Right," Ewan said, wiping his eyes and pulling out the emergency foil blanket from his rucksack. "Let's get warm for a minute and then we'll take my path. Together."

He unfolded the rustling silver sheet and wrapped it around both their shoulders, pulling Rhys in close. The shared warmth was immediate and welcome. Under the blanket, hidden from the mist, Ewan could feel the steady beat of Rhys's heart.

"Your path," Rhys agreed, his voice a low rumble next to Ewan's ear. "But for the record, I'm still navigating us to the pub."