There's so much mystery to unpack on Showtime's brutal new series Yellowjackets, and it all stems back from the horrible things that the titular high school soccer team did to survive while out in the wilderness for more than a year. We know that the Yellowjackets eventually resorted to cannibalism — and, more importantly, murder — while out in the wilderness, but despite getting that brutal bombshell early on in the series, we're still in the dark about exactly how they got there.

One huge clue is the symbol that keeps appearing in Yellowjackets — first on the postcards sent the survivors of the plane crash, and then, in the flashbacks, etched into a tree.

Something about the symbol points to the lengths that the living Yellowjackets did to survive, but what's interesting is that they stumbled upon the symbol while in the woods — the survivors didn't create it themselves with a hidden meaning.

Knowing what we know — what might the symbol mean, and why is it making the survivors so nervous? One theory suggests that the symbol might be a clue that the Yellowjackets were not the only people in the woods, and that they joined forced with another group who was already there and had left the symbol as a marker.

The idea of the Yellowjackets crash landing in a zone that was already occupied might sound unbelievable, but we already know that there was at least one person living in a cabin (who died there) long before the Yellowjackets plane went down. What if he wasn't the only one? What if he met his demise because he came upon a group of not-so-friendly people, who didn't like that he had built a cabin on their land?

For decades, people have passed down legends of feral cannibals living in the woods, and it wouldn't be surprising if Yellowjackets was borrowing from these modern-day myths for its horror story. What would be interesting, however, is if the Yellowjackets (at least some of them, anyway) joined forces with a second clan living in the woods, if only to save themselves.

This would explain the scene in which a group of girls engages in a cannibalistic ritual, in which they consume the body of an unseen girl who was killed in a trap. With the exception of Misty, we don't know who else was in this "dinner party" scene due to their masks, but it's possible that not every single person who was at the dinner party was also a member of the Yellowjackets. It might be a mix of Yellowjackets and these feral people who lived off the grid in the woods — some of the girls could have gone off with this second group in order to ensure their own survival, even if that meant murdering their friends for food in the process.

It could also explain why we only see a small amount of survivors in present day. We know there are some people living off the grid, but the ones we focus on could be the people who teamed up with this second group, and did despicable things. That may be why the postcards all arrive with the symbol: Someone is threatening to expose their secret allegiance with the cannibals.

There's still so much more mystery to unravel, and since we've yet to meet anyone who wasn't on the plane yet in the past, we'll have to wait and see if anyone else pops up in the woods. One thing to note, though? Anyone surviving in this harsh environment very likely had to do a few terrible things in order to live.