1 In the woods
It was already completely dark outside, no trace of any man-made light source thorough as far as my eyes could see...
...well, except for my phone that is...
...my phone with a dying battery and no reception in this damned forest on this damned mountain on this damned stupid hike trail that was far too hard for an inexperienced first-time hiker like myself!
Oh, well, at least the fresh mountain air did help clear my mind just like my mother told me it would do - a shame that now I'm stuck in this terrible terrible situation in a place that's over five hours by bus away from any human settlement!
Just my luck...
I'm going to get eaten by some bear...
...or pack of wolves...
...or a gang of hungry squirrels, or something - great!
Just great!
Peachy!
"..."
I barely held myself back from throwing the useless phone, that was holding on to one percent of battery life, against the nearest tree.
I'm getting paid way too little to be able to relive my stress in such a petty way.
By this point, you are probably wondering, who is this lost angry girl?
Well...
My name is Alexis L. Smith.
The L. stands for Luna.
As for why - my father is a book nerd and he liked a certain series about a certain wizard and my mother did not recognize the reference until it was too late.
Yeah.
As for what am I doing in the dark forest in the middle of nowhere...
That's a bit awkward story.
So, I finished college with a moderate amount of debt - that I will most likely never be able to pay off anyway - to my name, as well as a piece of paper that was supposed to be useful to find a job.
Well - the master's in management sure does help me brew coffee for my coworkers, in a branch of a big-name corporation.
At least the skills I've gained studying day and night, sacrificing sleep and my social life, help me take my mind off of the stacks of paperwork that my lovely supermodel-beauty level coworkers keep adding onto my desk under the pretext that they are doing it as an extended work-training.
Pale-ass jerks - I guess that shoving all of their work assignments on me leaves them with a lot of time for doing makeup and going to the gym while the only thing I get is backpains and physical exhaustion!
Seriously!
I've been overworking myself so much I started having troubles with my memory!
I never had problems with memorizing things or anything, but recently I found myself blacking out in the office in the middle of the day - someone would call me and I would stand up from my chair but the next thing I could recall was sitting back down!
Though, that may be because my brain began to erase the annoying memories to save me from a complete mental breakdown...
Oh, and just the blackouts aren't the worst part of it!
There are two sore spots on my neck that popped on their own all of a sudden!
Apparently, that's something that can happen because of stress, or at least that's what that one forum had told me.
Those little wounds look annoyingly similar to hickeys but are way more painful – so even trying to apply makeup on them was so horrible that I just settled for one big band-aid.
...not like I had any time or will to put on makeup anyway...
Ugh...
I should have gone to a spa... why did I let my mother convince me that this spot place would be better...?
...haaaaaaaaaah...
With all that I...
"AH!"
As I was so surprised by a fluorescent marking on the tree I passed that not only I had to make a double-take but ended up gasping out loud and pointing at it like an idiot – good thing that no one could see me in the darkness!
But, with all the self-deprecation stuff out of the way, there was a fluorescent arrow right under a different marking painted on the bark!
Wait... was it pointing towards the exit or the best viewpoint...?
Oh, who cares?! Since it was clearly not done by some animal, there should be something at the end of the trail, right? If not some old-time radio tower then at least any sort of shelter that I could spend the night without constantly worrying about getting eaten!
With my spirits lifted I decided to follow whenever the glowing arrow was pointing.
I tripped a whole lot and almost walked into a tree on four separate occasions until my eyes got fully used to the darkness so I could at least recognize the slightly darker spots as obstacles – but getting used to the dark also meant that I was much more perceptive when it came to any light – and thanks to that, spotted another arrow that pointed me to another and so on and so on.
I focused all my attention on following those arrows – I mean, I had to, otherwise, I would get too scared to even move!
The sounds are especially unnerving...
Do you think that the forest at night is silent?
Think again!
There's always something rustling nearby, the sound of tree branches creaking even though there's no wind, the sudden screech of an owl might give you a heart attack... The faint echoes of the bass-boosted hardstyle songs that might seem completely out of place are in fact an essential part of the nigh...
...wait... what...?
The last thing IS completely out of place! What the heck?!
I suddenly jolted in realization.
Since there was music – there had to be people – and the arrows definitely were leading me them!
...forgive me here for not realizing that there clearly was something wrong with the situation but, in my defense, I was ridiculously scared for my life in the wild...
...and I, well, followed the music – and the darkness was slowly getting brighter and brighter the more I walked and soon enough I found myself basically running towards a huge bonfire burning brightly like a beacon of hope through the darkness– the heavy music was coming from the exact same spot too.
I was basically crying with relief once I passed the last trees and entered a huge clearance – with the bonfire in the center and tables set all around it with human figures clearly enjoying themselves – and I fell to my knees since my legs literally couldn't handle it anymore.
I was safe!
...or was I...?
