The Game

Suicide Forest

Chapter 8- Suicide Forest

“Dana!” Someone tapped on the outside of my tent and I, as any normal person would, rolled over and moaned.

 “Get up!” I heard the voice say again. It sounded urgent. I almost cared. Emergencies simply cannot happen this early in the morning.

 The flaps of my tent ripped open and Greg stuck his head through. “Dana. Tent. Out. Now.”

 Rubbing my eyes, I lifted from my sleeping bag and asked, “Is there something wrong?”

 “Is anything that has happened to us so far right?” he answered and I shrugged at that. I slipped on another jacket and stepped out of the tent.

 What I saw, I did not expect.

 There were trees on all sides of us, as usual, but these were the wrong trees. They weren’t the pine and fir I always knew. The ground wasn’t covered in shrubbery and pine needles, either. Instead, roots and bushes tangled into one another and spread up the trees. The changes were subtle, of course, but I could tell just by the smell and the feel of the air that we were not in my home.

 “This is a different forest.”

 “What a completely useful statement.” Greg said.

 Nate appeared, climbing over a wall of tree trunks and roots. “It’s clear we’re no longer in the Pacific Northwest region.”

 “We aren’t in Oregon anymore, Toto.” Greg said.

 I rolled my eyes and scoffed, “What a completely useful statement.” He chuckled and smiled down at me.

 Nate dusted off his hands as he approached. “I’m glad you’re up, Frostbite. Something seems to be a bit off.” The corner of his lips twitched and I was reminded of the day I first met him when he could barely keep his mouth straight.

 “The fey?” I asked, and as he nodded the smirk fell away. “Is this just another illusion, or are we really somewhere else?”

 “Tell me.” Nate said and took a step closer. “Does it feel like when you were alone with the mindscaper?”

 My brow scrunched up as I looked around. No, the edges of my vision weren’t blurred. Every detail of my surroundings was crystal clear and there was no déjà vu feeling. I shook my head. “Where do you think we are?”

 Nate sighed, “I know exactly where we are.”

 “Really?” Greg looked confused. He locked eyes with Nate and signals were shared between them before he said, “We’ll follow you.”

 A few minutes later I had packed up my tent, stomped out the remaining pieces of the fire, and had followed Nate over the tree trunk wall. We had been walking for a few minutes, with Greg behind me as Nate led and a silence so thick it was heavy surrounded us on all sides. It wasn’t because of awkward tension between any of us, though. Being in a life or death situation caused you to need to rely on people very quickly, and suddenly strangers are friends. Already I depended on the two, no matter that I knew nothing about them. So it was a different, more finable tension crushing in on me.

 This tension caused my throat to close up and I became so intensely… sad. I wanted to stop walking, and just lie down. I wasn’t physically tired, but my mind just wanted to get away. I wanted to give up. Something was pulling me down, choking me, drowning me.

 “Are you okay?” Greg asked as he took my hand. Nate turned around and his eyes widened. He touched my cheek and pulled away, a teardrop on his fingertip. Was I crying?