Lost In The Woods

Just a nightmare

Emma's whole body tensed. She closed her eyes. She could feel the sensation of a frozen-skeleton-like hand clutching to her lower arm, the spot where she felt the hand slowly tingled and pulsed until it was numb.

"This can't be happening... this isn't happening... you're losing your mind Em!" She mumbled to herself. She fought hard to feel anything else, but there was nothing. Her feet weren't even touching the ground that she could tell.

She would open her eyes and be home. In bed, sleeping, she hadn't gone out with her guy friend later than she should have. She didn't get dumped like yesterday's news on the side of a road. This was all precisely a very life-like nightmare. It's only a nightmare.

Emma opened her eyes when the freezing and numbness began to subside. Her mind could not fathom the tiny town, embedded in the trees that surrounded her.

At first, she thought the colours of the place she woke up to seemed very dark and dreary, shrugging it off with the thought that she had never been to this place. For all, she knew she was just pulled into some other dimension. perhaps the sun was grey, perchance she was color blind to this world.

Looking around, in the shadows beneath the trees, she saw cat-like eyes peeking out.

"Hello." Emma forced an uncomfortable smile while she spoke.

"I was walking and something pulled me in here. I promise; I mean you no harm." Emma stated weakly.

The eyes from the shadows steadily moved closer, blinking leisurely, not to miss anything. Looking Emma up and down, inspecting the stranger who magically appeared in their village.

"What do you need from us, giant?" A woman's voice said sternly.

Emma looked over to see a tiny woman standing on a tree branch, right next to her.

Emma jumped back in shock, not expecting to find tiny people living in tree trunks with doors.

"Tell us why you have come." The tiny woman demanded once more.

"I was brought here. I didn't just jump into the bush in the middle of the night." Emma said, with a look of frustration twisting her, normally pleasant, appearance.

"Why is everything grey?" She asked, her curiosity spilling out.

The tiny woman looked at Emma with anger written across her face, "It's not your concern, giant," she shouted.

"Fine, whatever. Just point me in the direction to the road, and I will leave." Emma responded gruffly.

The tiny people piled out from behind the trees and from inside of the tree trunks.

"What's a road?" She heard them ask.

"Where are you from?" Another shouted.

Emma ignored, what seemed like, silly questions. Each one had a look of confusion as they exited the trees that surrounded her.

"We have heard of this 'road' you speak of, but it's never been found. Good luck." The teeny woman stated with attitude laced between her words, then she waved Emma away, with her small mouse like hand.

Emma turned and sighed, time to start looking. It didn't feel like she was taken far when she was dragged into the woods, but was she really just dragged through the woods that ran down the road?

After walking in a straight line for what felt like days Emma was positive that she was on a different planet. The trees that surrounded her were nothing like the ones that lined the road she walked along.

These were plants she had never seen. Not that she was a plant expert but in her dimension, leaves didn't hold a grey color and they weren't the length of her limbs as the foliage, here was. If she could find similar trees to the ones, she was walking near, she could find the road.

Finding a large tree, she sat beneath the shade of the leaves. It only struck her at that moment that it was night time when she was kidnapped. She wondered to herself if she had passed out at some point. Maybe she was unconscious for a period of time, that would explain it. How much time had she lost? How was she going to get home?

She didn't see any signs of life, no animals, no roads, houses or vehicles. Just fields of fuchsia-coloured grass, assorted flowers in a pastel color scheme and monochromatic trees lining the field as far as her eyes could see.

She couldn't understand why the forest's color wasn't as lively and vibrant as the other parts of this world.

Emma went over the same questions time and time again. She decided to accept the reality before her and started the trek back to the tiny people's village. They were the only signs of life she had seen and without a guide, she was floundering alone in an unknown place.

She retraced her steps through the dense wooded area, careful not to trip on any grey tree roots that stuck out of the ground like tiny wooden roller coasters.

Emma imagined one of the tiny people she had met using the tree roots as slides. Suddenly, she envied their tininess; the whole world was their playground.

If only she could brighten the dull forest up slightly, it would be a place of unimaginable beauty.

She approached the mass of trees that contained the tiny fairy-type creatures she had met earlier. She heard voices as she approached. She peeked over a tree, witnessing what appeared to be a village meeting.

Her balance swayed and she landed on her butt, snapping tree branches on her way down. Alerting the village of her presence. They ran over to see what had caused the interruption.

"I told you to leave, why have you returned?" The woman who spoke earlier asked Emma.

"I searched. I didn't see any signs of human life." She explained.

The whole village began to laugh. Emma waited for the hilarity to pass.

"If you knew there weren't any humans near by why wouldn't you tell me that?" Emma asked in a stern voice.

"This isn't the world you think it is, dear." A child-sized person ambled up the tree branches and handed her wallet to her, grunting and panting with each laboured step.

"Thank you." Emma said, her mind spun in confusion, 'not the world she thought it was.' What was going on, how would she get home from a different world?

The tiny angry woman, who seemed to lead the group stepped forward. She adjusted the sleeves of her floor-length brown robe, merely a doll's coat in Emma's eyes.

"The villagers have convinced me to show you mercy. Therefore, you may stay the night for the safety of our village. I want you gone with the first sun light!' The woman shouted, the noise so low it barely echoed through the trees.

Emma nodded and sat against a tree that didn't have a visible entrance into a fairies' home. What else could possibly go wrong?