For Everything

Into The Woods

The next day everything changed. I was on my way to school in the morning, excited to see Gale, and I turned the corner of Salmon Street and Trout Lane once more, to see the woman with turquoise hair. She stood on the other side of the road again. I guess this started to become our meeting place. Every day before school, we would stare at each other and eventually she would run away, but not this morning. After a couple minutes of silence, she raised a hand. My heart jumped, for a second I thought she might show me her face, but instead of touching her hood, the woman beckoned to me. I didn't know if I should stay where I was, walk away, or obey. Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I crossed the street. The woman stayed where she was, not getting any closer or farther from me, until I hit the curb. Then she turned and began walking, not running, walking into the trees. I followed. We walked for only a couple of minutes I know that much but it seemed like we passed tree after tree for a matter of hours. The woman turned often but never looked back, with me at a cautious distance behind. Eventually we stop at a small clearing. I have no clue where we are, although I can hear cars passing by. We must be close to the road. The woman points to a small tree a ways away, not moving otherwise. I look at the tree. It's dead, clearly, and small. I walk towards it and it see a hole big enough to look into, about the height of my head. I reach the tree and look through the hole. The trunk is hollow, and has something inside it. I look closer, careful not to block it in a shadow, and gasp. The tree isn't holding something, it's holding someone. Their head is hung down and they have shackles on their hands and feet. The inside of the tree doesn't look like a tree anymore, it's a padded room. The figure sits on a padded bench. I realise I'm not looking through a tree anymore, but the shattered remains of a window, inside some prison of some sort. I reach through the glass and scream. The figure looks up at me and I gasp. I'm looking at myself. I blink and then I'm the one sitting on the padded bench. I'm no longer reaching through the window, Alex is. He screams and thrashes about. I run to him, but my shackles don't let me get all the way to the window as usual. Alex grabs my hands and clutches them in his. He looks at me for a solid second, fear and regret in his eyes, and then he is dragged back out of the window. I look down at my hands. The same words are written on my arms as usual but two new ones are there, the ones Alex must have written. On my left palm is the word THIS and on my right is NOW. LEAVE THIS NOW PRISON. The message isn't completely accurate. LEAVE THIS PRISON NOW! I scream like all the other times and then find myself standing on the corner of Salmon Street and trout Lane once again. Someone was trying to tell me something this whole time, and I never knew. What does it mean though? I'm not in a prison, so how could I leave one? Where do I go when I see these visions? How long have I been here? Oh shoot. I check my phone. 8:47. I'm late. I also have a couple of texts from Gale. I need to find out what is going on here, and fast. I get to school and enter the building. The first thing I see is Felicity, lingering at her locker. "Felicity," I call. She looks up and sees me, then turns to leave. "No, Felicity, wait," she begins to walk away but I grab her arm and spin her around.

"Hunter, what do you wh-" she doesn't get to finish what she's saying because I pull her close into a hug.

"I-I'm sorry, for everything," I say into Felicity's sweater.

She returns my embrace, hugging me back, "I'm sorry too." We stand in that corridor for a while, saying nothing, just hugging each other. Felicity cries softly on my shoulder, and for once I actually feel bad for her. Eventually we break off and just look at each other. "Now," I eventually say, "Felicity. I need to find Gale and Alex. I need to show you all something. Now."

"What?" Felicity says, "What is it?"

"I can't explain. We just need to find them, now." Five minutes later we had Alex, who still was giving me the death glare, but no Gale. I had texted him like a billion times, but he wasn't responding. I didn't know where to go, so eventually we had to give up. I was too anxious to see this tree. I had to see it. We left without Gale, but when I rounded the corner of a hallway, there he was, standing, looking at his phone. "Gale!" I say. He looks up and sighs. "Where were you? I texted you like a billion times."

"I know, I know. I had to do something. I have to talk-" Gale trails off when he says Alex and Felicity behind me, "Why are they here? What's going on Hunter?"

"I don't have time to explain," I say, "If you want to know, you have to follow me." With that I exit the building, Felicity, Alex, and Gale trailing behind me. We walk for a little while until we get to the corner of Salmon Street and Trout Lane, then I cut across the street to where the woman with the turquoise hair always stands, but I don't stop. I head into the treeline, where she led me the first time. "Hunter," Alex whines, "Where are we going? We've been walking for a while now."

"If you don't want to know what's going on, then leave," I say, not looking back "be my guest, but I'm sure the others would like to know." That shuts him up. I stop, purely by instinct, and don't know what's happening. None of the trees look familiar, I don't know where I am, we're lost in the trees.

"Oh great," Alex says, as if reading my mind, "We're lost, aren't we. Great. I don't even know why I even listened to you, much less made an effort to know you that day at lunch. You've done nothing but make things worse. Life was fine before you moved here, Hunter. Now you've got us all lo-"

"Shut up!" I yell at Alex. I wasn't listening to what he was saying, but trying to listen to something else, and his whining was blocking it out. It works. Alex stops talking. I hear something. Cars. Nearby. I knew it. We aren't lost. Out of instinct I walk towards the sound.

"Hunter, maybe we should go back," Felicity tries, but I don't listen. I walk even further into the trees until I get to a small clearing, right where I went before. The tree, the small dead tree stands on the opposite end of the clearing, like before. I walk toward it. "Hunter, what are we doing here? Why did you bring all of us?" Felicity says.

"Yeah, Hunter," Gale says, but doesn't finish, because he catches sight of the tree. Gale pauses, but then walks to the tree also. Felicity and Alex see it too, and follow suit. I reach the tree and find the hole. I look through it. The tree is hollow just like before, but it doesn't have somone in it. It has something, unclear at first, covered in a shadow, but I recognize it almost instantly. Inside the tree, is a pink tutu, identical to one of Rosie's. I gasp and cover my mouth, backing away, stumbling on a dead root. "Hunter?" Gale asks, "What's wrong?" I don't respond, but instead a vision floods my vision. Several children are sitting at the tree's base, talking and playing. One has fiery red hair and pale skin, the other pure blonde. One of them has ginger-blonde hair and freckles, like the fiery red haired one, and the last has brunette hair and soft brown eyes, this one is playing with a smaller child. I gasp again, instantly recognizing my fourth grade self. I recognize Alex and Felicity also Gale, who is holding a shrieking baby girl, rocking her and kissing her. She wears a bright pink onesie and a bright pink bow in the little hair she has. She shrieks again, revealing four teeth, four big teeth. Her hair is in little curls, curls that I also instantly recognize. This baby was the younger version of my sister. Of Rosie.