We started down the road when I realized I hadn’t asked her anything about herself, assuming I already knew everything since she had been in my recurring dreams. She interrupted my thoughts, “I’m surprised you just decided to team up with me to search for big brother…”
I jumped back a little, “Well… um… to be honest, I’ve been having—”
She interrupted me once more, “Peculiar dreams, huh? Same here… That’s why I had come to you out of everyone else in this world”.
“Your name is Natsuki, right?”
“Yup… that’s it alright.” It got silent; we kept trekking down the hill to who knows where. “In these dreams, I recall a forest just east from here… maybe we should check there?” she suggested.
I remember the woods from the dreams too! Strange… “Okay, that sounds like a good idea,” I pant as we continue to the forest.
The road is pretty old since this town is a bit run down. I almost tripped over a major crack, but I regained myself before slamming my head into the concrete below. Natsuki chuckled at my clumsiness. As we reached the top of the next hill, we could see the forest in the near distance. “We’re almost there. Just a couple hundred steps more,” she gestured.
We finally got to the forest. There was a sign posted in front of us that read ‘THE LOST WOODS’. As soon as we read that, my heartbeat sped up, my hands got numb, and a shiver crawled through my bones. No one ever DARES to enter these woods. Word around town is that a man went in on accident never to be seen again. The name repeated over and over in my head. Suddenly, I remembered a game I would play when I was younger, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the game, the Lost Woods is a maze-like area of perplexing forests. Its design was intended to make anyone who enters to become irreversibly lost, and the only way to exit the forest is by navigating it in specific directions.
I looked over at Natsuki, and she seemed perfectly fine. She returned the glance, nodded, and slowly, we stepped into our destiny.
