I grasp at my thin, scratchy blanket, and shift in bed, trying fruitlessly to get more comfortable. What kind of maid would give me a scrawny blanket like this, anyways? I wonder in irritation.
Giving up on sleep, I sit up in bed and open my eyes, blinking away my dazed state to take in my surroundings. I look around the one-room house as my memory creeps back. Handmade furniture and a random assortment of possessions is illuminated by a soft morning light coming from the crack in a slightly agape door.
I turn to my side, but Karlie is gone from the spot she occupied last night.
Still half asleep, I get up out of bed and stumble across the room and out the door. I groan at the glaring rays of the sun and cover my eyes with one hand.
"Karlie?" I call out blindly.
"I'm over here!" a now familiar voice signals from close by.
I peek out from the shelter of my hands, allowing my eyes to gradually adjust to the light. Karlie slowly comes into focus near the fire pit from last night, and I drop my hands, bounding down the steps and walking up to her.
"Morning," she says, looking up from a newfound fire with a meal already cooking inside her frying pan.
"Are those eggs?" I question in surprise.
"Yup," she confirms, moving them around in the pan. "I hope you like them scrambled."
I eye the eggs in interest, wondering where Karlie could have gotten them. They look just like regular chicken eggs, but there's not exactly a grocery store around here.
"They're quail eggs," says Karlie, noticing my confusion. "I found them in the forest this morning."
I stare at her in shock, half expecting her to tell me she was joking. "You went into the forest?"
"What, are you afraid of trees or something?" she asks, a smirk playing at her lips.
"No," I respond defensively, raising my chin in indignation. "It just doesn't seem like the safest thing in the world to go wandering in there."
Karlie gives me one of her signature grins, showing off a row of straight teeth. "Good," she says brightly. "In that case, how about I show you around there today?"
I stare at her blankly, taking a second to register what she said. "T-today?" I stutter. "As in right now?"
"Yeah, of course," she replies casually.
I turn my head to look at the forest, with it's huge trees hiding all types of shadowy, sinister forms. The edge of the woods is an opening to what I can only assume is some type of evil dark abyss, one with which I am not at all compatible with.
Okay, maybe I'm being dramatic. But seriously, I'm on a deserted island somewhere in the middle of the ocean with a creepy forest that holds lord knows what. There could be poisons bugs and tigers or booby traps from mid-evil pirates. The point is, there's no way of telling what's in those woods.
Despite the rising fear in my chest, I clear my throat nonchalantly and try to keep my voice steady. "Okay," I tell Karlie uneasily. "A field trip sounds good."
"Great," she says cheerfully. "We'll leave as soon as we're done with breakfast."
* * *
The forest turns out not to be an evil abyss.
It's worse.
If this were an evil abyss, at least I'd probably die on the spot. But no, I have to live through this suffering.
