CHAPTER I
There I was in the middle of no where. All I could see for miles on end, as much as the open fire permitted, were tall thick trees with tiny bits of the starlit night sky peeking through. The cool breeze of the night and its soft whistling as it brushed the leaves made the night perfect for sleep. Other than that and the chirping of crickets, along with the silent crackling of the open fire in front of me, everything else was oddly still and quiet. As eerie as the scenario was, all I wanted to do was lay back beside the warm open fire pit, on the unknown piece of cloth that was perfectly draped underneath and around me, and fall back asleep. Nothing about this felt real. My brain was convinced that it was just a weird, hyper-realistic dream. But the sticky feeling on my hands, and the growing pungent stench around me, made that hard for me to believe.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, readying myself to play along till I could snap out of this illusion. The only thing I thought to do first was to reach for my phone in the back pocket of my jeans. I somehow expected I'd be there. I wasn't sure what exactly I was planning to do with it. My whole body felt numb as I adjusted to sit up. My mind was unexplainably still, as if everything was normal. As if I had just randomly woken up in my bed, ready to scroll on TikTok before starting my day. I don't know why I lacked a sense of urgency to understand what on earth I was doing deep in a forest this late at night. Even if it was a dream, it still all felt quite ridiculous, or I guess, somewhat too bizarre to take seriously.
According to my phone, It was currently 3:36 am. I was surprised to see that I had phone service in such a place. I thought of calling someone first but who would understand something that I myself didn't know how to explain. I wasn't that close with anyone, honestly I knew I never had anyone like that, so I chose to open my camera app first instead. I could barely see anything, just the outline of my face. To get a better look I slowly began inching closer to the bright light of the crackling flame in front of me. Once I got close enough, every calm and collected bone in me burned to dust. It's as if I was slapped back into the reality that everything was not okay. For once I gave an appropriate response. I gasped in horror of my appearance, so immensely shocked by my image that I quickly moved back, causing me to loose grip of my phone. It slipped from my hands and fell straight into the burning furnace.
"No no no!" I exclaimed, as I frantically searched for a stick to shove it out, but of course I was too late. Once I got it out, I could tell it was gone for good. Nothing from here on felt dream-like anymore. What I saw in my camera, on my face, woke me up to the alarming situation. I had claw marks all over my face, dried substance in various places. I could now feel the tight sensation on my face as if I had a dried face mask on. But this had that irony scent, too familiar to me since I had been the clumsy kid while growing up. From right beneath my nose all the way down to my chin was more of what I now knew was dried blood. I couldn't tell if it was all mine. It was too much to be all mine. Spreading all over my shirt and jean shorts, my arms and legs as well, the ever-present stench now made sense. I was pretty much bathed in blood, but it was all almost dried up. My hands were still sticky. Fresh blood. From where?, I questioned. Nothing made sense.
I sat there blankly staring at the open flame. Who lit this? Then I looked down and stared at the soft velvet blanket that was wrapped around me. Whose is this? These questions that I had no answers to, and the growing fear within me caused tears to begin to well up in my eyes. I felt hopeless and utterly confused. And with my phone completely useless, I wasn't sure how I would get out of this.
I was in the middle of pinching myself as hard as I could, as punishment for not calling someone the second I had the chance, when I heard a faint cry near by.