All Shall Fade

Chapter 2

Double Take

  “Bloody hell…” I groaned, rolling onto my side and clutching my throbbing head. I’d blinked awake a few seconds ago and had only just realised what had happened… Trust me to run into a tree and knock myself out.

  I swore under my breath as I sat up and winced as I lightly touched the egg-shaped lump on my head. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my collision had caused me to lose half my brain cells. I looked up at the tree that had caused the whole fiasco and glared at it. “This is your fault.” I muttered, and then realised that I was talking to a tree. I also realised that it was morning. Claire and Toby would probably be worried about me.

  I felt a dull pain in my chest as I thought about Toby, but I decided to push the thoughts about him away. Priority number one was to get back to the campsite. I scrambled to my feet and then grabbed the tree as I was hit by a bout of head-rush. “Ugh…” I mumbled as it slowly cleared and I was able to see straight again. I turned back in the direction of the campsite and started walking. I hadn’t really registered how far I’d run into the forest last night, but I figured around five minutes of walking would get me back. I was slightly peeved that neither Toby nor Claire had come looking for me… Ok, to be fair, Jess had tried to follow me, but she was a dog and wouldn’t have been able to help much… Unless she was secretly Lassie. I highly doubted it.

  After a good few minutes of walking, I still hadn’t found our campsite. I frowned to myself and looked around. I couldn’t see a single sign of there being a clearing anywhere. I downright refused to believe that I was lost, go I struck out in a different direction, being careful to drag my feet through the leaves that littered the ground so I left a clear path.

  Wait…Leaves?

   I looked down at the ground, and then up at the trees that were coated in leaves that varied from pale green to a deep golden brown.What? No… That couldn’t be right. We had been camping in an evergreen forest. Evergreen… It should have been all pine needles and fir cones. Not leaves.

   And for one thing, it was the middle ofsummer… Not autumn. This made no sense.

  I turned around and quickly followed my rough path back to the tree I had started at, and I had to stare at it for a few seconds, just so I could believe that I was actually seeing it.

There was a pine tree in the middle of a deciduous forest.

There was a deciduous forest where there should have been and evergreen one.

What thehellwas going on here?

I walked up to the tree and poked its rough bark. Yep, it was definitely there. “This is impossible…” I whispered quietly, before turning away. “Toby?” I cried, “Claire? Guys? Are you out there?” The only answer I received was my own echo bouncing off the trees. Nothing else… Ok, now I was officially creeped out. I rooted in my pocket for my mobile phone and smiled as I realised that I had it with me – and then groaned as I saw the massive crack across the screen. I gingerly turned it on and smiled as it beeped to life – singing out the familiar Nokia tune. The image of its background was warped, but I was still able to see that I had no signal, and my battery was dangerously low. I glanced at the blurred image of me, Claire and Toby on last year’s trip that served as my screen wallpaper, before turning off my phone to conserve the battery. I shoved it back into my pocket and looked around. Right, so by the looks of things, I was lost in a strange forest. That definitely wasn’t good. Before I could start panicking, I took a deep breath and told myself to wise up. “It’s only a forest.” I muttered, “You’ve probably been here before, so you just need to work out where you are so you can get back to the campsite.” I smiled a little after I’d reassured myself. Common sense told me that I should start walking. Ok, so the forest mightn’t be familiar to me right now, I just needed to find some sort of landmark. None of the forests in the Mournes were particularly big, so if I just kept walking in one direction, I’d make it out and find somewhere recognisable. “Sounds like a plan.” I said out loud, trying to cheer myself up by filling the silence. As I picked a random direction and started walking I wished that I had my iPod with me, it was eerily quiet in the forest. To distract myself from the fact that I was lost and alone, I sang to myself, belting out the lyrics of my favourite songs as I tried to keep going in a straight line.

I was still walking by the time the sun was high in the sky, and I estimated that I’d been walking in the same direction for at least four hours – I wished I hadn’t left my watch in my tent... I should have made it out of the forest, or at the very least have found a path by now. I frowned, but decided it was best to keep going. After another few hours, my stomach began to complain of the lack of food. I’d eaten nothing since my meagre meal last night, and I’d been walking pretty much all day without any sustenance. I gritted my teeth and pressed on. I roughly knew what plants were safe to eat; I’d just keep an eye out for some. I was thirsty too, but I figured I’d stumble across a stream sooner or later. I shoved my hands into my pockets as my fingers began to get cold, and was surprised to find a few more items in my pockets. I pulled out the pencil I had been using last night, and my penknife that I always took camping. I shrugged and put them safely back in my pocket. They might come in handy later. I walked on for about another half hour, with a rumbling stomach accompanying me the whole way, before I found a small river. I crouched down beside it and cupped some water in my hands, drinking it thirstily and wishing that I had a bottle or something to fill up. I also hoped that there wasn’t a dead sheep or something equally unpleasant upstream, but the water seemed fine. I splashed my warm face before sitting back and surveying my surroundings.

“Ok… Still in a forest.” I mumbled, running a hand through my tangled hair. I stood and looked around. Heading in one direction had gotten me nowhere so far, so I decided to try following the river downstream. In theory, I’d either hit some kind of civilization or the sea – it was a better plan than wandering aimlessly, and now I had something to follow. I got up and started walking again, not allowing myself to stop for too long, otherwise it would be hard to get going again. My feet were starting to hurt, and I could feel the beginnings of a blister on my heel. Brilliant.

I exhaled heavily and wiped my damp hands on my hoodie before following the river onwards. After another hour or so of walking, I was surprised to find myself standing on the outskirts of a marsh. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of stagnant water, before delicately picking my way along the edge. It was hard to stay between the river and the marsh, and more than once I ended up with a boot-full of bog water. Biting insects swarmed around my head as I futilely tried to swat them away. I flicked the hood of my hoodie up and shoved my hands into my pockets as I tramped on, until I placed one foot on what Ithoughtwas a patch of grass – and suddenly found myself up to my waist in the muddy water.

“Ew…” I shuddered, swatting at the midges that nipped at my skin, before grabbing a firm hold of the peaty earth that surrounded me and hauling myself out of my watery ditch. I sat on the spongy ground to catch my breath as I realised how lucky I was. If that had been a proper peat bog, I would probably have been sucked under. I scowled at my saturated, muddy leggings and boots, and made a feeble attempt at cleaning them on the brittle grass, before giving up and walking on.

Today really sucked.

My mood had been deteriorating all day; I was hungry, muddy, tired, sore, bitten andlost. I was determined to keep it together though. Sitting down and having an emotional breakdown wouldn’t help me at all.

I wrapped my arms around my torso – as if I could physically hold myself together – and ducked my head as I walked. I could feel a faint drizzle hitting my face, but it didn’t seem like it was going to turn into proper rain, it just added to the already damp atmosphere… No pun intended. I sighed to myself as I saw an end to the marshes, and – wait for it – more trees. This was getting ridiculous. It occurred to me that I might be dreaming, and this was all some weird nightmare that I’d wake up from soon. I bit down on my bottom lip, really hoping that I was about to wake up, either back under the tree in the real forest, or in my tent, or even better – at home. I wished I was at home right now, curled up on the sofa with Jess, probably daydreaming of my gallery’s opening night…

“Ouch!” I squeaked as I was abruptly jerked back to reality as I tripped over something. “Oh my Godgross.” I said, flinching away from the half-eaten deer carcass I had just quite literally stumbled across. I felt bile rise in my throat and quickly walked on before I could deposit whatever was left in my stomach. As if my day couldn’t get any better, I’d just put my blistered, muddy foot in a corpse. Ew… “Sorry Bambi.” I muttered, shuddering a little as I made for the trees that rose up before me. Once I was under the cover of the forest, I was relieved of both the biting insects and the mist of rain, so I pulled my hood down. It was beginning to get dark, but I really didn’t want to spend the night out here. It didn’t seem like I would have a choice though, I hadn’t found my way out of here yet, and it would be stupid to walk around in the dark – that was how I got into this mess in the first place.

I sighed in defeat as I began scouting for a place to sleep, but making sure I kept close to the river. Eventually I settled on the relatively dry, mossy ground beneath a large tree and set about building a rough shelter. I’d been taught what to do if I got lost in a forest and was forced to sleep rough – I just never thought it would actually happen. I gathered an armful of large fallen branches and leant them up against the tree, securing them to the ground by kicking dirt over the base. I filled the gaps with twigs and anything else I could get my hands on before crawling inside. It wasn’t half bad in here, it was better than facing the elements on my own anyway. I didn’t have matches or anything to start a fire, so I figured the best thing to do was to try and get some sleep. I nestled myself between the large roots of the tree and hugged myself for warmth as I closed my eyes. Outside I could hear everything – the wind blowing, the trees rustling, the river flowing… It was so noisy compared to the night time silence I was used to. I pulled my hood back over my head, and that seemed to work as a noise-block. I sighed to myself and curled up into a tight ball as I slowly drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

***

“God Damn it!” I screamed upon waking up and finding I was still in my little woodland shelter. There was a part of me that had been betting on waking up and finding that it had all been a dream. I angrily kicked my way out into the pale dawn and peered at the trees around me. Yep. Still here… Well, there seemed like nothing else to do but keep going… Brilliant, just bloody brilliant. I scowled as I shoved my hands into my hoodie pocket and stamped away from my shelter, following the river that I had discovered the day before.

The majority of my second day alone in the wilderness was spent pretty much in the same fashion as the first. I followed the river mindlessly until around midday, the whole time my stomach was driving me mad from a combination of strange noises and hunger pains. It felt like I was trying to digest myself. Om nom nom. I growled under my breath in irritation, trying not to think of any of the nice foods I could have been eating if Ihadn’trun off into this god forsaken-

I looked up in the middle of my thought track as I was startled by a sudden movement up ahead. I stared hard at where I’dthoughtI’d seen something move… But I couldn’t be sure. I crept forwards, my eyes darting from side to side as I nervously searched for whatever had caught my attention. Seconds later, something sprang out of a bush in front of me. “Jesus Christ!” I yelped, tripping backwards and falling ungracefully onto my behind as a rabbit scampered off back into the bushes. “Scared by a rabbit? You’re a wimp Alice.” I scolded myself as I scrambled to my feet and dusted off my leggings. Well, that was the firstaliveanimal I’d seen in a while… That had to be a good sign. I smiled a little as I began to walk on, when another rustle in the bushes made me stop. “Probably just another rabbit…” I muttered to myself as I moved on, trying not to think of whatever axe-wielding cannibalistic madman could be lurking amongst the trees, just waiting to jump out and- “Get a grip.” I hissed, “Nothing’s out there. It’s just you and the forest.”

Somehow, that was a scarier thought than the murderer one.

I shook my head and carried on, but more than once I heard more rustling, and every few minutes I’dthinkthat I’d caught a glimpse of something. But it’s like the shadow in the corner of your eye – no matter how fast you look, you’ll never catch it. I ran a hand through my tangled hair, wincing as I found twigs and leaves snared in its frizzy mass. I would kill to be lying in a nice warm bubble bath right now...There it was again!My head snapped to the side as I swore I saw a person moving amongst the trees just ahead of me. Part of my frazzled brain told me that it was just my imagination, but the other part was telling me to go investigate – they might be able to lead me out of this forest. I walked deeper into the trees; leaving the river behind me as I searched for the mysterious figure I thought I’d seen. “Hello?” I called, peering around a tree, “Is there anyone out there? Hello?” I frowned as it occurred to me that it could be Toby or Claire – what if they were playing some huge practical joke on me, and had been watching me this whole time? If that was the case then the second I got my hands on them they were so-

I shrieked as I was suddenly grabbed from behind and pressed up against a tree. I heard a strange metallic sound and a millisecond later the tip of a long blade was pressed against my throat.