I was lost in the middle of nowhere.

I turn around, clinging to that last bit of hope, and my necklace, that maybe maybe my friends are playing some not-funny joke on me?

But the closer I looked, the more I saw that they were not there. I couldn't even spot their footprints on the wet earth from the earlier rain, while I was pretty sure I left them there when I went to the waterfall, beside the reddish tree.

How fast could they have gathered their things and left? Where are they anyways?

My red backpack, ma favorite backpack, the one my father bought me the last birthday before they got seperated, was nowhere to be found. I had no lights, no phone, no compass, no idea where I was, or how I was going to find my way back, and the sun was already close to setting down.

The last thought made my hair rise up.

I looked around. Everything looks so scary without daylight. I hated hikings at night, and I hated jokes. It hadn't been my idea to go out at this hour, but was my friends', the ones who left me here. Are they going to come back?

― Hello? I called in the empty forest, while looking for any motion.  Anybody here? Rosalie? Teric? Shane? C'mon, it's not funny, guys...!The sun is almost down. We need to go back.

I couldn't keep my voice from shaking. When no sound was made, besides some birds with blue bellies clapping their wings, fear, with a seizing amount of pain started to settle in, and I sat down, rocking myself while hugging my knees as I focused on my uneven breathing.

Did my friends leave me too? Like my families? Why do people always leave? What's wrong with the Universe being so hard on humanity?

I never deserved any of this.

I inhaled the fresh rain air from my memories, forcing my eyelids closed before I started hyperventilating. I let them take somewhere else, and I almost fooled myself because when I opened them slowly, the smelling-fire mist previously hanging low was long gone.

I've always loved forests. It's a fact about me, famous sixteen-year-old Alyssa Fridays but I don't think anyone besides my last parents knew that.

But I've always loved forests.

That's why when my father offered me a sejour here with my friends, in our cabin, I couldn't resist finding myself in the middle of the forest's sooth voice or in the arms of the warm lake water..., or just sitting on a rock and letting the soft wind brush my raven hair.

I've always loved forests.

They've always help me to sort things through, or made me smile when I was having a bad day. Forests would associate deep meaning to the "It's a great day to be alive" sentence, the one I tried to convince myself of a lot the past few months, the one I heard my father mumble to himself everytime something doesn't go like he planned.

My father always thanked God for the opportunities he was given. I would sometimes find myself wondering how it would feel to have such a strong faith in God, how it would feel to believe that everything happens for a reason.

How great life would be with those kind of thoughts?

I take off some orange leaves fallen on my hair, and start smoothing them one by one, my green eyes hagard. Unlike my life, the forest had something special about it. It had steady rythm. Everything was inter-connected.  Everything was perfectly under control. There were no surprises while I was always in for some unpleasant surprise,  or twist. 

My life, Alyssa Fridays' life was a mess, and everyone, everyone besides my friends, enjoyed highlighting it. Even the media. God, I hate them so much. Always sneaking glances in other people's life. Always looking for a new subject of gossip. It wasn't helping our family that we were so famous in North America.

When I heard some shuffling,  I quickly got up on my feet, and started lacing my pink, mid-calf hiking boots, set to leave the forest before strange things started happening.

Only light has the power to keep monsters at bay.

They must have been three or four, beasts probably. And I was not intending to spend the night with them. Not tonight. I still had around ten minutes before sundown. Maybe I could still make it to a road? Or better even,  my cabin? It thought it must be around twenty-five minutes away from there.

I started running in the direction I thought I came from, but more frequently than not, slowing down because of the very low branches, and of how closely the autumn trees were placed. The ground was uneven, and my vision blurry because I left my round glasses with my friends. So basically, I looked like a toddler with my wobbly running.

In my jogging, I couldn't stop myself from occasionally sneaking glances at the sky, and by the time it was dawn, fear started to slowly creep up my heart because I still couldn't hear any roads, nor find something,  anything, to hint at me that I was almost safe.

I jumped out of my skin when I heard a loud howl.

Was this how I was going to die? Was this how death felt like? Lonely? Did it drain the energy from your body long before you kiss goodbye to earth?

I was already considering clmbing to a tree to rest, when something caught my attention. I squinted my tearing eyes ahead between the orange, yellow and red leaves, moving my head to get a better view.
Without more thinking,  I followed it like my headlight in a stormy sea. I didn't even need to see anymore with how bright it was.  The more I walk, the clearer the frame became. When my eyes finally landed on it, the whole it, a few minutes later, I would have fell down on my knees and thanked the good Lord for guiding me here if I hadn't rushed to the big wooden cabin.

A sense of relief washed over me as I realized it was the cabin my father always came to on his frequent trips! I recognised it from his photos when he came to see me in my mom's house.

My eyes filled with tears everytime I saw him on my mansion's doorway one time a month, because I knew he was going to leave me again soon. And it broke my heart to see him without being able to keep him. It also broke my heart that he might think I just gave up on him, because I never ever really gave up on him.

I just had to leave.

See? Goodbyes are the worst. They never correctly express our feelings.

Since my parents got divorced two years ago, I barely get to see him anymore as he was more frequent to this place. He practically lived there since my jerk stepmother convinced him to stay , with her, alone. I had seen jealousy painted all over her soft brown features the day i met her. It was only a trick to keep him all for herself, but that in itself was not fair! He was my father, and I would have got to see him every day like before had she not put her greedy grey eyes on him.

Why everytime I open up to someone, why every time I trust and love someone, they just leave me?

Maybe it was real the thing my first abusive mother said everytime she came for me, that nothing is everlasting, that in the end, they all go.

I shivered. The thought of facing another stepmom's scowly face was not appealing,  but the thought of staying in the almost pitch dark night even less. I turned the wooden doorknob, which was surprisingly unlocked, and stepped in the dark house.

The smell of pine slapped me two times in the face. My father was a firm believer of the "If you can't live in the forest, then bring it to you" sentence.

― Hello? Daddy? Are you here?

I took off my shoes and walked on thd sleek black parquet straight around the green modern furniture to the black wooden eating table, where I sat and waited for him to come. I tried taking off the mud from the rough fabric of my jeans, but after a few minutes, gave up, and took a red rose from the transparent vase to smell it. It brang a lot of childhood memories. It was the first time I came to a family where one of my parents actually shared similar interests.

The more I waited, the more I knew he was not coming. There was that hollow calm in the house that just made my hair rise up. I fninally gave up to the idea that the lights must have turned on automatically.

And that's when I noticed. 

Even with my blurry vision, I could still see the dark substance sliding down the wall ahead as slow as a baby crawling.

I walked toward it with sloppy feet, my fallen ponytail on my right shoulder, and feeling incredibly unskilled without my golden round glasses. I moved the giant planted pine tree. 

There were a lot of photos on either side of the big window, all in small black frames. At first it looked like a fan's collection, but the closer you looked, the more you saw it: the pattern. The people were not just ordinary people, they were all between fifteen and twenty years old, and the fact that they all disappeared sometime this year must have something to do with the bloody slash on them. They were all rich famous.

I screamed when I felt the something heavy fall down on my boot from...

my friend Rosalie's photo.

And it was fresh.

  Tears as big as footballs fell from my eyes as I rushed to the door, breathing hitched,  and sweating like a crazy. I suspected any moment one of the cabin's owner ―my father or his crazy wife, or God knows who― to show up and jab me in the heart like all those victims.

Because the photos do not lie. I was the next.

Unfortunately, I never made it outside.

Just as I opened the door, a feminine hooded figure blocked my way to liberty. My scream, ― a scream so high of despair, and fear, ― tore through the air for the second time that night when . . .

I collapsed to the floor from happiness.

THE END.