My body becomes as still as a statue.

Perhaps I even stop breathing. But the moment the noise of the snake slithering closer reaches my ears, my body's Fight-Or-Flight response gets activated. Just as I'm about to leap away, July raises both his hands, mouthing the words stay still with an urgent look on his face.

Stay still?! How the fuck am I supposed to stay still when there's a snake right behind me?!

But he's right. If I move away too fast, it will provoke the snake even more than its already provoked because of me stepping into its house.

Nonetheless, panic grips my entire body. I begin to tremble all over, eyes widened to their limits as I look at July with intense desperation. He hastily looks all around him, until his eyes settle on a long piece of branch lying nearby. He walks over to it and touches it, but doesn't immediately pick it up. My heart keeps drumming against my chest so hard that my eyes start to lose their focus and my legs weaken up.

"Cedar," he says, eyes fixed to the snake, "when I tell you to run, you immediately run, okay?"

I hold my breath, trying my best to stiffen my body completely. Pound pound. I can't take this. I literally cannot-

"RUN!"

The next few things happen in a single second. July leaps towards me with a scream while I leap to my left with another scream and begin to run blindly with all the strength in my legs. Every time my right foot lands on the ground, a shot of pain moves through the whole leg, but I don't stop. I pass trees after trees, jump over fallen logs, leaves crunching below my shoes. I can feel my heartbeats in my entire body as I distance myself as much as I can from the snake.

Suddenly, a hand grabs mine and I was about to let out another shriek, but then I realize it's just July, who pulls me along so that I can run faster. The forest on both sides becomes a blurry fast-forwarded video, my whole body aches, my breath gets stuck, but even among this whole mess, I feel the surge of adrenaline thrumming in my veins.

Running. Running is freedom.

July, who was running ahead of me while holding my hand, finally stops at a random open space. Unable to stop myself in time, I crash into him, and together we tumble onto the hard ground. Since I land on him it doesn't hurt much for me, but he lets out a loud yelp. I quickly roll over and lie on my back beside him. I want to ask him if he's okay, but I've completely lost my breath.

In, out. In, out. Shit. In, out. Oh God, is my heart okay? In, out. Maybe I'm gonna pass out again. In, out. Ugh, my body. In, out.

I can't believe we literally just ran as if we were being chased by a hungry cheetah instead of a snake.

When my breathing finally becomes stable, I turn sideways to look at July. He is lying on his stomach, face buried into his arms. After I blink and focus my vision properly, I realize that he is trembling.

I prop myself up on my elbows and put my hand on his back. "July, are you okay? Are you hurt, hmm?"

He mumbles something into his arms.

"I can't hear you, July. Did I- did I hurt you?"

He raises his head up to his chin. "I- I accidentally killed the snake."

"Huh?"

"I didn't want to." I see a drop of tear falling on his sleeve. "I just wanted to push it away from you. But I ended up hitting it too hard. I think it died, Cedar." His voice becomes low and shaky. "I killed it."

My surprise melts into sadness hearing him speak like that. I find myself in a complete loss of what to say. He is crying because he unintentionally hurt a snake? What am I supposed to say in such a situation?

I fully sit up, while July again buries his whole face. Biting my lips, I search for words. Then I finally say in a soft voice, "July, um, it's okay. You were trying to save me. You didn't do it intentionally."

He shakes his head and says, "You don't get it, Cedar. I destroy everything."

My heart sinks. But hearing that, I suddenly find back all my words. "No you don't," I firmly say. I scoot closer to him. "July, can't you see? You are the reason Dale and I got close. You are the reason I made a friend like Edgar. You are the reason I could accept my dreams. You are the reason I can start to move on. You are the reason I could have the best experiences of my life within just a few weeks. July, you are singlehandedly fixing my whole life. Don't ever think that you destroy everything."

I feel like a dad consoling his son that it's okay he couldn't score a goal in the school's Sports Day. July still stays like that, but the trembling slowly calms down.

"Come on, get up." I grab his shoulders and turn him around. He covers his eyes with his arms. I pull him up to a sitting position and move his arm away from his face. His hair is all messy, his face is dirty, and he looks like a mess.

"It's just a snake, July." I wipe his eyes with my wrist. "And it's probably not even dead. Snakes don't die easily." I actually don't know if they do, I'm just saying it to make him feel better.

"It was a big old snake." He shows me the size with his hands, and my throat becomes dry with the realization that such a long ass thing was right behind me for more than five seconds. "What if it has kids?"

"It will be fine," I say as I wipe my wet wrist on my shirt. Then I pluck a leaf stuck to his hair. "Stop thinking about the snake. Think about my legs! I'm your favourite human."

He frowns. "Why are you jealous over a snake?"

"Jealous? I'm not jealous." I feign dismay. "I'm just asking you why you are crying over a snake when I could have been the one who died."

A small grin appears on his lips. "I won't let my favorite human die." Then he pinches my cheek, but I swat his hand away. He lets out a laugh. I suppose he is feeling better now. I only shake my head and smile.

But then I realize something.

He realizes it at the exact same moment, and his smile fades.

"Shit," he says.

-------------------

"I think we came in through this way," I say, pointing to my left.

July crosses his arms and observes the place with furrowed brows. Then he looks around while rubbing his nonexistent goatee and finally points to my right and says, "But I think we came from that way."

I look, but to me that portion of the forest doesn't seem much different from the portion I am pointing at. Now that we have lost the trail to Niraz Mountain and have no idea where the hell we are, the entire forest feels like an identical labyrinth. I try hard to rewind through my memories in the vain hope of remembering the direction, only to fail. "Are you sure . . .?"

"Yep." July nods confidently, though I have a feeling he is not as confident either. "I'm pretty sure I saw that tree right before collapsing."

"Okay." I don't trust my own judgement anyway, so I will just go with his.

"Let's start walking then. Maybe if we walk straight ahead we will find the trail again."

I scratch my temple. "Um, I don't think we ran in a straight line . . ."

"Of course we ran in a straight line," he says, with too much force on his words. "C'mon. Let's not waste any time."

Even though I don't really trust his memory right now, hearing his confident tone really does provide a bit of hope in my heart. I can always put my faith on someone who is confident. I've never been much of a leader, always more of a follower, and I like following people who are sure of their decisions. And hence, with enough hope, I begin to follow July through the trees and bushes.

"What if we come across more snakes?" I anxiously ask. Everything that's gone wrong is because of that damn snake. It's all that snake's fault.

"We'll be fine," he replies. He then reaches his hand behind me and grabs my shirt, pulling me beside him. "Just stay close."

"Okay."

We walk in silence. My thighs throb and my legs involuntarily bend at the knees if I try to walk fast.

We are trying to keep our pathway as straight as possible. Except it doesn't take me too long to realize that it's impossible to walk straight inside a forest, at least without a clear trail. Because a tree would always come in front of you, and you would have to move a little to the side, only to come face to face with another tree, so you have to move a little more to the side, until you're completely deviated from the original route.

I stop. "July, this is not gonna work." I begin to panic, my throat drying up. I resist the urge to drink water, because a part of me knows that we might not make it out that easily.

He lets out an exasperated sigh. "Cedar, you need to-" He shakes his head. "Look, we need to try something, right? We can't just stay at a place forever. We have to keep walking."

"But what if we're going deeper into the forest instead of closer to the main road?"

His facade of confidence finally displays a mild crack. He rubs his face with his palms. Thinking something for a while, he says, "Let's keep walking anyway." He resumes walking.

"Okay . . ." I do the same.

"Look. It's still early August right? It's still summer break for many schools. There might be people out here for summer camps and all those stuff. Maybe tourists. We might bump across some people. And they will help us. Help you. Okay? So don't lose hope. We need to keep moving."

I nod vigorously. "Okay." That is probably the best thing I have heard ever since we came to this forest.

So again we begin to walk. This time, I can clear my head and pay more attention to my surroundings. There's really nothing much to see here but all these tall and unknown trees and these dense and unknown bushes. Walking among these rows of trees makes me feel like a small, lost child wandering amidst a crowd of adults. It's terrifying, in a way, to be in a place where you feel so small and vulnerable.

I see birds of different colors here and there, singing merrily and flying from one branch to the other. The birds come in all sizes and colours and languages, each seemingly engaged in their own activities. I hope they live in more harmony than the humans in spite of their differences.

If I look up, I can see a bit of the sky peeking through the canopy. From the troublesome combination of my exhaustion, thirst, fear, worry and anxiety, reality feels so altered that I would believe the sky is green, with blue pecks popping up here and there. Thin rays of weak sunlight pierce through the little spaces to light our path. It's quite obvious there isn't much time left until sundown.

"Cedar, roots," July says. I look down and barely stop myself from stumbling over a huge root of a tree with lime colored leaves.

"Thanks." He only nods. I can't help but appreciate how matured July is acting right now, because he knows I'm afraid and need guidance. To make his work load less, I decide I need to focus more on the ground than the sky, especially to avoid snakes.

Just when I was starting to relax a little, I come across yet another snake.

"Eep!" I scream and instinctively hug July, dragging him away from the long devil.

"What?!" he asks, grabbing my arms.

"Snake!" But when I squint and observe closely, I realize it is, in fact, just a big tree root that my exhausted brain perceived as a snake. ". . . Oh, root." I let my arms drop, letting out a loud exhale.

July facepalms. "Sweetheart, you can't scream and jump away if you see a snake. That will provoke it."

"I know." I scratch the back of my head, cheeks getting hotter by the second. Oh God, I just made a fool out of myself in front of him. This is the worst. Not to mention, even if it was a snake, it wouldn't be able to see him, so why was I even dragging him away? "It was a reflex action."

"Okay, let's go." He chuckles and wraps an arm around my shoulder. We begin to walk again, and I glance back once at the particular root, trying to glare at it for scaring me.

"It's funny 'cause–" He laughs. "Your first instinct was to drag me away, even though the snake literally cannot see or touch me."

I shrug. "I'm a mother at heart."

He laughs again. Then he says, "But trust me, being visible and in danger is much more better than being invisible and safe."

I wonder how true that is. I suppose, it is true to a certain extent. Being invisible only when you're in danger and visible the other times sounds like the best thing ever. However, between always being invisible and always being visible, it's a little hard to choose which one is better unless you have experienced both. Which, of course, July has.

"It's something to think about, that's for sure," I reply.

"Not for me." He pushes aside some tall bushes to clear our path. "But then again, as they say– where you are not, there is happiness."

"Hmm? What does that mean?"

"Means we think that we can find happiness in the place we can't be in. And maybe in that place, some person thinks that we are happier than them. No matter how fulfilling our situation is, we always believe the other person has it better."

"Ah. The grass is always greener on the other side."

"Yep."

"Hmm . . ."

We make more small talks as we keep walking. I think July is trying to distract me as much as possible from the anxiety and also the thirst. But the more we walk, the more the pain in my knee starts to intensify. There is also a gradually growing throb in my ankles. Maybe I twisted it a little when I stepped into the snake hole.

July notices it. "Is it hurting a lot?"

I nod. "It's starting to."

He grabs my shoulder. "Wait." He moves in front of me and sits down, back facing my way.

"Um . . . what?" I ask, though I know it already.

He looks over his shoulder at me. "Isn't it obvious? Hop over. I'll give you a — God, I can't believe I'm saying it — a piggyback ride."

"No." I let out a shaky laughter. "July, this isn't one of Destiny's yaoi mangas. There is no way you're gonna give me a — God forbids — a piggyback ride."

"It's okay!" he encourages. "It's just you and I, me and you in this forest."

"That's not the point. July, I'm 17."

"Yeah, so? You're still a child. A baby. A tiny little baby."

I give him a look of dismay. "You're literally two years older than me!"

"I've breathed two years worth of oxygen more than you!"

"Doesn't matter. I'm not getting on your back. Stand up."

"Alright, fiiine." He stands with a huff and turns to me. He asks, "Are you disagreeing because it puts a gash on your manly pride or something? 'Cause like, your masculinity is not so fragile that it will break if a dude gives you a piggyback right. Like come on."

Shooting an incredulous look at him, I say, "Absolutely not. I'm not the kind of guy who limits his masculinity like that. Look, getting a piggyback ride is only cute in movies. In reality, I'd rather get it from my dad, or maybe my uncle, up to age of like 7 or something. That's all. But thanks for the offer."

He groans. "You certainly wouldn't want your dad to give you a piggyback ride if your dad was someone like Red Forman."

"Who's Red Forman?" Also, he really just changed the topic so easily?

He gives me a wary look. Then he says, "Guess I had a better childhood than you, my sweetheart."

I roll my eyes. "Let's not compare childhoods, sweetheart." Saying that word makes me internally cringe.

He looks ahead as he walks. "Yeah right. But really, I've heard that most of the middle class to rich kids in our country grow by watching That 70s Show."

"What 70s show?"

"No, that's the show's name."

"Ah!" I remember it now. "Right, Dawn and Destiny used to watch it together for hours and hours."

"Right? Well, this show is even more special to me for a certain reason. You see, Red Forman's son Eric Forman was the person behind my sexual awakening."

I feel a mild pang of irritation hearing that, though I don't understand why. But I'm glad July is talking about his sexuality more openly with me now. "Is he that handsome?" I ask, not really interested in the answer.

"Eric Forman is cute! I don't know how the actor looks currently. He's probably handsome now. But yeah, Eric's totally my type."

"Oh, is he like me then?"

His eyes widen and he whirls his face to me, but just as he is about to say something, he trips over a broken branch and falls cheek-first on the ground.

It happened so fast that I could barely process it. So I just stand there like a dumbass, staring at him lying on the ground.

"Ugh . . ." He rolls on his back and rubs his chin. He tries to move his left leg, and yelps out in pain.

"Oh God." Finally regaining my senses, I sit beside him, my own leg aching at the bend. "I was only joking," I say, rubbing my palm over his knee.

"Don't joke so out of the blue!" He tries to move his leg again, but his face contorts and he lets out another groan. "Shit, it's not just a scratch. I think I tore a ligament."

"July, it's a scratch." I point to the skin below his knee to show a long, thin scratch. This is a bad day for our knees.

"Whaaat?" he asks, disbelief in his tone. "What will we do now?"

Hiding a grin, I shrug and say, "I don't know, July. Do you want me to give you a piggyback ride?"

The look he gives me is everything.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

hello lovely readers!!

so the dudes got lost in a forest. i mean, obviously they did. Edgar is never wrong 😭✋ but the snake really is a matchmaker innit

this Forest Arc gets more interesting as it goes, and some of my most favorite scenes in this book are in this arc! can't wait to reach there :D

also, VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. there is something extremely important but short scene that i forgot to write in Dale's side story. i didn't exactly forget it; i wrote it right before publishing, but for some reason it never got saved and an old revision got published. i didn't even realize it until yesterday, when i went to that part to reply to a comment.

if you don't want to go back to read it again, lemme just shortly summarize it. basically, it's in the beginning of Dale's side story, where Edgar messages him to let him know that Cedar is fine and sounds happy. so it isn't like Dale doesn't care about Cedar, he just didn't bother to call cuz he knows Cedar won't pick up. also, Dale leaves Edgar on seen so you can imagine how mad Edgar must've been about that 💀 if you want to read it, the part is at the beginning of the side story.

anyways, thanks a lot lot loooot for reading! don't procrastinate too much, finish your works before taking a break. stay safe and healthy, and take care of yourself~

— love, Poma ❤️