Chapter 95
symptomspression vanished mimedianely. She grabbed my arms so hard I yelper.
was that alar whispered all humor game from her voic
1 letgoed boy heart hammering against my ribs. The sound had come from the east and deeper into the woods. “I don’t knew. Maybe un animals
“It sounded like someone” Maya’s grip around my arm now tighter. “Not an animal. A person. What animal can make that kind of sound
The person might have seen a frog or something and had screamed after being startled”
someone got hurt Maya replied.
“We have to check, I said, the words leaving my mouth before Could think them through.
“Do we have too?” Maya’s eyes were wide. “What if it’s, like, a bear? Or a murderer? This is exactly how horror movies start, Aria. The competent friend says ‘we have to check‘ and then we’re both dead.”
“If it’s not an animal sound then its another student,” I said, already turning toward the sound, pulling her with me. “It has to be. No one else is out here. What if someone’s hurt?”
“Ugh, fine. But if we die, I’m haunting you. And I’m going to be a really annoying ghost.” She followed, her earlier bravado replaced by a nervous vigilance.
“Girl you don’t know what you want, after convincing me that it’s a human getting hurt, you know I will want to check what was happening.
We pushed through a thicket of ferns. The map was useless now as we were heading into a blank space. The forest thickened with every turn.
“Hello?” I called out, my voice swallowed by the trees and echoing back to me. “Is someone there?”
No answer.
We moved further, the ground sloping downward.
“We’re going the wrong way,” Maya muttered, glancing back. “The stream’s back there. We’re losing it.”
“The scream came from this direction,” I insisted, though a little doubt was starting to creep in. Don’t blame me, all the trees looked mostly the same.
Another five minutes of stumbling over roots and ducking under low branches yielded nothing. No person. No sound. Just us and the oppressive quiet frequently interrupted by the sounds of birds and maybe squirrels.
“Aria,” Maya said, stopping short. “Look.”
She pointed at a tall, distinctive pine ahead. It had a strange, double fork at its top, like a slingshot. “That looks like the doddle on the map representing the guide tree. The one near the blue flag.”
I unfolded the crumpled map. She was right. The scribbled tree with a ‘V‘ at the top was labeled ‘Slingshot Pine.
“We’re… here?” I said, disoriented. According to the map, we were at the western edge of the designated search zone. The stream, and the red flag we’d just collected, were far to the northeast.
“We are completely lost,” Maya stated, her fear morphing into exasperation. “We heard a scream, played hero, and got
1/3
10:59 Tue Jan 20
**** me feet Maya Wete. his grographically challenged. And we found a landmark. I tell to strnet condit She Way sheld be her We might as well get it since we’re her
“Silver linings Mega genoble, but she started scanning the area Over there”
Pied to a low branch at the Slingshot Fine was a swatch of brilliant blue fabric. It Buttered gently and we trudged me $ untied it, adding it to the chain of flags at my waist.
Two flags.” I said. Not bad for being lost.”
“We’re not lost.” Maya mimicked my tone from earlier. “We’re geographically challenged. So, oh challenged one, whicts way are we facing now?”
I studied the map. “If we’re here… the next closest flag is yellow’s supposed to be in a ‘mossy clearing. That should be… south–southwest of this tree.” I looked up, trying to calculate where the south would be, “That way.
“You’re just pointing.”
“It’s an educated guess.”
“Yen yen yen” she rolled her eyes. “Probably leads to a predator
“Just walk, Maya.” I groaned.
We set off again, walking in silence for a long time, the only sounds a combination of our breathing, the soft sound of our footsteps, ruffling of branches….
“Do you think whoever screamed is okay?” Maya asked quietly.
“I hope so. Maybe it was just a prank.”
“Or Chloe finally broke Nora,” Maya spat, but there was no humor in it.
“Nora’s tougher than she looks,” I said, mostly to convince myself.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
The terrain began to change. The pines gave way to older, broader trees with twisting roots that broke through the soil like knuckles. Thick, emerald moss covered everything—the rocks, the logs, the very sides of the trees, glowing softly in the sunlight. The air smelled profoundly damp and weird.
“This is it,” I whispered. “The mossy clearing.”
But it wasn’t a clearing. It was a gully, a deep dip in the forest floor where water collected, creating this lush, sunken garden of moss. At the center, on a stone that jutted up like an altar, was the yellow flag.
“Bingo,” Maya said, starting forward.
“Wait.” I grabbed her sleeve. “Look at the ground.”
The ground around the stone was dark, muddy, and shimmering with a thin layer of water. It wasn’t just moss; it was a peat bog.
Maya grimaced. “I am not ruining my shoes. These are limited edition.”
“Then we’ll go around.” I led us along the edge of the gully, looking for a drier approach. We circled halfway around before finding a fallen log that bridged the wettest part. “We can use this as a balance beam,” I said.
2/3
chenste the white being be this
my law. We’re proceeding on an alternate route.*
Aria the aberate route int on the map She gestured to the parchment it my hand. “We haven’t seen a single path or landmark brudes that one free in like, twenty minutes
