Young Writers Society

"Gale!" Bell jumped up, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Maybe don't start yelling threats at the disembodied voice we just heard in the middle of a spooky forest! You're going to get us all disintegrated or something!"

They looked around, trembling slightly. They couldn't tell where the voice had come from, but whatever It was, It was probably capable of disintegration. Bell glanced at the others.

"Th-this was a bad idea," they stammered. "Let's get out of here."

The voice shattered what was left of Polina's sanity. She didn't know what to do, so she stayed silent, observing everyone else. Polina was the oldest of the group-- as she was 24-- so surely, she would have an idea of how to get out of this place.

She glanced around at her surroundings, trying to track back where they'd entered-- but to no avail. It seemed as though her memories were cloudy, and the trail seemed to have morphed into muddy nothingness. She squinted her eyes in attempt to see better, but the fog increased in density as they stood there.

"We have a problem," She finally spoke, "Do any of you remember how we got here? I can't remember. Why can't I remember?!"

As Gale started thwacking innocent trees with his cane, Lyn glared at the sky. "How are we supposed to open our ears? They're already open??" The clouds shifted. Lyn suddenly had the urge to punch a hole in them and try to reveal whatever was whispering to them from the sky.

Bell stammered nervously. Polina said, "Do any of you remember how we got here? I can't remember. Why can't I remember?!"

Lyn froze. "I don't remember either." She searched her mind, uncovering vague memories of the group of them exploring and camping in various woods and mountains. "But I mean, we've always liked exploring, right?"

The trees seemed to cluster closer, as if they were huddling together for warmth. The temperature dropped.

"I didn't think we came that far in..." Bell squeaked, pulling Gale away from the encroaching trees. Their head swiveled around, searching the perimeter of the lake for the path they'd come on, but all the trunks looked the same. There was no opening. "Maybe if we pick a direction? Which way's North? I can't see the sun!"

When they looked up the sky was a uniform purple, studded only by clouds. There were no stars, no sun, not even a moon. No way to tell which way they were going.

"No, no, no! This can't be happening!" Bell cried as the fog grew thicker, swirling around their waist now. The eyes behind their star-shaped glasses were wide and wild. The wind sounded like breathing. "This is some storybook crap! Not...not real-life crap! This has to be a dream, a hallucination, something!"

"Well, not to point any fingers," Gale said, growing irritated. "But we wouldn't have been here if Bell hadn't dragged us all into this forest! I'm just sayi-" Gale then coincidentally tripped an fell over a rock that was behind him. "Ugh! Also... why is it so... wet? Fog? Mist? Can somrone tell me?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Bell cried, squeezing their eyes shut. "I thought the stories were a myth, I didn't know any of this would actually happen! I'm sorry!"

"Don't be! We're perfectly fine! I mean, it's not like we're stuck here, probably going insane, and have no foreseeable way out! Oh wait. We are." Gale said, emphasizing how angry he was. If Gale could see, he would be glaring at Bell right now. He got up and brushed off his dress. "Now where do we go?"

"Well, it's not entirely Bell's fault," Lyn said. "I jumped on board right away because I thought there'd be cool mushrooms here."

Lyn glanced at the ground. "And I have no idea where to go, but on the bright side, that does look like an epic reishi mushroom." She pointed at a vibrant red-orange mushroom growing on a log. It was outlined with white and had a slightly glossy sheen. Lyn squatted down for a closer look, oohing and aahing at the perfect curves.

A tendril of mist curled around her leg. It yanked. Lyn fell.

"Lyn, nobody cares about your stupid mushroom! What even is a rey-shee mushroom? Not everybody's a mycologist." Gale started moving his cane, trying to find where Lyn was.

"Lyn?" Bell took their glasses(which were now completely fogged over) off to squint at the spot where Lyn had been. But instead of their friend, all they could see was a vague dip in the mist. "Oh God, where did she go? Did the mushroom eat her?!"

"I wouldn't know Bell, because I can't see!" Gale screamed back at Bell, and then he fell down too.

"Wh-what was that?" Bell cried, searching the treeline for whatever had made the howl. It might have come from further away, but distance was impossible to gauge in this place. Bell backed against the trunks, rough bark catching on their paisley-patterned shirt. Their eyes lifted to the sky. "Who are you? What do you want? Where did my friends go?"

Polina watched with awe as Lyn and Gale dissapeared into the mist-- or below the mist? Her eyes darted between the sky and the ground. Everything happened in slow motion, Lyn was ranting on about a reiki mushroom, and Gale just dropped along with her.

Just as Bell was yelling at the voice, Polina spotted a shadowed figure in the distance. It's eyes glowed a bright purple, and it's body structure was that of a very large wolf. Polina began to think:

Red ferns, frozen lakes, the voice of the heavens, and people dissapearing...

Polina had to be dreaming. She looked back at Bell, who was still yelling at the sky, "We need to go. NOW!"

"Where? Where do we go?" Bell demanded. "What about Lyn and Gale?"