I was roused by Sarah shaking me from a ckluster sleep. I had dreamed about something, probably Will and Audrey, and as I looked at Sarah, she gave me a warm smile and said, “It’s time to go, I’m sorry I had to wake you up.”

  “It’s okay. Did you fall asleep?”

  “Maybe a little. I ’t really remember exactly.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  We got up, not b to shake the leaves and other things on the forest floor that had attached themselves to us. Sarah looked in the dark at our tracks and pointed me in the right dire. We didn’t talk anymore, because there was nothing to say. I couldn’t think of anything to say that I hadn’t already told her. We did tell each other everything because we were our only friends. Will and Audrey tagged along, but that was not really a friendship, more a retionship of lud circumstance. Will was strange and often very angry about many things, and Audrey was stoic, almost ingly so. I always thought that she was talking to someone else who no one else could hear, but when I questioned her on it, she always said that she was just tired after spending a twelve hour shift at work. I had tried to tell her that she was w for no pay for a man who didn’t care about her health and safety in the slightest, but I never got through to her. I thought that maybe she was different, different even than me. But I didn’t know for sure, because she would never say. Out loud, I asked myself if it ossible to fix people like us. Sarah looked at me, and theurned away. I felt bad, because I had insulted her. I once again tried to apologize but I couldn’t find the words, and then Sarah put her fio her mouth and told me to be quiet. I stood there listening for something, but she simply trotted on and I got the hint that she just wanted me to be quiet. I regretted talking, but I khat I would regret apologizing even more. So instead I trudged onwards, joining pace with Sarah.

  The trees seemed even taller than they had before. I tried to remember what the Sun had looked like, but it seemed like such a distant memory now that I could not put it into words or pictures. I tried to reaove the leaves out of the way, but it didn’t work. I stayed close to Sarah, terrified. I tried to motion to her that I was sorry and I really think we should have found Will and Audrey by now, but she just pointed me forwards a on walking. I held onto her arm for sometime, aually we came upon a house.

  It was dead silent in the woods, and I tried to reason with myself that no murderers or butchers lived there, as there was no front door and the steps were rotten all the way through. Sarah dragged me forwards, and I said that I didn’t want to go to the house.

  “If you want to stay out here, okay. I’m going in, I’m hungry.”

  She released me from her grasp, and I ran behind a tree and waited for her to ehe house. I hugged my arms around the tree so I would feel like I roteg her, and I saw her disappear into the dank and terrible house. I saw her light a match, and I almost cried out to her to be careful, that there robably a gas leak and she was going to die. Before I could, she turo me and when I saw her eyes and face put into view by the match, I was somehow vihat she would be alright. Sarah had that quality, to make anyone feel at ease in her presence. I was sure that she would be able to charm a man who she had just stabbed in cold blood. She disappeared into the house, and I was left there on my own. I heard some people in the distance, but I ighem because they had been there for my whole life, and I assumed that they were fake. They got angry at this, but I didn’t care. It was only when a spectral arm grabbed my hat I turned around. There was no ohere, and I tried not to scream, but I let a tiny whimper out, and I assumed that there would be hell to pay for reag even in that small way, and I was right. Immediately, a huiny hands grabbed at my face from out of the dark, and I heard them shout that Sarah was dead, and I had to che her otherwise her body would never be discovered. I batted the hands away a back to look at the house. I saw the glint of the match through a broken window, and I thought I saw Sarah’s face as well. I turned around and told the hands, which had progressed into ghostly bodies, that she was fine and there was no point in panig.

  “What if that was a trick of your mind, what if she fell into a hole and will only be found when you go in there?”

  I turned around, stopping for a moment to give them o look. I tried to rationalize, to get myself to believe that she was fine, but there was something about the house that was just so terrifying that I was sure that Sarah had died ht already and needed my help to be carried out and to her family. I was just about to run towards the house and find Sarah’s dead body covered in flies and already rotting from my ck of a, but instead she came strolling out of the abode with a few shiny silver objects in her hand. I was so relieved that I nearly fell to the ground, and then I ran up to her and hugged her tightly. She seemed fused, but she saw the wild look in my eyes and then hugged me tightly as well.

  “I’m so sorry, I should never have left you alone in the dark. I sometimes fet how scary things are for you.”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m just happy you’re safe.”

  “I take care of myself. But you know that, at least right now.”

  Then, with a smile, Sarah put her hand out in front of me and right in the middle there were sixteen bullets for un.

  “I figured you could use some more reassurance.”

  “Shouldn’t you take them? It is yun.”

  “Oh, what does it matter? Besides, you he feeling more than I do.”

  I took the bullets out of her hand and put them in the gun. Click by click, they slipped into the chamber perfectly, and Sarah smiled once again. She then pulled out a match from her box and lit it against the side of the worn and torn carton. She started walking by the light of the match, and I followed her, clig my finger against the side of the gun.

  “Do you see anything right now?”

  “Nothing unreal or unusual, no. I hear things, though.”

  “Like what? The forest is silent to my ears.”

  I listened ily for a bit longer.

  “It sounds like panic right now. Like there’s a stampede behind us and the people are going to trample us if we don’t get out of the way.”

  “It’s not real, though, I know you know that.”

  “Sometimes. It feels real now.”

  “I’m happy I’m not you sometimes. Because of all the visions.”

  “I uand. If I could get rid of all of it, I would.”

  “Do you think you’d have anythi after that?”

  “Worry. Fear. But I think I’d be better.”

  “You’d worry because…”

  “Because I’d always think that whatever is happening isn’t actually happening at all.”

  “I uand, I think.”

  “Sarah? Why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “Because I fet that I don’t know everything about you and I want to learn more.

  “About me?”

  “Yes, about you. I feel like I haven’t scratched the surface.”

  “I tell you a vision, if you want. Ohat I know was a vision.”

  “Sure.”

  “I was walking dowreet, tailing Will to see where he was going and why. I had almost lost him in the crowd when I felt someone brush up against my arm. I looked to see who it was, assuming that the person would have already passed me, but he was staring down at me as I turo look. I almost fell over, because the person was a dead maared at me, and then walked away bato the crowd, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “How do you know that was a vision?”

  “I had watched the maer bei abze outside of the courthouse. You know the one. I don’t know why he was the oo appear. I turned back to Will, but I’d lost him in the crowd. It took me seven streets to catch up with him.”

  “Where was he going?”

  “To some abandoned building at the edge of town. I left before I got the idea to enter.”

  “Okay. I uand. I just don’t get it, you know?”

  “Get what?”

  “How does something like this happen, how does it work, and how do you survive everyday?”

  “I don’t know, I barely know, and by staying around people and in the light.”

  “I guess that’ll be the answer every time. I don’t know why I keep asking you about it like there’s going to be some massive revetion that wasn’t there yesterday.”

  “It helps me. It helps me feel less crazy than I already am.”

  “Oh, don’t say that. You’re not crazy.”

  “I am.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say. I’m just gd I help.”

  “You always help me. I fet that sometimes.”

  “Especially when I leave?”

  “Especially then.”

  “I hope we’re reag the end of the forest.”

  “Same. I hope we find Will and Audrey.”

  “Do you hope for anything else?”

  “To leave, I guess.”

  “Where else would you go?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there’s anywhere else.”

  “Sometimes I think that might be true as well.”

  “But it isn’t, right? There are pces to go.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Sarah stopped talking, and so did I. I just stared ahead as Sarah lit match after match to guide our way. I wondered when the forest would lighten up, even for a little bit. It just seemed like we were trudging through the dark, and it seemed that we would be doing that forever.