Dammit, I thought. I was unusually late for work today. For whatever reason, my alarm clock seemed to have malfunctioned and got stuck at 3:14 am. So lo and behold, at 5 am when it was supposed to ring, it didn’t. So now here I am, rushing to get ready to work despite knowing that being as late as I was at 9 am already, yesterday was probably my last day working at my construction Job. Putting on my boots and grabbing my car keys and my company issued hard hat, I ran out the door.
It took me a few seconds to comprehend what was going on. I had rushed out the door slamming it behind me and to my bewilderment, ran right into a densely packed forest. In my shock, I just stood there trying to comprehend what was going on. Without thinking much, still in shock, I turn around to go back inside. But as a growing part of my mind suspected, no matter which way I turned, all I saw was the forest. So for the moment, I just stood there, letting the shock wear off and allowing the gears in my mind to slowly sputter back to life.
The first thing I did was pinch myself. Nope. Wasn’t a dream. I probably gave myself a welt for my troubles, but on the bright side, that kinda helped clear my mind a bit. Rubbing my arm , I continued to focus on affirming the reality I suddenly found myself in. So I went up to the nearest tree and put my hand on its rough bark, not sure what to expect. Would It fade away like a hallucination? Or would I suddenly be awoken by my alarm, with enough time to spare for a decent breakfast? Putting my hand against it, I found that it was cool to the touch and very much real. Keeping my hand on the tree, mostly so I don’t suddenly fall over from a sudden bout of dizziness, I took a moment to take in my surroundings.
The sound of leaves rustling from a pleasant breeze, the chirping of birds in the distance, the faint light glowing through the thick canopy above. Those things not only felt real, but also gave a welcomed feeling of familiarity. In contrast, the impossibly tall, winding and intertwined trees that I couldn’t even see much beyond a few meters up through, the strangeness of the birds sounds and what seemed like a radius of absolute silence that was surrounding me, were starting to fill me with dread. The mix of the familiar, the unfamiliar and the completely sudden and unexpected was keeping me rooted on the spot in a daze. I stood there, staring blankly up into the trees, fascinated by how I swear that I could see the trees intertwining and tangling into each other far up through the leafy umbrella above.
“RAWR”
The sudden sound, seemingly coming from just around the corner, made my body react violently with a huge shot of adrenaline. On top of my uncontrollably rising dread of my situation, I reacted explosively, bolting in the opposite direction of where I thought the vicious, distorted and completely unfamiliar sound came from. The shock and sudden movement shot questions into my head, each one like a pellet of buckshot. But they could be mostly summed up to:
What the hell is going on?
Where the fuck am I? With the adrenaline pumping through me, my mind was desperately making up for lost time as I quickly accepted that I sure as hell wasn’t at home anymore. As I was sprinting as fast as I could, without direction, I started to notice some odd things that were feeding an unbidden thought growing in my mind that the rational part of my was fiercely trying to ignore. Why in the world was the forest floor grassy? Where was all the dead underbrush? The forest ground looked almost pristine, grassy and well kept, but everything I knew about plants was telling me that with all the trees taking nutrients from the ground and blocking the sun, grass can’t grow in a forest like this. At least not as perfect as the way this grass looked. The birds had went quite the moment that thing made its snarling roar, leaving the forest eerily silent.
“Crash!”
Being as distracted as I was, I overlooked a root sticking out from the ground, slightly hidden in the grass as it was, causing me to trip and tumble forward and slamming right into the base of a gigantic tree. Don’t ask me how I could have missed the tree, from my perspective, it just popped into being the moment I tripped. I frantically try to get up to continue my escape, but as soon as I stand up, I feel as if my brain is getting squeezed as the blood flows out of my head. I take a shaky step forward before darkness creeps into my vision and I black out.
I wake with a start, laying face down in the grass, feeling oddly comfortable and refreshed. I slowly move myself into a sitting position as I look around trying to spot if anything had chased me or if there was any danger in general. I don’t find anything there and everything seems just the way it was when I first got to this strange place. The birds were making their weird chirping noises and even the sun hasn’t seemed to have moved, although it was impossible to really tell, because I couldn’t see the sky. I was just making an assumption based on the amount of light that was filtering through. But now that I think about it, it was oddly bright here anyway, if you consider how dense and tall the trees were here.
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Noticing this strangeness, I lean back onto the tree to take a moment to think about about what was happening. Was I still asleep? No, the pain from all the bruising I got from tripping was telling me that this wasn’t a dream of any kind I’ve ever heard of. Then what? An alternate reality? That can’t be. That just wouldn’t make sense. Why me? How? But what else could it be? Some newly developed futuristic virtual reality? But that idea also doesn’t make sense. No matter how I twist things, nothing is really making sense anyway though. So I take a deep breath, hold it for a moment, then exhale while letting those questions go, deciding to move on to other matters. This place was very foreign to me. And with how I could still feel pain, and now that things have calmed down, I can even feel the discomfort from my missed breakfast start to set in. And I was thirsty. My mouth was dry, whether from the running or adrenaline or whatever, I was parched. So I turned my mind to those problems, much easier to solve as they were. At least comparatively. I was far from a survival expert.
Taking a moment, I thought over how I want to prioritize the three basic needs and what was most important for my situation at the moment. I was in a possible hostile environment, with no knowledge of the wildlife or even the topography. For all I knew, everything alive wanted to eat me, and there won’t be water within the next 100 miles. Or worse, there’s water nearby and everything and anything on the food chain hangs out around that water source waiting for its next meal.
I take a shaky breath in an attempt to calm myself down a little. I knew I was being slightly dramatic, but my point still stands. Wandering around would be dangerous in many ways, even if the worst that happens to me, is that I just wander in circles around this seemingly endless forest. Everything looked the same from where I was standing after all. For a moment as my gaze wander, my sight falls on the huge tree I literally ran into.
I stare at it blankly for a few moments, before a light goes on in my head and I have to give a face-palm at my sheer stupidity. It seems like my brain still isn’t running at full capacity yet. I had smacked myself into the answer to two of my problems not too long ago. Looking at the tree reminded me strongly of the giant trees in California that I had hear about before. It was more than thick enough for a bus to pass through if you carved a hole through it, maybe even a bus and a small car could pass through, side by side. But other than being so extremely large, it didn’t look like a redwood tree. I don’t really know anything about plants, tree or wildlife in general, the city boy I am, but it twisted and turned, knotted and branched out numerous time along its trunk, far different from what I remember redwood trees are supposed to look like. Good for me though, that’ll make it that much easier to climb. If I climb far up enough, I should be able to scout my surroundings for what I need, without the risks of getting lost more than I was, or running into something dangerous.
I slowly stand up, shaky from the fear of my situation and the unknown, and start to make my way around the tree to find a good place to start climbing. I pause, seeing my yellow construction hat laying near where I had tripped and stare at it for a moment feeling incredulous at the obvious fact that I had actually held onto it during my mad rush from earlier. Shrugging off my disbelief, I quickly pick it up and briefly inspect it. Seeing that it was not only fully intact, but the light attached to it was still on it and … yup, the light still works after I play with the switch a little. Glad to have both a little protection, and even a light for when,… if it got dark, I decided I might forgive my company for working me and my colleagues late into the night. Or not.
With a bitter smile at the thought of my job, old job I correct myself, I put the hat on and continue to make my way around the tree. A few moment later, and maybe only a third of the way around the tree, I stop to stare at what appears to be an oddly unnatural cave nestled in between the roots of the tree at its base. It looked almost like the maw of the tree, if you could ignore the skewed proportions. Rock outlined the entrance, in a way that seem both natural and completely unnatural, with how it seemed like the rocks were lifting up on the tree to open itself instead of the tree growing on it.
As ominous as it looked, I was excited about a potential place to hide from the elements, albeit wary of anything that might have had the same thought before me. I make my way closer, closing in from the side so that if anything was inside, I could hopefully spot it before it notices me. Peeking around the edge of the entrance, I peer into the cavern, only to see about ten feet into it before it curves off to the side in what seems like a spiraling descent downward. I pause to think about it, but in the end decide I need to at least check if I could use this cavern or if it’s something dangerous that needs to be avoided.
With a deep breath I creep into the depths, a feeling of unease sets in. A part of me notices that the cave almost seems to be breathing me in as air suddenly gushes in and without warning, I seem to slip out on something, or maybe I was pulled into something as I slide into a small pathway on the side of the cavern that flushes me into a slippery fall into the darkness with water rushing out from the walls. My only thought as I plunged downward was, At least I found water..