“-!”
With a sharp gasp, my eyes fly open, and I leap to my feet, my hands running all across my body, the sensations of being violently torn apart still vividly fresh in my mind. Poking and prodding, however, I discover no apparent injuries, leading me to think:
(The eyes... the hand... the portal... a nightmare?)
A sigh of relief escapes my lips, and that’s when I first hear it, the tweeting of birdsong, the babbling of a brook, accompanied by the raw smells of wild foliage, the fragrance of spring flowers and the musk of damp shadows.
Sensing these, I peer out beyond my own thoughts, finding myself surrounded by tall, verdant trees, bright sunlight peeking through the canopies above, warm against my skin, wrapping me like a towel fresh out of the dryer, comforting, yet completely confusing.
“A forest-? Why am I-?” My voice cracks, my throat dry, and as the words leave my mouth, a sudden throbbing emanates from the base of my skull, accompanied by pounding behind my eyes, and I squint against the now too harsh light, trying to recall how I ended up here in the middle of a forest. As I do so, my hands begin to fumble through my pockets, instinctively searching for my phone. Finding it missing, however, I cuss silently to myself, then close my eyes, hoping to remember the prior day’s events. The headache though makes it hard to think, symptoms almost like that of a really bad-
(-hangover!)
Suddenly, it comes back to me.
(Rachel stopped by and asked if I wanted to go to a bar with her... Did I blackout from too many drinks? Or maybe I was drugged?)
Either might explain the memory loss, that is, why I can’t remember how I ended up in this forest, and, certainly, seems more plausible than a phantom hand pulling me into a quantum bridge where my body exploded into a million pieces.
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“Right, that was just a simple, albeit vivid, nightmare,” I reassure, finding solace in the mundanity of getting too drunk, “Just got to get out of here, find Rachel, and figure out what really happened.”
Still unable to locate my phone anywhere, I give up on the search, deciding instead that the best course of action, while there is still daylight, is to pick a direction and start walking, in the hopes of intersecting with a hiking trail or ranger station or other infrastructure. After all, I reason, I must be somewhere publicly accessible to have gotten here in the first place.
My plan decided, I pick north, and begin to move, all the while calling out, hoping a hiker or park ranger or someone else might hear. Not long into my journey, however, I start to sense that something is wrong, my headache growing worse, my muscles beginning to cramp, and I have to find a nearby tree to rest against, just so that I don’t collapse.
“Was I... this out... of shape?” I ask aloud between labored gasps, feeling utterly exhausted, almost unnaturally so, given that the terrain is not difficult and I’ve not gone very far. Stubbornly, I gather myself and push off the tree, determined to press forward. Only a few steps farther, however, and I feel my legs buckle, as my body stumbles, trips, and falls to the ground. Wheezing, it feels like I’m suffocating, like every ounce of energy is spent solely to breathe and yet still I’m oxygen deprived, and it is in this semi-delirious state that I see something suddenly appear before me-
-a young woman in her mid-twenties, with frizzy brown hair and gentle green eyes.
(Where did... she come... from...? I just... blinked and... )
Kneeling beside my crumpled body, the woman reaches out her hand, resting it softly atop my head, stroking my hair soothingly, her touch strangely nostalgic. Meeting her gaze, she offers me a wistful smile and says, “You always did have a knack for getting into trouble, Klaus.”
It is only upon hearing her words that recognition strikes me, for her current appearance belies the young girl of my deeply buried memories. I feel my eyes go wide, disbelief uttered in but a whisper, “... Luna? Why-...? How-...? Am I-...? Is this-...?”
She shakes her head with a hint of sadness, then places a finger against my lips, as if telling me to hush. “Only one question matters right now, Klaus, and that is, will you follow your heart?” As she says this, she points to my chest. Instinctively, my eyes follow, however my understanding does not.
“What do... you mean... Luna?” I ask, looking back up, but in that briefest of moments where my gaze is down, she has disappeared, traceless as she arrived. Or more likely, never was she truly here to begin with, but a simple hallucination born of my oxygen-deprived brain. Still-
(“Follow... your heart”.)
Unable to shake the weight of these words, I find myself glancing down once more, and this time, I do notice something, an almost imperceptible bulging near my chest, completely missed by my initial frenzied sweep. Weakly, I lift my shirt, and, to my utter surprise, discover what appears to be a sapphire gem, the size of my fist, deeply embedded into my sternum. What’s more, there appears to be a ghastly light emanating outward from the crystal, laser-thin, like a blue thread, extending backwards, towards the direction I came, far south into the trees behind.
(That’s...literal.)