I turn back to my room because I’m having second thoughts. “Is this worth it?” I ask.

Megan turns to me as she lifts her shoulders up and down.

“This was your idea. So you tell me if it’s worth it,” says Megan.

“Some things are worth it,” I say to myself.

Megan looks down at the far-away world. She moves back. I feel the nervous knots in my tummy.

“There is no path or any road that leads to the land. How are we going to check this place out if we don’t even have a parachute or a plane?” I ask.

Megan holds my right hand and just stares at me.

“We have to trust and leap,” says Megan.

I look away from Megan and back to the far away land. I now know what she means by leaping. I swallow hard and shut my eyes. Megan shuts her eyes too.

We both take a step and fall out of my room. We both are now falling towards the clouds. Megan and I do not scream. I know we are going to be all right, but we have no parachute and we are falling fast. As we go into the clouds, thunder and lightning shake all around us. Megan screams for a moment. I grab her right hand and nod. Megan nods back to me. We pass through the clouds. We both see the wide landscape. It has thousands of trees and very large mountains. The trees are dark green. The mountains are unlike any we’ve ever seen, these are bigger. Most of the mountains are bigger than Mount Everest. Some have green trees all over them and some only have dirt and rocks.

“It’s a new world,” I say.

“We still can breathe on it, right?” asks Megan.

“We’re breathing right now,” I answer.

We are getting closer to the ground. We both pant in fear and hold each other. As we get closer to the forest, we shut our eyes very tight as we wait for the thud of the impact. We might die before we even have the chance to explore this new world.

The impact never came. I did not feel it. I open my eyes and see my feet unharmed on the ground. Megan opens her eyes too. We both slowly turn to each other and chuckle.

“Did you see what just happened?” I ask very excitedly.

“Yes!” Megan shouts in excitement.

“Did you see the large scene of the forest as we were falling?” I ask.

Megan nods. “Yeah, it was so beautiful,” answers Megan.

Megan and I turn away from each other and see the beautiful huge forest with lots and lots of large trees. Most of them look like pine trees, maple trees, willow trees, and oak trees. It looks like all of the trees in our world combined into one large forest. They have all kinds of different green colors. The pine trees are dark green, the maple trees are very dark green, the willow trees are light green, and the oak trees are lemon green. It is now raining a bit in the forest. The trees are blocking the rain.

Megan and I both chuckle at the beautiful view. I walk toward a willow tree and place my hand on one of the branches. Megan picks one of the plants and she stares at it. She grabs another one, and another, and another. She puts them in her backpack. I notice Megan is picking some plants and putting them in her backpack.

“Megan, are you collecting souvenirs?” I ask.

“Not really. I just want to check out these leaves. I’m not taking them home,” says Megan.

“Please don’t get too much.” I roll my eyes.

Megan puts some leaves back on the ground.

“Ok, I got one, two, three, and four leaves. Is that ok?” asks Megan.

“Yes. That seems ok,” I answer.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We start to walk into the rainforest. I take a deep breath and then exhale.

“I haven’t smelled this kind of rainforest since that vacation,” I say.

“What vacation?” asks Megan.

“My family use to go to Idaho to visit grandpa when I was six or seven years old,” I answer.

“Did you and you’re family ever go back to Idaho to see your grandpa?” asks Megan.

I stop walking and think for a moment.

“Not really. After my eighth birthday, we never went back to Idaho. I don’t know why,” I answer.

I shake my head and look up at the beautiful wet trees.

“Anyway, this is just as beautiful as Idaho,” I say.

“Daniel?” Megan asks.

I turn to Megan. “What?” I ask.

“I heard you say something before we entered this world. What was it?” asks Megan.

I turn to her.

“I say some things are worth it. Why do you ask?” I ask.

“Just wondering. If some things are worth it, then should we just go along with what the world wants us to do?” asks Megan.

“We don’t always have to do what the world wants us to do. We make our path, we make our own life. It’s whether or not we will take a leap of faith on some paths. Whether it is dangerous, we take those paths,” I answer.

Megan and I have been walking in the wet forest for at least one hour. At least I think it’s been an hour. I notice a willow tree that looks very familiar. It looks like the same one that I saw before. I open my backpack and mark the willow tree by cutting it with my pocket knife.

“What are you doing?” Megan asks.

“I’m marking the trail. I don’t want to get lost,” I say.

“Daniel, this is not familiar territory. We might get lost anyway,” says Megan.

I put my pocket knife in my backpack. “Did Balto ever get lost while searching for the sled?” I ask.

“You’re going to use the Balto line?” asks Megan.

“What? I like that movie and the story too,” I say back.

Megan and I walk away from the marked willow tree and into the forest. We trample through mud, and puddles, and hit a few branches. Megan trips a few times, but I help her to get back up. It starts to get cold and wet. Megan groans in pain. She looks like she’s going to vomit. But she does not.

“Daniel, I’m hungry,” complains Megan.

I look in my backpack to find any food. There’s none. I look in my pockets and still there is no food.

“I forgot to bring food,” I say.

I sit down on a rock. Megan joins me.

“I’ll be fine Daniel. Just a bit hungry,” says Megan.

“When was the last time you ate?” I snap.

“Yesterday, I forgot to eat breakfast this morning,” answers Megan.

I take out my cell phone to check the time.

“It is now three pm. And you haven’t eaten anything all day?” I ask.

“I’m sorry. But I was too busy helping my dad work at home. He may be a drunken old man, but he needs my help. He’s never yelled at me after my mom left us,” Megan answers.

“My mind was on my dad. I kept on thinking about my dad in the hospital. I didn’t even have enough time to get food before we left my room,” I say.

I put my hands on my face and groan with stress. Megan gets off the rock.

“I’ll see if there are any animals that we can cook,” says Megan.

“Megan, what kind of animal would wander around in a place like this?” I ask.

Megan simply answers just by lifting her shoulders up and down. I shake my head.

“As far as we know, there could be aliens here,” I say.

“Get real Daniel. This doesn’t seem like an alien land,” says Megan.

Megan sniffs the air and smells something.

“Daniel, do you smell that?” asks Megan.

I start to sniff the air.

“It smells like…like…soup and bread,” I say.

I get off the rock and look around to find the smell, fast. My tummy begins to rumble in hunger too. We are both starving. We run around the forest to find the smell. I think to myself that we will soon be dead without any food in our bellies, but we keep on smelling the food. It doesn’t seem very far away. Megan starts to climb a very tall oak tree. I look up at her.

“Be careful!” I shout at Megan.

Megan continues climbing the oak tree. She pushes branches that are in her way. She makes it to the top. She can see the entire forest. Rain is pouring down on her and she’s getting soaking wet. She turns to the north and sees black smoke. Megan starts climbing down the oak tree. I am walking in circles and waiting for Megan to come down. Then I hear a branch crack in the woods. I look around to see if there is anything. I hear a quiet grunting noise in the woods. It sounds like a bear. From the corner of my eye sees something large and furry in the woods. By the time I turn my head, the creature has gone into the forest. I assume that it is a bear. I feel the knots in my stomach again. I look up at the tree that Megan is climbing.

“Megan!” I shout.

I finally see Megan climbing down. She jumps and lands on her feet.

“I saw smoke.” Megan points to where the smoke is.

We run to the north side of the rainy forest faster than ever. Finally, we find the smoke, but there is no food. There is only a tan teepee and a campfire with black wood.

“I could have sworn that I had smelled some food,” I say.

We start to look for any food around the campsite, but we cannot find any. We look under rocks, in the teepee, and around the teepee but no food at all. Megan groans as she hunches forward.

“Daniel we should have eaten before we left or brought some food,” says Megan looking rather pale.

I am still looking for food and still no sign of any. Then I hear a thud as if a body falls on the ground. I turn around to see what made that noise. It was Megan who made that thud noise. She is lying on the ground, moaning and resting. I run to see if she’s okay.

“Megan! Are you all right?” I ask as I shake her, but she does not answer.

I put my ear on Megan’s chest to hear if her heart is still beating. Thank goodness it still is. I also feel tired, so I lay down on the ground. Then I get up as I do not want to fall asleep. I need to be on the lookout to see if anyone is in the woods. Especially that bear that I saw before.