Hiking was just overrated walking, and nothing would ever change her mind about that. It had some additional irritations, granted, even some positives, but overall? The great view didn't make the weight of her pack or the early hour feel any better.

Going up the trail from the Therapy Group's rented campsite, the early-morning dew had looked like fog rolling over an ancient forest, straight out of some Tolkien-inspired film. Almost dreamy, but too majestic to be anything you came up with yourself. The trees loomed, reaching like old giants towards the sky. Moss and grass that glimmered with golden light created a living tapestry over the dark earth. There was a grey-blue hue that seemed to drape over everything in a soft gossamer curtain. Underlying it all, there had been a sense of bleak loneliness.

For a minute, time stood still, when the sun broke the crest of the mountain, gleaming at their side of the world merrily. It painted the trees in a red-gold glow, broke the veil of the blue morning gloom.

And then that minute ended when something set off her allergies, and the resulting sneezing fit had her remembering ‘ah yes, nature hates me.’

Now it all just looked and felt like wet weeds slapping against her shins while she tried to stay ahead of Daniel because he was a sweet man but smelled terrible. He couldn’t help it, of course, and she’d die before she said something to him, but she didn’t want to be the one stuck behind him on the upcoming climb. To make up for her selfishness, on their first break she’d offered him one of her energy bars — the mint chocolate ones he liked — and Daniel had taken her offering with a grateful look.

She only sort of felt better about being an awful person.

Nope, bad mentality, remember your training, she chided herself, firmly planting another foot in the path, focusing on the weight of her pack and the crunch of nature beneath her climbing boots.

I am a good person, and it is not selfish to care about my comfortability. I am not bad for walking in front of Daniel, and it is not his fault he smells. He carries cologne with him for God's sake. This is a thing outside everyone's control, and there is no right or wrong.

Mental beratement accomplished, Astrid tried to direct her attention elsewhere, like Margery said she was supposed to if her subconscious-self tried to play the blame game. As it often did when she was with them, her attention went to the Therapy Group.

Sarah was behind her instead of Daniel, quietly picking at her nail beds and avoiding eye contact, which was fine with Astrid. Ahead of them was Donna, her short cropped, slightly uneven hair practically spitting static with all her therapeutically repressed rage. Astrid was betting it would explode long before they reached the top of the relatively short bluff they were supposed to be climbing that morning. That was just how this trip was so far.

Not that she wasn’t, in a weird way, enjoying herself. Because she was, as much as she could enjoy herself. Most of the time, even when she was laughing at whatever Donna was trying hard not to say, her heart felt sort of . . . empty. Not like she didn’t have one, or couldn’t feel, or even lacked the ability to feel. Just . . . like it was empty. It was both exactly like and nothing like having your lights dim without warning while you were driving at night, or suddenly realizing you were trying to use the wrong key to open a door.

It was a jarring realization that something was wrong.

Of course, according to Margery, that was all just the trauma talking. Her brain apparently went into panic mode anytime she felt more than three things at once, tucking anything it felt was ‘too much,’ into a box for later. Astrid would love to know why, but paradoxically couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Oh, would you look at that!” Chris shouted from the front in wonder.

“Oh jesus christ,” Donna groaned in front of her, looking around desperately.

Something inside Astrid told her that if the taller woman had been able to locate an adequately sized branch just then, Chris would be shouting for entirely different reasons. He was the newest member of their group, and he’d been excitable since day one. This was exactly Donna’s issue with him, but Astrid knew she'd warm up eventually. Donna warmed up to everyone eventually.

“It’s his medication,” Sarah whispers, just loud enough that Astrid and Donna turn to look at her.

The girl, whom Astrid is relatively sure is the youngest in their weird Therapy Group Family, responds by ducking her head.

“It makes you feel a bit loopy, the first few weeks. He’s high as fuck right now,” she mutters to the ground.

Donna snorts a laugh, shoulders loosening just so. Astrid is abruptly reminded that Donna once said she used to have a daughter. She wonders how old the girl would have been.

“Well at least there’s a reason for all the goddamned shouting this early,” the other woman sighs, moving to continue when their wrangler, a far too chipper man by the name of ‘Bram Wilkson, call me Bram!’ got Chris moving again.

Astrid had been stuck with this particular therapy group about eight months previous, when Maregery had noticed that she hadn’t become attached to anyone in the initial group she’d shoved her wayward client into. The Therapy Groups were a relatively new thing, one that the clinic Astrid had been released from had put together with the help of Margery’s offices. They were supposed to promote continued healing outside of a clinical setting, all the tools they ‘taught’ before your release being carried into the real world.

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They did things like go on court-mandated picnics, attend art therapy classes in the park, or ride bikes through the city streets. Always with a clinic approved wrangler, and never, ever unsupervised. It was . . . well, necessary, if she’s being honest. Without the therapy groups non-negotiable socialization, she probably wouldn’t leave her house. Didn’t mean she had to love every second of it.

(So far, the bike riding and this camping trip were tied for Worst Experience Ever.)

As if on cue, Chris exclaimed again, having reached the base of the bluff they were supposed to be climbing, waving his arms excitedly. Tucker sighed the deep, agitated sigh of someone that was reaching the end of their rope. He’d been quietly walking behind Daniel most of the morning, but now he looked like he was contemplating charging to the front and pushing Chris down the steep-but-short hill that sat to one side of the trail. That hill led into a dry creek, only faintly wet with splashes of mud here and there, and littered with large rocks.

Of everyone in her group, Tucker remained the most mysterious. Mostly he just lurked in the background, made the occasional comment or wry joke, and watched the rest of them intently. He was closest to Daniel, who had somehow wiggled his husky-boy heart under Tucker's armor and made himself a ‘best friend’ spot, so she at least didn't need to worry about Daniel falling behind on this trip. If Daniel had to stop, Tucker would stop.

Astrid and Donna had theorized when he’d first arrived that he was a psycho, biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Sarah thought they should be nicer.

“Alright everyone, we’re going to take a fifteen minute break before we start climbing!” Bram called, walking back to where they’d all stopped a small distance away from the base of the bluff, smiling at them encouragingly.

Of all their clinic provided wranglers, he was the nicest she’d met. From the fine lines of strain at the corner of his eyes, that niceness was wearing on him where Chris’s overenthusiastic excitement was concerned. She almost felt bad for giving him attitude when he'd drug them out of bed that morning.

Behind him, Chris was eagerly scrambling up the slope. Astrid isn’t ashamed to admit that she points after him blankly, unable to form words for her exasperation. While Bram tried to wrangle Chris back down, Daniel lowered himself onto a large rock and breathed deeply. The poor guy had a lot of medical issues, and several mental hiccups, and it looked like he was about ready to sink into a mood. His lips were turned into the most depressing pout she’d ever witnessed.

Astrid chose to make a tactical retreat.

“I’m going to find somewhere to use the bathroom,” she whispered to Donna, then wandered down the slope, towards the assortment of large rocks by the not-quite-creek.

Behind her, Daniel moans in sadness, and Sarah quietly asks what's wrong. Astrid is glad she left before it could get started. Usually she doesn’t mind trying to help, especially given how much this group has helped her, but today — she laughs, throwing her head back with a snap, shoulders shaking like she’s her own personal earthquake, and Astrid loves her a little more — today she has dreams weighing her down and too many issues of her own.

Daniel doesn't deserve Astrid’s ghosts sharpening her words.

So she leaves Sarah to console him, and Donna to watch them, and Tucker to be Tucker, and Astrid finds somewhere to hide until she has no choice but to try climbing that bluff with excitable Chris and too chipper Bram. There’s an almost instant insulation of sound that comes with stepping into the trees just beyond the creek that Astrid finds soothing. Glancing back, she sees Bram leading a bouncing Chris towards the group. Sarah is crouched next to Daniel. Donna is standing with her arms crossed over her chest and scowling at the ground. Tucker is facing the trail they’d hiked up, head tilted deeply to one side.

Astrid keeps walking. She does have to pee, and it’s a good enough excuse to avoid the bluff a bit longer. The forest that surrounds the mountain and all its rising bluffs are beautiful. Maybe if they were only camping, Astrid wouldn’t dislike this activity so much. Just walking between the boughs dripping with life was soothing in a way. Wholesome. It eased something that had been aching in her.

She would have liked this, comes unbidden to mind.

The contentment she’d felt disappeared like wisping smoke. A heaviness curls around her shoulders and gut, sinking into her bones, making her thoughts stutter and skip, leaving her body floating and her mind fuzzy. She ends up walking along the creek, between the trees, for what might have been three minutes, but could have been hours. It hardly matters when her brain seems suddenly fogged over, her heart a furious ache in her chest that split her at the seams.

Until she notices a cave. It was set into the rock that formed the bluff, almost hidden by a young tree and a large, moss-covered boulder. Something flickers inside it. A distant part of her mind realizes there is no sound here. No chirping birds or distant fluttering. No creaking trees or cricking bugs. The part of her that is in control does not register any of this as wrong.

Another flicker of light.

It is decidedly not what she intends to do, but Astrid takes a step towards it in interest.

The something flickers again.

Another step.

It’s almost like a soft, too-quick reflection of light.

Flicker. Flicker flicker.

It's coming faster now. There and gone almost too quickly to see.

Step.

It reminds her of fire-light dancing over uneven stone and crackling wood.

Flicker flicker.

Step step.

Something stirs in her chest, unfurling like a stretching cat.

Flicker.

Astrid walks towards the cave.

Its cool and dripping inside, the faint sound an echo that was paradoxically too far and too close to be nowhere in sight when she pulled out her phone to check. There looked to be some sort of trail in the soft moss at her feet. That same moss crawls up the side of the cave wall to about hip height. There is no fire. No sign of a mirror. Nothing to indicate anything shiny has ever graced the stone walls.

Only a small room of space that is utterly devoid of anything but rocks and moss, a trail, and silence. Faintly unsettled, Astrid takes a step back, thinking to turn and head back towards the others. She doesn’t actually have to pee anymore, for some reason, and she’s really hoping she didn’t just walk into a bear cave.

A sharp pain lances through the base of her skull.

She falls, light blinding her fading vision until all she remembers is bright white.