The sun is just beginning to rise, and the dew is dissipating off the ferns' leaves. At the trail's starting point, the foliage is small and sparse. The breath from your chapped lips froze mid-air; the air is crisp with the feeling of anticipation. Footsteps ensue one after the other as you start on your journey to find yourself. You are young and think you’ve had many life experiences, but you are naive. The trail takes naive people and spits them out like a piece of old, flavorless gum. You follow the white arrows on the trail that mark your path. You don’t dare to stray from the trail, because there have been one-to-many naive, beginner hikers— like yourself— who have wandered off the trail and don’t make it to the end.
At the beginning of the trail, you think that it’s going to be easy. It's early spring. After about five miles, you take a break and ponder why your calf muscles ache as badly as they do. The ferns are starting to grow, and the canopy of trees blocks out the light, making everything feel grim. As you walk, you notice on the edge of the red-brown trail, small flowers are beginning to bloom, adding other colors to the vibrant green grass. You hear birds chirping in the sky and critters scurrying in the leaves that fell last fall. The water from your reusable water bottle tastes like dish soap; maybe it wasn’t fully washed out at the cushiony hotel you stayed at. That sleepless night of excitement and dread was your last night of civilian comfort.
You keep treading along after your ten-minute break, one foot in front of the other. Your mind wanders to the last phone call with the boy you left at college. He was working towards his law degree to be like his father. You couldn’t imagine a life without constant change. You think about how you thrive during the chaos, maybe because of your childhood, or because you are an artist at heart. You went to college to become an artist, despite what your father thinks about this career path. You started dating this lawyer-boy because he is like your father: analytical and precise. The opposite of yourself. Your parents encouraged you to keep dating this guy and settle down with him to create a family like they did. Yet, you left the precise lawyer-boy because you had to follow your heart; you can never be tied down. “He wanted to settle down too fast anyway,” you thought as you walked on the continuous red-brown dirt path. There are more wood chips in this section, and you are worried that one will end up in your shoe, causing a blister, which you know, from being a Girl Scout, can cause an infection. But you have the first aid kit you and your father packed together while arguing about this trip of finding yourself. He thought it was impractical, but you thought it was practical to find yourself before you finish your senior year of college.
You think about how a blister feels like being stabbed by a knife.
As hikers pass, you do that half smile to show you are friendly; they pass about every mile or so. You think maybe you are moving slower than you should. “Why are they in such a hurry?” you wonder to yourself. The birds overhead sing their pretty songs every time you pass below them, like a siren warning you of the danger of going deeper into the woods. The sun blazes upon your shoulders. However, you are wearing long sleeves because in the one book you read it said to. The book ensures that it will protect you from the elements.
The occasional dew drop falls upon your head and startles you, but only a little. Not necessarily making you jump, but causes you to be on guard. After hiking this small segment of the trail, you understand how someone can go missing in this vast forest. It is isolating. You feel alone and so small against the colossal trees. The canopy and elderly, thick trunks of trees conceal everything, like a green and brown comforter. You notice how you are alone, besides the chirping of the bird and the sound of falling dewdrops. Along with the critters crawling on the ground. The critters are growing closer to you, getting more comfortable with you in their space.
You haven’t seen a hiker in at least two hours. The forest feels secluded and never-ending.
The anguishing hunger starts to set in, you unpack your bag fully because the portable stove is at the bottom of the humongous, red backpack your father bought you, in hopes that after some adventure, you will finally settle down. The stove heats quickly, and the sizzling of the ramen is the only man-made noise in the forest; it echoes through the dense population of trees. You start to think of the old saying, “If a tree falls in the forest, it makes a sound even if no one hears it.” Your morbid mind wanders to whether anyone would hear your screams if something happens to you. The ramen is ready. It crosses your mind that in about eight hours, it will be dark. It will be your first night alone since you and the lawyer-boy from college broke up over you not knowing what you wanted to do with your life.
Through the quiet forest sounds, you can hear your own chewing; you can’t stand the sound of your chewing. You haven’t been alone with your thoughts for a long time, not even during the sleepless nights you spent in the art studio focusing on the fine details of boring still lifes. You always liked painting alive things better, it seemed more real. You told yourself during those witching hours that you would never settle for a boring job, and art was really what you wanted to do. However, doubt crossed your mind many times.
You fold up your compactibal fork and think, “Well, I should start walking.” One foot in front of the other.
Occasionally, you check to make sure that you are still following the white triangles on the bark of the trees. Suddenly, you hear a noise. It sounds like a squirrel running from a predator. At least you hope it is a squirrel running from a predator. But, it sounds like it would have to be a fat squirrel. This reminds you of a story you heard growing up at girls' camp; all you can remember is that it had to deal with short gnomes with beards and maybe the moon, the color blue was also somewhere in the plot line. You hurry along just in case it isn’t a squirrel. The book never talked about what happens if you cross something that intends harm upon you. You still haven’t passed a hiker since the one’s hurrying along in the morning. One foot in front of the other.
Peering through the trees, the sun appears to be setting, your stomach also grumbles, letting you know it's close to dinner time, which means it's time to find a place to camp tonight. As the sky grows darker, you can only see a step in front of you. The darkness is casting short, stumpy shadows that appear like small people. You swear you can see bright blue lights in pairs in the shadows of the trees. The feeling of being all alone sets in. However, there is a particular urgency to keep moving. You remember it is unsafe to move during the dark, isolating hours of the night without the proper gear, which you did not have room for in your large backpack. Only a few hikers have passed you, but none for a long time; they all looked like long-haired hippies who would pull a guitar out of their packs and sing you a song about how a journey starts with one step.
After taking an hour to get your tent set up, longer than you wanted to take. The shadows appear to be growing closer.
It's time for dinner. Again, ramen is the choice cuisine. The best comfort food since college. The savory synthetic smell reminds you of the countless nights you sat at your desk studying some boring art history. You eat the ramen as the sky grows darker and darker, scrutinizing every sound you hear. You hear the crunching of leaves. The sounds are growing closer. They most definitely sound larger than a squirrel. Eating quickly, you finish your meal and crawl into your sleeping bag, hoping that it is indeed just a plump squirrel.
All night, you have dreams of weird blue-eyed people and a house with pastel-yellow paint peeling off. Throughout the night, there is scurrying right by your tent, but you reassure yourself that it is just a dream. But you are awake.
As you start your morning at dawn, you pay particular attention to the size of the ferns and how vibrant they are. They are the size of a man's skull and the most vibrant green ever known. There are footprints on the trail are about the average size for a human. You think that they are probably left over from the day before. But you didn’t notice them yesterday. They are going in the opposite direction, heading straight towards where you camped. One foot in front of the other, just like yours.
At noon, you eat ramen again, this is your first meal of the day; you were never a breakfast person, and it always made you feel sick to your stomach ever since middle school. You ask yourself if that is normal. At this point in the path, the trees are thick, layers upon layers of bark and leaves, besides one thin path that is maybe the width of two people. The sun is almost nonexistent above your head, its shades of greens, from dark to light, but it looks almost layered like the leaves are growing on top of each other, competing for sunlight. You woke up at sunrise, yet you haven’t seen another hiker, not even the hairy, hippy ones that frequented your starting point.
Shortly after the always satisfactory meal of chicken-flavored ramen, you see a clearing in the trees. Hoping it's a town, you pick up the pace. Because if it is a town, that means that people are nearby. Once you get closer, you see it's a singular house. The color of sunshine with peeling paint revealing dark brown wood underneath. The shutters are a powder blue with windows without glass, looking like a gaping mouth waiting for its next victim to enter. The door is ajar. Your curiosity overpowers your better judgment. You continue walking towards the dilapidated, yellow house. The overwhelming feeling of tragedy strikes you as you step onto the rotting porch. You wonder what happened here since all the furniture and worldly possessions are still inside the house.
The door is white, and the oval window has fallen out, leaving shards of glass on the unstable porch. Slowly, the door opens, you don’t know if it was you or the wind. “Hello…” comes from your mouth instinctively.
Slowly, you take it step by step. One foot in front of the other. The house is quieter than the trail— no rustling of leaves, no birds chirping, no footsteps from other hikers— one foot in front of the other. The room to the right is a sort of living room. The floorboards are still intact here, unlike the front porch. There is a piano with a thick layer of dust collecting on the keys. The wood is a beautiful stained oak. There is sheet music and other papers littered across the wooden planks of the floor. It looks like the house has either been ransacked or someone left in a hurry. On the wall in front of you, there is a pair of mismatched red chairs with ever-vibrant upholstery. There is no dust on the chairs like someone had just sat in them. There is a mirror right where you are looking, and in the corner of the mirror, staring back at you are wide, unnaturally blue eyes.
One foot in front of the other. You run as fast as your legs can carry you up the stairs. You instinctively run up the stairs, you can’t explain why. You hear footsteps behind you. Even though there are no window panes, you can’t hear anything besides the footsteps following you. One foot in front of the other.
The upstairs looks untouched. You pass by a bedroom and walk in; it feels like something is pulling you into the room. You felt like your feet weren’t moving, like you were floating. You see a child’s bed with a pink and purple quilt. Pinned to the wall with a thumb-tack, you see a crayon-colored picture— clearly drawn by a kid— that depicts the window to your right. The window has a white, built-in seat with a unique quilted cushion, matching the quilt on the bed, pink and purple. But, on those windows, in the drawing, there are multiple pairs of bright blue eyes surrounded by yellow stares and a dark purple-blue background. You grab the drawing instinctively, not knowing why. You hear grunting and footsteps, one foot in front of the other. You run down the opposite stairs and run into the backyard. You see the trail again and run down it.
Tripping after a mile, you land right in front of a clean mirror; it looks like it was just placed there, because if it wasn’t, it would be covered in mud from the trail. While falling, you drop the drawing, and the picture gets covered in mud. Under the mirror on a newspaper-like paper, it says in sharp, bolded letters, “DEAD!” You lift up the paper and see the story of a girl who went on a hike on the Appalachian Trail, with a bright red, humongous pack that her father bought her. It describes how she had recently broken up with her boyfriend, and then you stare at the dreaded word on top of the paper. “Dead!”
You hear a scream, you can’t tell if it's yours. But as you look up, you see those large, unnaturally blue eyes and a white beard before the world becomes dark, and you feel nothing besides the painful wheeze of your last breath. “If someone screams in the forest, it makes a sound even if no one hears it.”
