Ember Burning

 By Jennifer Alsever

Chapter 1

Darkness. It can make you vanish and disappear completely from sight. At least for an instant. Maybe forever.

The thought passes through my head all the time. Especially now, as I run through a curtain of pine trees. In the dark. Alone.

I dodge branches like a boxer, weaving and dancing through the trees and making my way through uneven mud, patches of snow, rocks, tufts of grass and bushes. The leaves crunch underfoot. The wind whistles through the treetops. The crickets chirp.

My heartbeat booms in my ears. With each step, it’s like a shot of Red Bull straight to my veins. Like I could jump right out of my skin.

I’d intended to come and set up a tent for the night, but the forest is so dense, it’s a wall of trees. The trail has vanished, and suddenly, I’m disoriented. I stop to lean on a towering pine tree, panting.

Of course I know this is ridiculous. What I’m doing. Going to Trinity Forest. Alone. Like the freak show I am. The girl who goes off the tracks. Who obsesses about missing people, about what happens in Trinity. But the mystery of Trinity calls to me. If I disappear, so be it.

Maybe my weirdo obsession is because of Mom. Or maybe it’s just because of where I live. In a town that produces opinions like a bustling factory, the one thing everyone agrees on is what happens in Trinity Forest. They say it’s haunted. Mysterious. Dangerous.

Everyone knows the stories. The one child actress who went there and never came home back in the 80s. That backpacker in the 90s. I want to say some random oil worker from Texas, too. The list goes on and dates back years. Decades. Hell, maybe even centuries.

Those stories—plus the fact that Trinity is private property—keep most people in neighboring Leadville away. Only outside tourists ever went to the forest—or those who really wanted to disappear. Mom called it the Bermuda Triangle of Colorado. She became obsessed with missing people, too.

“Don’t ever go there, Ember. Ever,” she told me repeatedly when I was a little girl.

By the time I was eleven, I’d figured it was just another story to keep me and my brother Jared out of the woods. Just like my parents used Santa Claus to get me to clean my room in December. Or the tooth fairy to get me to brush my teeth.

I need to think about something else. I need to get out of here.

I start to run again, still not sure where I’m headed. The sound of my breath fills my head. Heavy, rhythmic. Fire in my lungs. My feet pound the ground swiftly, numbly skimming over rocks, kicking up pine needles. It’s as if darkness itself is chasing me, threatening to swallow me whole. I sprint fast, my backpack banging against my hips, straps eating into the skin of my shoulders. Pain sears my sides. I need to get out of here.
        I spin around in the black night. The hushed hoot of an owl. The rustling of something scampering across fallen leaves.

“I wish Maddie were here,” I whisper. Emotion creeps up my throat. The fear is dark and sticky.

Maybe I’m lost.

Maybe this was a big mistake.