Five ’o’ clock came sooner than I thought, and I rise from my seat behind the cash register. I walk towards the window and turn the sign from "open" to "closed".  I grab my backpack and walk out the back door of the flower shop, locking it behind me. I start on my journey home to my cabin in the forest, entering the woods and stepping onto the path I walk home on every weekday. "Hopefully Chris will be home early enough to take a walk along the river," I say to myself. 

     An hour later, I’m halfway home. I happen to be weary today, so my walk is taking twice the usual time. At this rate, it will be dark by the time I get home and Chris will more than likely be asleep. 

     I hazily traipse through the woods, my feet cracking and cracking leaves below me. Weaving through trees and jumping over logs, I stumble several times. My journey home is far from desirable, but with my limited budget and lack of a vehicle, I am left with walking as my only option. Sundown creeps nearer until the sun is entirely hidden behind the tree-covered mountains. 

     The lumbering trees are now black, and their limbs seem to reach down in attempts to grab me. I feel a sharp poke, familiar to the jab of a stick, in my lower back. I turn around frantically, but after carefully searching the area around me for any abnormalities, I dismiss the poke as only my mind growing paranoid. As I reach a clearing, my pace quickens. My boots hit the grass with extreme force, my legs aching and my mind growing fuzzy as a result of my weariness. My cabin is now in sight, the textured wood gleaming in the moonlight.

     I start running toward my cabin, but as I near the rocky pathway, the cabin disappears as if I had only imagined it. My body slams to a halt, my mind running. My feet feel as if they have been stuck in cement, heavy and unmovable. My mind says to move forward, but my feet are refusing to do so. Have I walked along the wrong path, then convinced myself that the cabin should be over the clearing? Yes, that has to be it. 

     It takes a moment or two, but I am able to force my legs to shuffle forward a few feet, and soon I am able to walk gingerly. My whole body was experiencing shock, my hallucination the cause of my surprise. Just as I’m recovering from shock, I see a body moving opposite of me. Across the hill, there is a man running closer and closer to me. I decide that my best option is to stand still and hope that in the darkness he will not notice my presence. As he quickly gains on me, I decide that there is no way for me to not be spotted so I yell into the darkness, "Who’s there?" 

     "Carlie? Is that you?" The man called out to me. The voice automatically registered to me and I knew who this man was. The voice belonged to my husband, Chris. 

     "Chris? Oh my, I don’t know what’s happening," my voice cried out, tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. Chris must have experienced the same hallucinations I had on his journey home. 

     "Carlie, did you see the cabin disappear?" Chris asked, his own voice wavering. 

     "I did... I saw the cabin over the cleaning and ran towards it and it just faded into nothing!" I cried, my voice cracking and squeaking in fear. 

     "The same thing happened to me, Carlie. We just need to walk around the area and we’ll find the cabin," Chris said with obvious fear in his voice. 

     "I’m so scared, I even felt something touch my back earlier. I think something followed me," I said, trying to calm myself enough for my voice not to crack so badly. "Something poked me, and I felt a presence." 

     "It was just your imagination. Calm down," Chris said soothingly. 

     "I’m so confused...What could be happening? Where is the cabin? Where are we going to stay tonight?" I asked no one in particular, my mind running once again. Tears steadily streamed down my face, dripping and running down my neck. 

     Sticky tears dried to my skin and my eyes burned. Chris appeared at my side and wrapped his arms around my shaking body. He held me and whispered repeatedly into my ear, "It will all be okay, everything will be fine." 

     With me wailing and Chris doing everything possible to help calm me, we must have caught the attention of something. As Chris held me in his arms, I felt a sharp poke in my back, more than likely puncturing my skin. This poke was followed by something spelling out letters on to my back. 

Next Chapter: Bones