“It’s fine,” Alana said. She’d already set about making a little pile of stone markers at the very start of her path, bright neon orange ties going up around the thin saplings at the exterior of Hollow Forest. “Dr. Kenneth said that it would be a good idea to try some exposure therapy, anyways,” she mumbled, speaking to herself as she pulled tight on one of the thin strips of plastic.
“We’ve been working up to it. Raleigh has Phil until evening time- so if I don’t check in by six, then he knows to go looking for me. Not that anything’ll happen. Why would it? It’s just woods. I’ve done that before. Auroras’s overgrown by them, when you outstrip the farmland.” She paused, considering her tag for a moment. It seemed solidly rooted enough in place.
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Nothing is going to happen. And you could handle it, even if it does,” she said firmly, giving herself a pep talk- before adjusting her backpack’s strap where it was biting into her shoulder. She didn’t expect to spend more than a few hours in the woods- but James had taught her to always prepare for the worst. The wilderness could so easily hold onto someone for longer than anticipated- and you’d be grateful for your bugout bag of supplies, then. At the very least, trail mix made for fun snacking while loitering on more scenic paths.
The woods were more frightening than they’d ever been in her childhood. They lacked the vague familiarity that all forests did- a soft echo of a home that didn’t quite fit into the picture perfect life of Aurora, but felt right all the same. Alana sang softly to herself to ease her frayed raw nerves. “With all my uphill struggles- how long could you cope?” The question went unanswered, as she continued to carry the tune, hauling herself up a particularly rocky ledge. “And you wear that face so bravely, and stand out in the rain...” Her voice broke a little, wavering, as she tried to not lose her head to the dizzying sway of vertigo. She immediately cut across to a clearing not to far from the rocks, heading into a copse flanked by trees. “But honey, I take all the blame...”
Alana was in the middle of tying another marker around a tree- at head height, out of the way of errant little mice in the underbrush and easier for someone searching for them at eye level to notice, when she noticed something strange just in the back of her vision. She froze, the song that she’d just been singing quietly as she walked through the woods faltering. She stood like that, facing the bark of the tree- sweat trickling down the collar of her t-shirt, sunfaded, logo indistinct. Her hands shook, half way through pulling the knot through.
Alana took in a deep breath- (she could practically see Dr. Kenneth’s gentle face, as he walked her through breathing exercises in the cramped confines of his psychiatry office.) “Hello?” she asked, mustering up the courage to announce her presence in the clearing- though her hand went for her pocket knife, flicking it open with the spring snappily. Her grip was firm, despite trembling a little, the blade held cautiously at her side- obscured from sight by the end of her jacket. “Who’s there?”