Lost and Found

By Lady Violu

Chapter 3

I woke up to the sounds of the forest, birds chirping in the trees and leaves rustling in the gentle morning breeze. It was a beautiful morning and I couldn’t help but feel excited for the day as I climbed out of my sleeping bag and stepped outside. The air was calm and cool on my face as I watched the sky brighten as the first rays of sunlight fell on the forest. I took a deep breath and took in the peacefulness of the forest.

I waved good morning to Grace; she had apparently woken up before me and was already preparing for breakfast. One by one, the others emerged from the tents; we all gathered around the cold ashes of the previous night’s fire and ate breakfast, chatting and joking as we did. As time went on, we began to notice that Ross still hadn’t gotten up yet.

I poked my head back into the tent to check if he had slept in, but his sleeping bag was completely empty. My heart began to race as I fully began to process what was happening.

“Ross is gone!” I shouted as I pulled my head from the tent.

Everyone looked at each other with concern.

“Are you sure?” Toby looked particularly worried

“Well, his sleeping bag is empty.”

“Fuck, What do we do now?” Bella asked.

My head was spinning. I could barely process what was happening.

“We look for him,” Grace answered with surprising authority. “Split up into groups of two and search around, he can’t have gone far.”

Everyone agreed with that choice and the pairs were quickly decided: Owen and Charlie, Toby and Bella, and Grace and I.

“When was the last time anyone saw him? Maybe we can find some clues about where he is,” Bella asked.

“Last night,” Owen said. “He went outside and I don’t remember him coming back in.” He turned to look at Charlie and Toby. Neither of them said anything.

“Wait, He didn’t come back!?” I felt sick to my stomach. “Oh god. It’s all my fault.” I fell to my knees.

Charlie rushed over and lifted me to my feet. “No, It’s not,” he asserted, “Ross decided to go out on his own, and nobody could have known that he wouldn’t come back.”

“But I’m the one who made him uncomfortable,” I sobbed, “and now he’s lost or… or -- he he’s -- dea--”

“That’s bullshit.” Grace glared at me, her amber eyes piercing into my skull. “He may have gotten lost out here for the night, but he is one hundred percent alive and well out there and waiting for us to find him and bring him back to camp. Let’s not let him down.”

I sniffled and stood back on my feet. “Okay… let’s go.”

Grace smiled at me. “Attaboy.”

We agreed to meet back at camp in two hours and the groups quickly dispersed in three separate directions to scan the area. My heart pounded in my chest as Grace and I began to call Ross’s name. We never heard anything in response.

As time passed with no progress the knot in my gut twisted tighter and tighter. Despite the reassurances from Charlie and Grace, I couldn’t help but continue to blame myself. If I had just minded my own business, then Ross would still be here and we would all be having a good time and wouldn’t be dealing with this nightmare. But no, I just had to ask.

“Stop it.”

I turned to Grace as we walked. “Stop what?”

“You’re still blaming yourself. You need to stop.”

I deflated even more than I already was. “Well, it is my fault.”

“That’s not true.” She stopped walking. “And even if it was your fault, blaming yourself isn’t going to help him now.” She sighed. “All we can do is look for him and hope that he’s alright.”

She was right. That didn’t matter right now, I needed to suck it up and focus on looking for him.

As Grace and I returned back to camp, I couldn’t shake the dread that had slowly been growing throughout my mind. As we neared the camp, I couldn’t help but hold out a bit of hope. Hope that Ross had managed to find his way back to camp or that one of the other groups had found him and that they were all sitting around the old fire, waiting to tell Grace and I the whole story so that we could all laugh about it together.

Fate had other plans.

One of the tents came into sight through the trees and Grace and I broke into a sprint, but there was only Toby and Bella, looking just as disappointed as I felt. I dropped to the ground; my heart was too heavy to stand anymore. We all had to wait and hope that soon Charlie and Owen would return with Ross in tow.

Several minutes passed.

I sat up, trying to piece everything together; it all felt like a bad dream. “Where are they? There’s no way they got lost too”

“Maybe they found something,” Bella suggested.

“What do you mean?” Grace asked.

Bella shrugged. “I don’t know, anything… Hopefully Ross.”

“But why wouldn’t they come back to camp?” I wondered.

“That’s a good question. Let’s go find them,” Grace said, her voice confident but clearly tinged with worry. She started in the direction that Charlie and Owen had gone; I scrambled to my feet to follow her. Toby and Bella trailed not far behind.

As we walked, the forest grew quiet save for the rustling of leaves overhead. It amplified the fear and anxiety that we all felt, forcing us all to stew it our worry. We all pressed onward, determined to find everyone.

“Charlie! Owen! Ross!” we shouted as we walked, but the forest remained silent.

“Where the hell are they?” Grace huffed, her frustration evident.

Nobody had a good answer.

We pressed on, following the trail of footprints our now-missing friends had made just a few hours prior.

I could feel my hope wearing thinner and thinner as we followed the trail until Grace suddenly stopped. I looked down to find the trail but it abruptly stopped a few feet in front of us, leaving us with no ideas left.

“What the fuck is happening here!?” Bella’s voice carried more than a hint of terror.

“I don’t know, but we need to get out of here and call the police.”

Bella sighed. “This is so messed up. Yeah, let’s go.”

“Wait, we’re just leaving? We still need to find everyone!” Toby refused

“It’s clear that we aren’t very good at finding anyone; it’ll be a lot easier to look if we at least have more people,” I explained.

“But won’t that take a while? Our friends are still lost out here!”

Bella answered this time. “Toby, we can hope all we want but I don’t think we have what it takes to find them. We followed what clues we had and came up empty. We don’t have nearly enough people to do a full-blown search. We need help. Right, Grace?” She paused for Grace’s confirmation. “Grace?”

But when we turned to look at Grace for her answer, she was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck. There’s no fucking way.” My voice echoed through the forest. “She was right here!”

“That’s it. We’re getting out of here,” Bella declared and started marching back to the campsite. “Something is wrong here and we are not equipped to deal with it.”

Toby’s hesitance seemed to have vanished along with Grace. 

He sighed sadly before beginning to follow her.