I continuously tossed and turned in my bed in the midst of a loud heavy rainstorm. The only source of light in the room was the blinking digital clock in the corner of my bedside table. The sounds of my blanket, thunder, rain hitting the cold concrete floor, and the white noise entering my ears was making it even harder for me to fall asleep. This is the last memory I have of my room. The next morning I woke up to a very uncomfortable smell and feeling of dampness as if I had been sleeping outside in the rain. When I opened my eyes, my bed was nowhere to be seen. My digital clock was no longer blinking in the dark room. Instead, I found myself sitting under a tree in a big wide forest where the sunlight came down straight from the sky onto my face. I pinched my skin and bit my tongue thinking that this was a dream. There was no way that I could have ended up here. I did not even know where “here”was as all I saw around me were trees. I closed my eyes several times hoping to open them back again in my room only to realize that this is not a dream, but now a reality that I must face.
I opened up my ears a bit more to hear a stream of water flowing from a river in the distance. When I approached the river, I also found a small village with several houses lined up in a circle. I noticed the smoke from their chimneys and continued my footsteps towards the village hoping that I could find someone to help explain where I was and possibly why I was here. As I was getting closer, I felt that there was something strange about the atmosphere. Everytime I stopped, I heard another footstep stopping after me as if someone was following. I slowed down my pace and paid closer attention to the sounds around me. I finally turned around at the right timing to find a group of men who had weapons made out of glass shards pointed towards my neck. I immediately held up my hands and asked for help. I explained my situation and that I had no intention to harm anyone here. They took down their weapons and continued to search the forest for something. I was close enough to get to the village on my own, but because I did not want anyone to misunderstand me as someone who came to harm the people here, I went to ask if the men could guide me there. Then men however seemed very busy and vigilant as they walked carefully with the weapons still held tightly in their hands. I asked what they were looking for and one of the men told me that they were looking for a little girl from the village that had gone missing a few days ago. I asked them for the reason for the weapons and they told me of another incident from last night where they encountered a bear who bit off a man’s arm while searching for the girl. So they must have thought I was another bear when they heard me wandering around looking for a place to go.
Anyways, after this brief conversation, the men quickly turned their backs against me again to look for the girl without me even having the time to ask them if they could come along with me. But, since I was able to convince them that I was doing no harm, I felt certain that I could do the same to the people down in the village without any problem so I carried on without too much worrying. I noticed steps towards the entrance to the village when I got closer and followed the trail. Not too far into the village, I heard noises of footsteps coming towards me. It was the villagers hoping that the men had returned with the girl that they were looking for. I could see the disappointed faces as soon as they realized that I was not the one they expected. Then they also gave me the same reaction as the men in the forest did. They quickly grabbed armor and weapons in alertness. So then I quickly repeated the process of explaining my situation once again and an old lady came close to me offering to show me around the village.