After a quick and cold breakfast, they broke camp and headed out of the trees and into the open. The sky was overcast but brighter, as the day before. The temperature was still cool but manageable with the exertion of hiking.

Spence’s soreness was easing some, despite sleeping on the hard ground. His right calf and left groin still ached a little, and, of course, his feet were blistered in his boots, but the pain was better than it had been. More trees appeared, primarily pines, scattered individually and with a few clumps here and there. He hoped that meant they neared the Forbidden Forest. He didn’t look forward to fighting again, but he was tired of this terrain.

“Favorite movie of all time,” Spence said after a few hours of walking.

“The Hunger Games, of course,” Morgan replied.

“You do make a good Katniss,” Spence complimented. He received a quick smile in return. “The Lord of the Rings—all of them.”

“Red Dawn, the original,” Caleb replied.

“You know what movie this reminds me of a little bit—minus the alternate universe, monsters, and gods?” Spence asked.

“The Lord of the Rings?” Morgan replied, eliciting a quick laugh from Caleb.

“Ha, ha. Stand by Me. Ever seen it?”

“Nope,” Caleb replied.

Morgan nodded. “Oh, yeah! The four kids go to find a dead body. It does a little, except for no girl, and none of the kids dies in the movie. Not sure if ours will turn out the same way, though.”

Morgan’s statement brought Spence back into the new real world. Although their experience was like a book or movie and was an adventure, they had no guarantee any of them would survive it. They were four high school kids in way over their heads. This story wouldn’t be regarded as fun or exciting unless they all survived intact. Maybe if they did survive, they could get together every ten years, like a high school reunion, and relive the memories.

“What is the deal with you and old movies?” Caleb asked.

Spence shrugged. “Friday night is movie night at the Underwood’s, and my dad normally picks. He’s stuck in the eighties and early nineties.”

“Wow. That’s terrible,” Caleb said.

“You should hear what he listens to on Sirius XM in the car.”

Caleb halted them after a few more hours at a small cluster of pines. They sat on the pine- needle-covered grass and dug out the remains of their food. When Spence finished eating, he realized he barely had enough food left—an apple and possibly one meat and cheese sandwich—for a meal. He knew the others had to be in a similar situation.

As if reading his mind, Caleb spoke. “Morgan, if you see anything furry and moving, you need to shoot it. We might reach the Forbidden Forest tonight, but I doubt we’ll stumble right into Sabekha. You don’t have to eat the meat if you don’t want to, but I’d prefer not to starve or get weakened too much to fight from lack of food.”

Morgan stared blankly at the ground. “OK,” she responded.

Once they resumed marching, Morgan kept her bow in hand with an arrow nocked. The land was becoming more overgrown, with patches of weeds, briars, tall grass, and more trees. At the top of one large hill, Caleb pointed ahead. Spence followed his arm and saw a dark green line stretching across the horizon, still a few hours away.

“We should make it by dark,” Caleb said.

Spence was lost in his thoughts an hour later when motion exploded in front of them. He looked up and saw two flashes of movement streaking out of a thicket of scrub. Then beside him, Morgan sprang into action. She drew the bowstring back and released the arrow in one smooth motion. That arrow flew to the left. Without waiting to see if it struck her target, she repeated the act and sent another one flying to the right.

“There’s your stupid meat,” she stated flatly.

“Wow, Kat, impressive,” Caleb replied.

“It’s easier to shoot when the target isn’t trying to kill you.”

Caleb hurried to the left and picked up a fat gray rabbit with an arrow sticking out of its breast. He then retrieved the other to the right. “Just remember, these are for our survival, and they had more than a fair chance. Few people could kill running rabbits with a bow. These aren’t penned-in cows getting whacked in the head.” Caleb handed the arrows back to Morgan.

Morgan wiped the blood off the arrowheads on the grass and returned them to her quiver. “I suppose.”

Caleb drew one of his daggers and went to work, slitting their bellies up to their ribs and cleaning out the insides. Once they were clean and drained of blood, he stuffed them both into his pack.

As they resumed walking, Spence continued scanning the horizon. The hills began to flatten, allowing him to catch occasional glimpses of the dark green line that was most likely the Forbidden Forest. It reminded him of when he was a child and trying to catch glimpses of the ocean when his family drove to the beach each year.

“Have you all noticed anything?” Caleb asked.

“This world sucks?” Morgan responded.

“True. But there are no birds. We haven’t seen one since we’ve been here. In fact, the rabbits and monsters are the only living things we’ve seen.”

“What does it mean?” Spence asked.

“Maybe nothing. It’s just a little weird.”

“What isn’t weird here?” Morgan asked. “There’s also never any wind.”

“Or sun or blue skies,” Spence added.

“Very true. Interesting,” Caleb replied.

The green line on the horizon expanded in thickness and height and eventually coalesced into a forest of tall pine trees. The sight of the trees and the rapidly fading light spurred them into a brisk walk. Spence tried to ignore his aching legs and feet and thought of lying beside a warm fire on a soft bed of pine needles. He anticipated the night would be warmer than last night and hoped the woods would be safer than the open land.

They reached the Forbidden Forest an hour later. The sun had presumably just set, and the sky was a faint gray glow. The three stood staring in awe. The pine trees averaged eighty to one hundred feet in height. The limbs started twenty feet up and were then thick to the tops. The trees reminded Spence of the sequoias in Yosemite, except the tops were thicker and stretched out farther. Pine needles carpeted the ground beneath the trees. Little underbrush was visible, just occasional smaller pines and some patches of ferns. The light was much dimmer only a few feet inside the woods.

“There’s not much light left. I’ll find a spot for camp while you two gather wood. It should be easy with all this pine.” Caleb entered the trees and began looking for the correct configuration of trunks for a campsite.

Spence and Morgan entered the woods behind Caleb. The fading light gave the forest an eerie glow. The air was noticeably warmer under the protection of the trees. The forest was strangely silent and the stale air almost oppressive. Spence wasn’t exactly afraid, but he was a little on edge. He couldn’t help but wonder what type of creatures, mechanical or living, they would face next. At least something as big as the wolfosaurus or Cyclops would have a tough time maneuvering in the trees.

Caleb was right about wood being easy to find—there were plenty of dead, dry limbs scattered around the tree trunks. They soon had armfuls and used their hearing to locate Caleb, who was finishing creating a three-sided shelter. He quickly started a small fire. It soon illuminated a twenty-foot circle, meeting a wall of darkness that enclosed them. “We should keep the fire small. Someone, or something, could spot this from a mile away in this darkness. Grab me some big rocks and a couple of long, straight sticks, and we’ll fry some rabbit.”

Soon, Caleb had stacked the rocks on two opposite sides of the fire, skinned the rabbits, and cut them into pieces. He then sharpened the ends of two sticks and worked them through the hunks of meat, creating two kabobs. He then rested the ends of the sticks onto the rocks, some distance above the flames. The three sat in front of the fire, placing their weapons and packs behind them.

“Hmmm, smell that, boys? Screw the stale bread and molded cheese,” Caleb said.

Morgan scowled at Caleb but still stared intently at the fire and roasting meat.

Caleb turned the kabobs several times until the meat was sufficiently browned. He bit a small bite of one of the pieces. “OMG, this is so good!”

“OMG?” Morgan laughed. “LOL.”

“What’s good?” a voice said from the darkness just outside the reach of the fire.

Caleb dropped the kabob and reached for his sword. Morgan and Spence likewise searched for their weapons on the tarp behind them.

Trey suddenly appeared in the light on the other side of the fire, grinning.