International Affairs

On a Hunt

No one knew exactly what a lantern looked like. Katelyn examined her surroundings while adjusting her glasses. It was almost impossible to tell where she was. The campus was unrecognizable with all its special effects. Katelyn jerked to a halt as she stopped at a huge ditch in the ground.

"There are no ditches on campus..." Katelyn thought to herself.

She squatted down and touched the edge of the ditch. Her hand touched grass. There was no ditch...it was only a hologram!

Katelyn bravely placed a foot onto the ditch. She could walk over the ditch like she could on regular grass. It was just a hologram that rippled when she touched it. There had to be a lantern beyond the ditch because the ditch looked so real. Most people might not try to cross over.

Katelyn's hand touched rough tree bark. She guessed she was by the woods now.

There were screams in the distance and Katelyn felt her heart rate speed up. It's only other girls running into a hologram... "It's only a hologram," Katelyn kept repeating to herself. She never liked ghost movies to begin with unlike Jane. Jane was probably just running through the ghosts and laughing.

All of a sudden, a ghostly face appeared in front of Katelyn. A scream ripped from Katelyn's throat before she could stop it. On instinct, she scrambled into the trees with cold sweat pouring down her face.

"They're not real..." Katelyn muttered to herself. "They. Are. Not. Real."

The eerie glow started to float toward her and Katelyn was on the run. She wildly tore through the trees, knocking branches out of her way. A root caught her ankle and sent her sprawling onto the ground. Katelyn jerked up and saw that the ghost was gone. She let out a breath of relief.

Standing up on shaky legs and dusting the dry leaves and twigs from herself, she realized she dropped her night vision glasses in her panicked escape. Katelyn felt around the ground for them but couldn't find them.

"I'm so screwed..." Katelyn muttered to herself. She squinted through the darkness and tried to make out the shapes.

Just then, the campus had gone strangely silent. Katelyn couldn't hear anything. Where was everyone? Even the shrieks of exclamation were gone now.

Katelyn leaned against a thick tree to catch her breath. After a few moments, she was treading lightly across the ground. Her footsteps were silent as she looked around. Tonight even the stars and moon were covered by a cloudy gloom. Everything was black.

Suddenly, Katelyn saw a tiny ball of light floating around in the distance.

"A lantern!" she thought to herself. Yes! She had finally found one. She moved faster after it but the lantern was floating away faster too, probably from the wind. She felt herself go from a jog to a sprint.

Katelyn gasped as she felt her foot sink into something hard and painful. Her entire body went sprawling onto the grass but it was too dark to see anything without her glasses. Her ankle felt on fire. Katelyn finally mustered up the courage to gingerly touch her ankle. It hurt but she could tell her foot was caught into the root of a tree.

"Alright, don't be a baby," she told herself. On the count of three, she pulled her foot from the hole, gritting her teeth and swearing a few times in the process.

Katelyn forced herself to stand up and go after the lantern.

"There it is..." Katelyn thought to herself as she quickly jogged to it. The lantern had drifted to a branch and gotten caught. Katelyn grabbed it, feeling a rush of victory but it was interrupted by a light zooming through the air. Katelyn dove behind a tree.