Pathfinder

1

Sighing, I almost rolled my eyes at my own absurdity. Luckily, I didn't, because alarm bells went off in my head reminding me to maintain eye contact. I evaluated what other options I had and remembered the path I had seen leading into the woods. "What the heck," I said aloud. I might as well try my luck getting away from the creatures in there since I would get nowhere out here in this field. I slowly started shuffling back, moving towards the shelter of the trees. Of course, after no more than four steps, I slipped. This sent me flailing backwards.

As I fell several thoughts went through my head at once. I was simultaneously lamenting my incompetence, determining the best way to land and not injure myself, and prepping myself to run. Although I was offered a lovely view of the stars as I fell, the creatures were no longer in my view. I managed to twist around and brace my fall on my hands and the balls of my feet, landing sort of in a plank position, but I didn't take too much time to evaluate my posture. The minute I was stable I took off sprinting towards the darkness under the leaves. All I heard was a low whine and sporadic crackling which honestly sounded kind of like popcorn popping.

Once I made it into the forest I ducked behind a tree just off the path to catch my breath. I peeked my head slowly around the trunk to look back and see the creatures' progress. "Holy shi-nikies" I exclaimed involuntarily. The creatures had definitely maintained my pace and now sat side by side at the edge of the forest, staring directly at me. Luckily, they seemed to have stopped at some invisible line. I was glad to see that it appeared as though I would not have to learn what it felt like to be bitten by a shadow at that present moment. Since there was no chance of my going back out into the field, I decided to follow the path further into the trees.

The forest was fairly sparse, dotted with ferns and bushes here and there, and there were numerous openings in the canopy where beams of moonlight were able to penetrate and illuminate my surroundings. I followed the path around a few twists and bends and started to hear the sound of trickling water from somewhere in the trees. As I continued on the trickling grew louder and soon I was walking right alongside a small creek. It was honestly gorgeous, sparkling in the moonlight. The path further progressed to an opening in the trees and the woods gave way to an absolutely stunning clearing.

It appeared to be perfectly circular, with eight openings into the trees evenly spaced around its perimeter. The trees bent over these openings and intertwined their branches to give the illusion of those terraces people have in their gardens. The clearing floor was covered with very short silver grass and dotted with cute little silver flowers. At the center of the clearing was a rock formation of some sort. It looked like one of those towers people make in rock stacking competitions, with several large slabs balanced about eight feet high. Littered around its base were a number of smaller stones. The creek I had been following meandered its way past the rocks and continued into the trees on the opposite side.

I was still in the shadow of the forest, pondering this marvel of a place, when I heard a shout of pain from behind the rock pile. Someone jumped into view, waving their hand furiously, and blowing on it like it was a steaming cup of hot chocolate. I noticed a spot on their palm had a slowly fading glow. Without warning the wind picked up, and a steady breeze began to blow through the clearing. It was strange, the wind seemed to have a slight silver tint. The person in the clearing looked around once more and walked briskly back into the woods off to my right.

Part of me wanted to walk back down the path to see if those creatures were gone, but curiosity compelled me to stay. I wanted to see if anything else interesting would happen. Glad that I did. Almost at the same time three people walked out from three different openings across the glade. They all paused when they saw each other, but one of them waved hello and this seemed to ease the tension. Together the three of them approached the rock pile cautiously. "Should we go for it?" one asked. "Did you see what happened to her though?" another replied. I was dying to know what they were talking about by this point. "Eh let's see what happens," the third boldly stated as they reached down to pick up one of the stones from the base of the pile. The other two bent down to do the same. All at once the stones they were holding pulsed with light.

All three of them winced in pain and threw their stones to the ground. "Ahhhhh god that hurts," the one in the middle screamed. "Here hold on I might have something to help" said the one on the left. They reached into their bag and pulled out a tube of something. "It's aloe cream. I get really bad sunburns; Maybe it will help with the burning." "Dude don't you want to use it first?" said the one who had exclaimed. "No I'm used to the burning feel just go ahead." The person in the middle quickly opened the tube and spread some cream on the bright spot on their hand. "It's not working!" they yelled. "Wait what the hell, mine stopped burning" said the one to the left, who had given the ointment. The spot on their hand faded quickly. "Wait c'mon let's try the water!" piped up the one who had so far remained quiet. All three rushed over to the creek. One of the two with still glowing hands plunged their arm elbow deep into the stream. Immediately they let out a sigh of relief but quickly gasped in surprise and yanked their arm out.

The spot on their hand had disappeared, but the water was rapidly turning an opaque silver color, as tendrils of light poured out from where their hand had been. Soon the entire creek was glowing, making it look like a huge mess of glitter paint. The final individual, still with their hand gleaming brightly, having received zero relief from the proposed treatment, said "Oh yeah ef that I am not putting my hand in there." Instead they buried their hand in the sand at the water's edge. I guess it worked, because they let forth a very dramatic, "oh thank god," before lifting their hand up to affirm that indeed the light was gone. They to, had seemed to affect the landscape though. The sand shone brightly from the spot where their hand had been, and this light seemed to slowly permeate the entire beach until it too was a sparkling shade of silver. Sand dude, as I will affectionately refer to him, jumped up when he saw this and said, "okay yeah that's enough I'm out. Peace yall." He then turned and hurried off to the opening in the trees he had come from, pausing to look back and wave a quick goodbye before disappearing into the shadows.

The remaining two stood up together. I couldn't really hear what they were saying but they appeared to exchange numbers and then sort of stood awkwardly, not sure what to do next. "Well, cya for now." Aloe girl smiled as she said this. The two shook hands, and then walked off in their respective directions back into the forest. Now at this point I really should have noped it out of there, but again I am just way too curious of a person and I had to investigate things for myself. I paused a few seconds longer, but no one else emerged and I decided to take my turn.

I cautiously stepped into the now brightly lit clearing. With the glow from the stream, sand, grass, and breeze I felt like I was on stage in the gaze of a spotlight. I walked up to the rock formation and examined the rocks at its base. None of them seemed particularly unique. They were all smooth and roughly the size of baseballs. "Here goes nothing," I sighed.

Reaching down to pick up a random stone, I immediately felt a shock as I touched it. Then the rock began to pulse with a bright silver light and quickly grow warm in my hand. The sensation was nice at first but rapidly became unbearable. I threw the rock to the ground, hoping it would not burn the grass at my feet. The light inside the stone had gone out, but the burning in my hand remained, now spread across a silver patch in my palm. I winced in pain and frantically waved my hand around to try and cool it. If anything this just made it worse, so I ran over to the river to plunge my hand into the glowing stream. Again nothing. The water felt as though it wasn't there; burying my hand in the sand led to a similar result.

I ran back into the middle of the grassy area and looked around frantically. I gripped my wrist and sucked air through my teeth to try and handle the searing pain. "Geez okay ow!" I exclaimed looking up at the night sky in exasperation. I threw my hands up in frustration and thankfully the burning started to lessen. I brought my hand to my face and saw the silver spot condensing into a single bright point before flickering and going out. Almost immediately afterwards I noticed the light levels in the clearing begin to fluctuate dramatically. Searching around for the source I looked back up at the sky once more to find that the moon was quickly moving through the phases of its lunar cycle. What had been bright and full was now quickly diminishing. After only a few seconds it was already a waning gibbous, then a crescent, rapidly approaching a new moon. The glow from the clearing was matching the light from the moon, slowly dimming out. As the last sliver of silver disappeared, the entire clearing went pitch black. I felt the same shove that had brought be to this place and stumbled forward. As I caught my balance it briefly registered in my mind that while looking at the moon I had seen no more stars visible in the night sky.