Prologue
I remember the first time I ever did it. I remember that day better than any other. I remember the tears pushing past my stubborn green eyes. I remember pushing my thick, frizzy hair back from my face angrily. I remember that I could feel the blood pounding in my face fast and hard, almost as if it itself was furious. I remember I had shoved my feet into my converse and hastily tied the laces. I remember pulling a faded hood on over my head. I remember running. I remember feet pounding against the dirt road.
How had I gotten this far? Looking up, I had made it to some sort of park or something. I stood in the center of a teeny cobblestone bridge, wind whipping my charcoal colored hair round my pale face. The leaves of the trees all around me rustled restlessly, drowning out the sound of tires running over worn concrete. The sky a smokey gray.
To one side stood the city, though a bit hidden behind shrubbery and weeds, it was there.
To another opened up a forest filled with streams and large oak trees and berries and animals and more things to be discovered by a fresh pair of eyes.
If I hadn't somehow stumbled through those bushes, I'd never have found this place. I'd have walked right by, oblivious. Looking softly from the right to the left, I turned my back on the city and stepped through the vines and into the forest, this new and strange place swallowing me whole.