Information was a double-edged sword. That single, offhand comment about his family’s cabin was all the proof Mike needed. Now here he was, trudging through the woods with a small hatchet, his face slick with a mixture of sweat and irritation.
He still couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his nostalgic anecdote had landed him on firewood duty. Shoving aside a tangle of branches, he pushed deeper into the trees. Back at the campsite, he could just picture them—kicked back in their chairs, cracking open beers and laughing at his expense while he played out some sad-sack version of man versus wild.
He took a half-hearted swing at a low-hanging branch. The hatchet bit into green, living wood that would be useless for a fire. What the hell did he know about gathering firewood, anyway? His dad had always handled it at the cabin, and now that he thought about it, Mike was fairly certain those perfect logs came from a store, not from a trek into the forest.
The May heat was oppressive, the air thick with humidity leftover from yesterday’s rain, clinging to him even under the dense canopy. In the dampness of spring, every tree seemed saturated with moisture. Even if he found something dry enough to chop, he knew it would just fill the campsite with thick, eye-watering smoke. If they could even get it to light.
Besides, wasn’t this whole area a nature reserve? He had a sinking feeling there were rules against hacking away at the local flora. Still, he pushed onward, brushing a hand through his sticky hair as his eyes scanned the woods around him.
What he was even looking for, he had no idea. A part of him fantasized about stumbling upon a neatly stacked cord of wood under a tarp, a gift left behind by some more competent outdoorsman. Fifteen minutes of aimless wandering had confirmed it: he was not cut out for this, and he’d kill for a miracle.
The irony was that, at a glance, he looked the part. At five-eleven with broad shoulders and a flannel shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, he could pass for someone who knew his way around the wilderness. But a closer look revealed the truth: the beard was a little too perfectly groomed, a soft layer of pudge padded his stomach, and his arms lacked the wiry muscle that came from actual labor.
He was a marketing consultant who had simply adopted the rugged look because it was in style. And it had certainly worked in his favor—this very trip with his new girlfriend, Chloe, and three of her friends was proof of that.
If not for the suffocating heat, he wouldn’t have minded the brief escape into the woods. It was always awkward being the new guy in a group with years of shared history, trying to decode the dynamics while half the conversation flew over his head in a flurry of inside jokes and old stories.
They seemed like decent people, for the most part. Ryan was cheerful and outgoing, the engine that kept the trip’s energy up. Their interests, however, were on different planets—Ryan was all soccer and hockey, while Mike preferred video games and art. It made conversation on the long drive up a bit strained, but he was still the kind of guy you could easily grab a beer with.
Ryan’s girlfriend, Jess, was a harder pill to swallow. She had a habit of turning every conversation into a platform for her latest cause, whether it was veganism, environmentalism, or some other social crusade. Mike generally agreed with her stances, but being on the receiving end of a constant sermon was exhausting.
Ironic, he thought, how it was always the children of the elite who became the most fervent activists. Chloe had mentioned Jess’s father was a hedge fund manager and her mother a partner at a top-tier law firm. A life of unlimited funds and minimal supervision, he figured, left you with a lot of energy to burn. For Jess, that meant a one-woman crusade against “the Man.” Still, it was hard to stay annoyed with her for long; her passion, however misdirected, was infectious.
Which left Ethan. Or as Mike had privately nicknamed him, the Snake. The guy was charismatic enough, with annoyingly clean-cut good looks. He was straight out of central casting: the handsome jerk the heroine dates before meeting her true love. That felt uncomfortably close to their situation. Ethan and Chloe had never officially been a couple, but they’d been part of a foursome with Ryan and Jess for so long that everyone just assumed they’d end up together. So Mike wasn’t surprised by the veiled hostility he’d been getting from Ethan since they’d met two months ago. He probably thinks I wrecked the universe’s grand design by getting with Chloe, Mike thought, snickering to himself.
“Maybe I should just head back,” he mumbled. A fresh wave of irritation washed over him, mixed with a faint unease. He was just wandering around the woods waving a hatchet like an idiot.
Mike wasn't the jealous type, but he didn't love the idea of leaving his girlfriend with a vulture like Ethan circling. Besides, it was clear he wasn’t going to magically conjure firewood by wandering any deeper into this forest. He tightened his grip on the hatchet, pushed his hair—now a matted mess of sweat and styling wax—off his forehead, and started heading back toward camp.
He figured he’d walked in a rough semicircle, so if he just kept bearing right, he should eventually hit the camp or at least the road they’d driven in on. Five minutes later, after swatting at mosquitoes and pushing through grasping undergrowth, the woods suddenly opened up into a small clearing.
The thorny bushes and whipping branches gave way to soft, rustling grass dotted with patches of bloodroot and cardinals. It felt like an oasis, blessedly free of things to snag and scratch him. Even the chirps and rustles of the forest seemed muted here. Not a bad spot, he mused, wandering toward the center of the glade. We could move the camp here. He took one last look around, ready to turn back.
But as he turned to go, every sound in the forest ceased. The abrupt, total silence was more jarring than any noise, a profound emptiness he had never experienced. A breath later, his world went black.
[Welcome to the Continuum.]