No One Goes Twice

I don’t know what day it is. Sometimes all I can do is stand up. Even that is too much at times, but I need to write this down before I forget entirely.

According to my earlier entries I was on the road for about a week when this happened. I travelled down the west coast in my van, camping and hiking wherever I pleased. I started in Washington, and I think I had just crossed into Oregon when I had to abandon the coast. The weather had turned sour, and I didn’t want to waste a day locked up in my van waiting out the rain.

I went inland figuring I could stop at a few hot springs and make my way back to the coast when the weather had cleared up.

I don’t remember the name of the town I ended up in, everything’s all mixed up now.

I remember it was small. A quaint town, blink and you’d miss it. Something about it made me want to stay so I stopped at a local diner for breakfast.

I asked the hostess if there were any trails she recommended. She gave me the names of a few, but when I looked them up, they were all beginner friendly. I asked her if there were any unexplored or abandoned trails that might be better suited for a seasoned traveler, and she looked at me strangely before telling me I should stick to the well explored paths.

I asked my waiter the same question. I remember exactly what he said.

“No one goes into the woods twice. Not the same way.”

The way he said it made my hair stand on end. He looked odd when he spoke. It was obviously his voice coming out of his mouth on his body, but when he said it, I got the sense it was someone else.

Or something else.

After that he was smiling again, like I’d just asked him what the specials were. He refilled my coffee and promised to be back soon with my order. I was so unnerved I didn’t bother telling him the pot had gone cold.

The locals were no help, so I spent a lot of time driving, pulling over, and kicking around rest stops and mile markers. I came across this trailhead, it was so overgrown I could hardly see the sign, but there was a distinct path. It was clear the trail hadn’t been maintained for a long time, which was exactly what I was looking for.

It was still early in the day, and I had all my hiking gear and protective equipment on me, so I wasn’t worried about any real danger. If things started to look sketchy, I’d just turn around and take my van somewhere more official.

I figured it would be a short hike. I’d walk for a couple hours to see where the trail lead. Maybe stop and eat my lunch in the woods and then I’d turn around and find somewhere to park my van for the night.

At first everything was fine.

It was a clear sunny day, and the trail was such a mild incline, I was almost bored. It was beautiful though. The trees were so tall, twisting together at the tops and shading the trail in a faint greenish light.

I fell into that familiar empty headspace I adopted when I hiked. Like I was in another world, far removed from society. I couldn’t be burdened by expectation here. It was this feeling that kept me seeking unexplored or abandoned trails.

Complete solitude.

I don’t know how long I’d been walking when I noticed how quiet it was.

At first, I thought I’d just found myself in a particularly empty part of the woods but as I continued, I realized it wasn’t just quiet.

It was silent.

I strained my ears, listening past the sounds of my own body, but there was nothing. No birds or insects, no sounds of distant water, not even a breeze. The trees and underbrush were completely still, like I was walking through a photograph. The only sound was my own footsteps and even those were muffled.

It made my skin crawl.

I checked my watch and realized I couldn’t remember when I’d started hiking.

That was strange. I always made it a habit to keep an eye on the time when I was hiking but I couldn’t remember.

Then I forgot the time on my watch that I had just checked. I looked again and instantly forgot it, checked a third time and still had no idea what it said.

When I looked up, I realized I couldn’t see the sun. The sky was completely obscured by the unnatural way that the trees seemed to bend together, twisting and winding their branches into a canopy above me. It was like I was traversing through a cave but instead of dirt and rock I was buried under miles of bark and leaves. Impossibly dense branches blotted out the sky.

That's when the nausea started. My stomach churned like a drill was stirring my innards, pushing deeper with every step.

Thinking back on it, it’s strange how quickly I accepted my new reality. I never seemed to consider turning around as an option.

Or maybe this had always been my fate, long before I entered those woods. Maybe everything I told myself before now was just a measure I took to stay sane. To give myself the illusion of free will.

I began counting my steps when I recognized a familiar pile of rocks. Every 1,000 steps or so it was there. One large boulder surrounded by small clusters of gray mossy stone.

It didn't make any sense. I was walking a relatively straight path, no off shoots or turns no connecting trails. Just one way, slightly up hill, and straight. There was absolutely no way I could be walking in a circle, but I swear to God it was the same rock formation I was passing each time.

Dread began to creep up my throat. I marked a tree with my knife. A deep gouge, right at eye level so I couldn't miss it, and I kept walking. Then, 1,000 steps later, I walked past it. Same tree, same gouge, same weird lump of moss at the base even though I know I was walking straight.

Then I caught sight of something that made my blood run cold and my hair stand on end.

There were two sets of footprints.

I don’t know how long they’d been there, but one set was mine. I could tell from the tread and pace.

I didn’t recognize the other.

Theirs sunk deeper into the ground and their stride was longer, like someone was walking right in front of me. Someone who knew this trail and walked with the confidence and speed I no longer possessed.

At first, I tried to convince myself that they were old. But when I knelt down the dirt was still soft. Fresh.

I called out but got no response.

It was strange hearing my own voice, cracked and hoarse. I sounded like I’d been asleep for days. The forest seemed to absorb it. As quickly as the words left my mouth they were gone. No echo, no proof I’d spoken at all.

I started to scream. It was like I forgot I could use my voice and once I realized it was still there, I couldn’t stop. I don’t know how long I screamed. I don’t even know if I actually did.

It might’ve all been in my head.

As a last resort I fired my flare gun, but it fizzled out before it could even reach the branches of the trees. They looked taller now, like they were part of the sky itself.

My head spun. I felt like I was moving in and out of a dream. I never stopped walking. I still had no sense of time, and I’d given up counting my steps; it only made the nausea worse. My body ached like I had been on my feet for weeks. My joints screamed with every step and my feet were swollen and sore.

I never seemed to get hungry though. I had packed plenty of provisions, but I don’t remember ever reaching for them.

Eventually, time began to move again, or maybe I simply noticed it. I got the sense that this would all be over soon and I was right. I came across a clearing or I think it was a clearing.

The trees bent away from it creating a perfect circle. The dirt was black. Barren and lifeless. It was such a stark contrast from the damp lush woods I’d been trapped in. There were no weeds or brush poking through, just dry cracked earth.

The trees were so densely packed together that if I wanted to leave, I realized I’d have to go back the way I came. This is where the trail ended.

There was nothing more after this.

I looked to the sky, curious if I could see the sun, but it was empty.

The sun was gone.

It didn’t shock me the way it should have. All I remember thinking was that if it were night, the stars would be gone too.

I looked at my compass. It spun frantically unsure what direction to point, before it settled forward. I looked up and realized there was a figure sitting at the center of the clearing. My compass pointed at them. The needle shook so violently as I approached that the glass casing cracked suddenly.

The figure didn’t move. They were so still at first, I thought it might be a statue.

As I drew closer, I saw something familiar.

It was wearing my clothes.

Not clothes I recognized from my closet back home but my clothes. It had on the exact same cargo pants as me, down to the frayed dirty hems. Its feet were clad in my hiking boots caked in mud and my jacket, well-worn and broken in at the seams.

It wasn’t just wearing my clothes, it was me.

She had her hair pulled into the same braid I had done on myself that morning and she bore the same scar under her chin I had gotten riding my bike when I was six. It was like looking at a picture of myself. She was a flawless reflection of me.

But that's all she was, a reflection.

A mirror image.

Everything about her was a perfect imitation of me just...

Flipped.

I don’t know why I wasn’t scared. Maybe I was so exhausted I’d run out of terror, just grateful to see something other than the same trees. Or maybe I was tired of being alone. I never thought I’d be grateful to see another person let alone this hollow shell that looked like me.

I wish I felt that way now. I’d give anything to be sure I was alone.

My hand moved to touch her, like it was being controlled by invisible strings. I didn’t want to, I wanted to run, go back the way I’d come and never turn back. But I was curious how my skin would feel wrapped around something else. My fingers brushed against her cheek. She was colder than anything alive could be. And her skin, my skin, was wet and slimy.

Her eyes snapped open.

My hand jerked back in surprise, but she didn’t move an inch. Just followed me with her eyes. There was something not quite right about them. The way she watched me.

Cautiously, I moved around her, back and forth. She tracked me like a hawk, face impassive. I realized my broken compass followed her no matter where I stood.

I reached out to touch her again, slowly. She brought her hand up to mine. She never spoke a word but when that cold clammy hand clasped mine, she smiled but it wasn’t mine.

I realized then what was wrong with her eyes.

They weren’t inverted like the rest of her.

They weren’t a mirror image of my eyes.

They were my eyes.

My eyes.

She had taken them. And somehow, they suited her better.

After that I woke up.

I was curled in a ball outside my van, miles from the trailhead. My boots were wet, and my pack was gone. There were scratches all over my arms like I’d run though a thicket of thorns and when I stood up, I puked, overwhelmed by vertigo.

I got in my van and drove as far away as I could. I only stopped when my gas was empty. I filled it back up and kept driving. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and that place as possible.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

The hotel room is clean. Sterile. I hear other guests. I can see the ocean from my window. But it all feels distant. Like I’m watching from somewhere far beneath the surface.

Someone’s been calling me.

At first, I didn’t answer. I couldn’t read the name. The letters swam on my screen like they were underwater.

But the ringing wouldn’t stop.

So today, I answered.

The voice was frantic, sobbing. Asking questions I couldn’t understand. But familiar. So familiar it made my stomach drop.

“Where am I? Why can’t I move? Please answer! Can’t you hear me?”

Something twitched inside me.

I tried to speak. Tried to ask who was calling. But the words caught in my throat, like the muscles I needed to contract to form words weren’t mine anymore.

The voice on the other end grew quieter. Choked.

“Please... I’m still here. I want to go home.”

A silence followed. I could hear only breathing. Shallow and desperate, punctuated by hiccupping sobs.

Then she said my name.

My real name.

I’d almost forgotten it but when I heard her say it using my voice, I knew it was mine.

I hadn’t dared to look at my reflection, afraid of what I’d find. But now I can feel it watching me.

From the black screen of my phone. From the glass of the hotel window.

From every surface that might remember a face.

It smiles.

And its eyes aren’t mine.