Go Your Own Way

*Note: To stay true to the spontaneous spirit of this contest, I've only included what I wrote within the suggested 1-hour time limit, after randomly plucking this prompt. Afterwards, I spent a few minutes adding some minor formatting and correcting/replacing a few words for readability, but largely this is as I originally wrote it, warts and all.*

He looked between us once more and said, “It’s either her or me…”

Sarah turned to look at the two paths that each was choosing. They both looked exciting, dangerous, unexplored. Meredith stood on a narrow path, the brush creeping in and choking the way, jagged rocks sticking out like nuts in a chocolate bar. David stood on a well-groomed path, brush neatly trimmed away to the tree line, with compacted dirt and rock underfoot and enough space for two people to walk side-by-side.

It had surprised Sarah when her husband and best friend began squabbling over which path to take. After all, this was supposed to be a fun, leisurely hike on this weekend outing that they’d been planning for…well, forever, it seemed. She couldn’t understand the sudden rigidness each had displayed after coming to the fork in the trail. They had been conversing about some show that they’d both watched, the sort of tense, true-crime drama that Sarah avoided. Watching the two of them talk and laugh sometimes, Sarah couldn’t help but feel as if they had more in common that she and David did. It didn’t make her jealous, just a bit sad that the man she loved didn’t share more common interests with her. She had been lost in this sort of inner thought when suddenly David and Meredith had stopped, seemingly mid-step, and turned to each other and demanded that the group take their favored path. The looks on their faces when they turned to her had startled Sarah. Eye’s wide, mouth agape, leaning slightly hunched forward with their feet planted firmly on the paced earth below. Who were these people? Her thoughts raced as to what could have caused this. Was there something in the conversation she'd missed that had led to this sudden posturing? She looked on, confused and worried.

David and Meredith pivoted nearly in sync to face on another. Their eyebrows raised, lips curled up like a dog baring his teeth in warning. She could have sworn she heard a low growl escape from David’s clenched jaw.

“Okay, okay, fine! You two want to make this difficult? Fine. I’ll make it more difficult. You two both walk down each of those paths for five minutes, then walk back and report what you’ve seen.” To her surprise, each of them yelled “agreed!” almost immediately and stomped away down their respective paths. Standing there, stunned, Sarah took a moment before reasoning that she didn’t have any right to be angry, as she had been the one to give the order.

There was a gray, weathered wooden bench next to the trail mile marker in a small clearing next to the path. After a long, refreshing drink from her blue squeeze water-bottle, she sat on the bench and pulled her phone out of her trusty hiking pack that she’d been using since she was a teen. The home screen showed no service, no internet connection. She sighed and leaned back on the bench, closing her eyes and inviting the other senses to stimulate her. A faint chirp of two birds, a quick back-and-forth that made her think they were either fighting or doing some mating ritual. The smell of the forest, earthy and tinged with the slight sweetness of spring pollen. The lazy breeze, which worked its way down through the swaying tree tops and touched upon her damp hairline, pulling her skin's heat with it. Despite the strangeness of the standoff between friend and husband, she allowed herself to relax, to sink into the moment.

She’d needed this getaway. Her workload lately had become untenable, the result of profit-obsessed executives and managers too eager to please them. If David hadn’t been laid off, she’d have pushed back against the workload harder, but with the economy in the grips of the so-called AI depression, she didn’t feel like she could afford to let her analog job be taken from her and given to the lowest bidder. But those were city-life problems. Out here, in the woods not far from her family’s vacation home, she could pretend that just the bare survival elements were all that were worth stressing about. Slumping back further in the bench, she crossed her arms over the pack on her lap and let sleep pull her into its inviting arms.

“Sarah! Are you sleeping?” Startling awake, Sarah looked up at Meredith’s worried face.

“Uh, yeah…” She grabbed for her phone and looked at the time. How long had it been since Meredith and David had left? “When…er, how long was I out?”

“I’d say at least an hour.” Meredith was looking around. “Where’s David?”

“An hour! No, no that can’t be right.” The home screen showed 4:34 PM. Hadn’t she looked at the time when she checked her phone earlier? She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the number.

“Sarah, I walked to the end of the trail. I’m not sure what came over me, I just…kept walking. When I got to the lake, I guess I kind of snapped out of it…” She paused, shaking her head as if trying to knock something loose. “So, I hoofed it back here, expecting to meet you two along the way, or to find you waiting here, pissed off.” She took a step back and turned fully around, then faced Sarah with the same worried face as before. “So, David’s not back yet?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, unless he came when I was asleep and didn’t wake me up, but that…that doesn’t make sense.” A sudden feeling of anger flashed in her. “What the hell was that about, earlier? Between you and David? You just had to go off in different directions.”

“I.. I don’t know. Like I said, I kind of snapped out of…of whatever it was, when I got to the lake. I’m sorry, I– “

“Whatever.” Sarah cut her off. “We need to find David. Hopefully he hasn’t wandered off on too many trail offshoots. I’ve always stuck to the main trails around here. Who knows where some of these game trails go.”

“Game trails?” Meredith said with a mouth full of water, her water bottle still raised above her head.

“Yeah, game trails. Trails made by wild game, forest animals. There’s a ton of them all over the place, from deer, bobcats, rabbits, whatever. That’s what David took off on.” Sarah didn’t trust that David would know this. He was much more of a city-dweller than she was. Having grown up here in the summers, she felt comfortable in the forest. He always seemed to be hesitant, a bit uncomfortable when exploring trails with her. Which is why it was so surprising that he’d taken off by himself. She looked at the clock again, thinking that they probably had a couple hours of sunlight left, maybe less.

Sarah slung her pack over her shoulder and was taking a final gulp of water from her bottle before sticking it in the side pocket when she heard a high-pitched scream from somewhere over the hillside. A shiver ran down her back.

“What was that?” Meredith whispered, as if she were afraid that saying it aloud would confirm what she feared.

“I…I don’t know.”