"Nowhere But Forward"

It took a few seconds to realize I was utterly and completely lost.

One moment I was hiking the familiar trail behind my grandfather’s cabin, the scent of pine and damp moss thick in the air, the next—gone. The trail had vanished. No markers. No footprints. No distant sound of cars from the highway.

Only silence. Not peaceful silence either, but the kind that presses in close, unnatural and watching.

I turned in a slow circle, heart thudding. The trail I’d followed for years should have wound left around the boulder that now sat alone, surrounded by unbroken undergrowth. I walked back the way I came—or thought I came—but every direction looked the same. The trees were too tall, too tightly packed. There were no birds, no rustling squirrels, nothing.

I took out my phone. No signal. Not even a flicker.

Okay. Panic wouldn’t help. First rule of being lost in the woods: don’t panic. The second: stay put if you’re unsure.

But something told me staying put wasn’t going to work.

I moved carefully, choosing a direction with thinner trees. The sky above had that strange midafternoon light that made everything feel paused. As I walked, I looked for landmarks. Something. Anything. But the woods didn’t want to cooperate.

After what felt like an hour, I found it: a clearing with a cabin in the center. Not my grandfather’s—but a cabin.

Its windows were dark, and the wood looked ancient, cracked and warped like it had been standing long before I was born. I almost didn’t approach it, but my feet kept moving. A carved wind chime swayed above the porch, though there was no wind.

I knocked.

No answer.

I called out. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Still nothing.

I reached for the doorknob. It turned. The door creaked open with a groan like something old waking up.

Inside, dust and cobwebs. A firepit, long cold. Shelves lined with glass jars filled with things I couldn’t name—some looked like herbs, others like bones.

That’s when I saw the journal.

It sat on a table at the center of the room, open, waiting. I stepped closer. The paper looked freshly written. Ink still wet. The page read:

“If you’ve found this, you’re not lost. You’ve been called.”

I blinked. The next words appeared as I watched, forming like mist condensing on a windowpane:

“Follow the path. Don’t stray. Don’t run.”

The firepit behind me roared to life.

I turned. Flames danced high with no wood, no spark. Just… flame.

A low hum began to rise in the cabin. The walls pulsed, almost breathing. Something in me screamed to leave, but something else—the same part that kept me walking—told me to listen.

Outside, the trees had parted, revealing a narrow path of white stones I hadn’t seen before.

I walked out. The path led down into a gully and then through an arch of trees so twisted they formed a tunnel. Every instinct in my body rebelled, but I kept going.

Because I was no longer lost. I was chosen.

The path stretched far, and the air grew colder the deeper I went. The woods became darker, the light filtering in through the leaves taking on a bluish hue.

Then I heard it. Soft footsteps behind me. I turned quickly. No one.

But when I walked again—there. Again. Like someone copying me.

I picked up my pace.

The path narrowed, and up ahead was a figure.

A woman. She wore a long cloak and had white hair that hung straight like cords of silk. Her eyes were… wrong. Not in a grotesque way, but in how they saw too much.

“You’re early,” she said, voice like a whisper and a thunderclap all at once.

“I’m—what is this place?”

She tilted her head. “That depends. What were you looking for when you got lost?”

I hesitated. The answer was simple, but I didn’t want to admit it. I’d gone hiking because everything else in my life had collapsed. My job, my relationship, my sense of direction—gone. I was, in all meanings of the word, lost.

“Answers,” I said finally.

She nodded. “Then that’s what you’ll find. If you survive.”

“Survive what?”

She stepped aside, revealing a door standing alone in the forest, its frame sunk into mossy stone. Carvings covered its surface—symbols I didn’t recognize.

“It opens for you,” she said. “But once you pass through, you can’t turn back. And you must finish the trial.”

I looked at her. She was serious.

Something primal inside me screamed again—run, get out, this is wrong. But that voice hadn’t gotten me anywhere before.

I stepped up and turned the handle.

Beyond the door was not a room, but a city.

Not just any city—a place I’d dreamed of once as a child. Towering spires, floating lanterns, golden bridges. People bustled past in robes, in armor, in clothes that didn’t belong to any time I knew. The sky was a brilliant violet, streaked with comet trails.

No one seemed to notice me.

I wandered. The place felt real, but also… imagined. Like someone had built it out of memory and dream.

Then the trial began.

It started subtly. The roads changed when I wasn’t looking. People stared a little too long. The sky flickered like static. A clock tower struck thirteen, and a voice echoed from nowhere:

“The Trial of Truth begins.”

People vanished. The sky darkened. And I was alone in the city that suddenly hated me.

Statues turned their heads. Shadows stalked me. I had to keep moving, deciphering riddles left behind—one in the whispering fountains, another in the whispering of a blindfolded boy who handed me a silver key.

Each truth I found brought me pain. Memories I’d buried resurfaced: the way I’d quit on people, the time I’d betrayed my best friend, the lies I told myself to feel better.

But I faced them. I admitted them.

I walked through fire—not literal, but emotional. Mental. Each trial forcing me to remember what I’d run from.

And finally, after what felt like days, I stood before a mirror. It reflected not just my body, but every version of myself I’d ever been—child, teenager, liar, coward, hopeful.

The voice returned.

“One step forward, and you’ll never be lost again. One step back, and you’ll return unchanged.”

I stepped forward.

I woke on the ground near my grandfather’s cabin.

The trail was there. Birds were singing.

But everything had changed.

Not the world. Me.

I wasn’t lost anymore.

I’d gone somewhere else—maybe a different dimension, maybe a dream, maybe something more—but whatever it was, it had given me what I needed: a path forward.

And this time, I wasn’t afraid to take it.