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It took nearly a half hour of walking through the dense forest to where Isaac remembered a fallen tree had blocked the path. He sighed and took a seat, examining his maps and planning the rest of the day. It was too late in the day to move forward, so he would have to find a safe spot to camp for the night. He started to evaluate the surroundings in order to find an area where the forest didn’t look so over-grown. He noticed that to one side of the path there were a series of man made stone blocks—probably the remnants of a previous path that was overgrown. He got up and walked over to the wall and looked at a few of the blocks.
“What a cluster,” he thought, “what ever happened here?”
The ancient path had been worn smooth and most of the blocks were worn down to flat surfaces, smoothed over by the passing feet of many others who also used the path. The grooves in the walls were still visible, how ever; the hand-carved grooves were distinct. Isaac ran his hand over the unweathered surface of the blocks and the marks of history were still visible. He remembered how the trees had been cleared in this area to create this field, and now those trees were all cut down. He had never noticed them before, there were only about two or three trees standing in the clearing.
He felt foolish and started back to his campsite. He realized he had never written anything down about where he was staying. Then he remembered that he had been examining the path while having lunch and they had walked along the same path that he was now following. Confused, he knew that he had to take a chance and follow the path.
He reached his campsite and looked around, checking to make sure everything was still where it should be. He flicked on his flashlight and the beam gave off an eerie glow in the middle of the night. He shined it over the campsite; everything was in place. He stared at the tent and then the flashlight gave out. He rolled the flashlight around in his hand and the light came back on.
“That’s strange,” he thought. He examined the plastic head of the flashlight and was puzzled by how much it was recessed in the plastic casing. He turned it on and the light was dim. He turned it off and discovered that by shaking it and then turning it on, the power was restored. He shook the flashlight and tried it again.
That night he dreamt of the witch, shrugging him off in her breeze. Isaac awoke suddenly, but unknown what time it was. He shined the flashlight around, checking first to see if he was all alone, then started a small fire. He ate, packed all his gear up, and walked out of the campsite to check the path he had been walking on. All the blocks were still visible. After a quick look around he returned to his campsite, relaxed and slept in, ready to travel in the morning.
At the end of the next day Isaac looked around and saw a group of various shapes moving through the trees ahead of him. He walked closer in order to see what they were, which turned out to be a large group of birds in flight. He watched from a distance as they lodged into the tops of the trees and then settled down for the night.
As it grew dark a cold wind swept up the gorge, chilling Isaac to the bone. He walked closer to the trees in search of wood for his fire. The wind blew at him and the branches above, ripping the twigs free and scattering them across the forest floor. He felt as if a hand was reaching out to push him away; he wasn’t able to stand up to the assault. He stopped when he suddenly hit something hard and it bounced off, falling to the forest floor.
“Ouch, hey, that hurt. OK that was weird.”
Isaac didn’t have time to look at it. The wind was so strong that it felt like it was trying to push him over. The branches overhead were shaking, snapping free from their perches. Isaac grabbed some wood and ran for his campsite. He set up a fire and read the map, trying to figure out where he was. He was curious about the hard thing that had bounced off his leg and he went to pick it up. It was an oval shaped rock, about two inches wide and about one inch thick.
“This is a weird place for someone to hide stuff,” he thought.
He felt conflicted. There were a hundred different scenarios of things running through his head; he couldn’t decide what they were all signifying.
He returned to his campsite and looked around. He felt uneasy not knowing what he should do; he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do or where he should go from here. He reached over to the small backpack that he had been carrying and opened it up. Inside was the compass, a map of his route, a bottle of water, a snickers, a couple of packs of high energy crackers, and a can of peaches. Isaac rummaged through the backpack, looking for something. He peeked in the pockets and then looked over his shoulder as if he was being watched.
“Strange,” he thought, “I could have sworn I packed that chocolate bar...”
He looked down into the bottom of the pack and the candy bar was laying there. He had forgotten to put it back in the first time he opened the pack. It had been there the whole time. He smiled when he realized what a scare he had given himself and put the bag back where it belonged. He turned around and took a seat next to the fire. He opened the bag and noticed the chocolate bar was gone.
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