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The hysteria threatened to spike. She inhaled and exhaled for calm. For now, she accepted the fact that she’d left Oklahoma, and that she hadn’t traveled by normal means. No more, no less. Now, she needed a plan to get home.
Okay. All right. This, she could do. Every quest she’d ever won, she’d tackled the same way: one step at a time.
Cookie slipped into game mode, her tasks aligning. Search for a nearby town. There, she could figure out the monetary system, acquire cash, food, shelter, weapons and answers. If someone drew her a world map, even better.
She couldn’t allow fear to derail her, as if she were some kind of—Cookie shuddered—rookie.
In her experience, the biggest mistake new players made remained the same, no matter their age or skill. When fear of the unknown invaded, they disregarded their endgame. Rather than working to achieve a goal, they focused on quieting their sense of urgency, which only ever led to desperation.
Today’s trials, tomorrow’s strengths. A mantra she’d repeated over and over again as a child. If ever there’d been a time to bring it back...
Another roar left her reeling. Because it was closer than the first one. The creature, whatever it was, must have doubled back. She expected a hungry predator to breathe down her neck any second. Even the deer reacted, dashing away.
Time to blow this joint. Cookie plunged forward, following the same path as the deer. Dangers lurked all around. Not just the fairies and the roaring animals, but the plants. Anything could be poisonous.
No! She had lost sight of the deer.
To her surprise and relief, her feet seemed to know where to go next, guiding her around this and that tree with no assistance from her mind. Resisting seemed foolish, since she had no idea where to go.
Optimistic she would stumble upon help, she waded across the brook...
* * *
LOST. STARVED AND dying of thirst. Exhausted and filthy. Too cold one minute and too hot the next. Beyond sore. Bruised and injured. Cookie was all of those things and more. Had she escaped the roaring monster, only to perish alone in a strange land?
As she trudged around a tree, she imagined an avatar somewhere safe and cozy, controlling her, making her go and go and go, no matter her feelings on the matter. She was pretty sure she’d used up all her pretend power bars. Remaining on her throbbing feet required energy she didn’t have, but resting had been scratched out on today’s list of activities. Her body refused to obey her mind, so on and on and on she walked. Resistance was futile.
Mud caked her from head to toe. She’d lost her beloved scarf and sweater somewhere along the way. Her hair had fallen from its bun, the too-long strands in tangles. At least she still smelled like flowers, blending in with nature, preventing predators from adding “tasty pink-haired snack” to their menus.
She gave a humorless laugh. Yeah, what a marvelous silver lining to her living nightmare.
Hours ago, she’d been forced to simplify her plan: keep going until she stumbled upon help or passed out. What else could she do? A thousand different times, in a thousand different ways, she’d tried to switch directions. Holding on to branches. Digging in her heels. Hugging tree trunks. Always her legs won the battle of wills and maneuvered her away from the obstacles, taking her nowhere.
Hours bled into each other, more and more fairies following her through the woods. Anytime she broke down and begged for answers or aid, they whispered among themselves and cast her furtive glances. No one ever responded to her directly.
A blessing in disguise, she supposed. “Now I can eat you little pricks without guilt,” she snapped in their direction.
With a collective gasp of horror, they shot into the trees to hide.
Something she’d noted: the fairies came in all colors, everything from the lightest pastels to the brightest neons to the darkest shades. Which made her wonder...what if they weren’t fairies, after all, but pixies?
In Rhoswyn, her favorite level of The Fog A.E., there were nonplayable characters or NPCs known as pixies, and they came in all colors, too. Which made her wonder if she were maybe, possibly, still on the operating table, and this was a medicated delusion after all, her mind firing off scenarios as she died. Or if she’d already died and this was a type of Hell. Sometimes, when she was too exhausted to correct herself with logic, she even wondered if she’d somehow, well, opened a portal into a world based on her video game. Kind of like Jumanji, but also not like Jumanji.
That was dumb, right? A figment of her overactive gamer’s brain trying to make sense of a bad situation. But, what if she had somehow entered a real life version of The Forest of Good and Evil? Ready, player one.
