Undefined

My jubilation rose as the sound got nearer, louder. It sounded like a car engine, revving up and down. Car’s meant people. At least I wasn’t alone. Maybe they could help me understand how I got here.
Or maybe they put me here.
My urgency slowed. I was near enough that I could see glints of chrome twinkling through the leaves in the now failing light, but who was I running toward? Friend or foe?
Indecision glued me to my spot, swaying on the balls of my feet against the earth, wanting nothing more than to find safety, food, and answers. In that order.
The risk might be worth the reward. But how could I be sure?
“Dad!”
I spun around and, through the still thick leaves, I saw a girl. A girl whose expression seemed quite happy to see me… but her face was a stranger’s.
“Dad!” she said again, “I knew I’d find you!”
She rushed forward, toward me, as I stumbled back, away from her. Her eyes narrowed at the gesture as she halted.
“Oh, right,” she said, in a voice of unwelcome realization. “I just thought maybe…” We stared at each other wordlessly for a second before she dashed away, toward the noise. “Follow me.”
Sensing little danger, I did as I was told and we reached a path that appeared to have been made by the car within it, still surrounded by bamboo. She opened the drivers side and tossed me a t-shirt and shorts. “Shoes are in here. And I got you a burger. Get in.”
A burger. That was the magic word.

As soon as the sound escaped me, a fire like a hot coal sank into my empty stomach, filling it with fear. What if the noise, or the people presumably making it, was what brought me here, to this unknown forest, in the first place?
The sound, like pocket change hitting the ground, felt like it came from the forest itself. I squatted on the spot, both in an attempt to hide from it and to get a better view of it through the reeds. That is when I noticed a thick silver chain, like a slithering snake, being pulled by an unseen force along the forest floor. The chain itself was almost silent, but it pulled something. Something growing larger. Something that, when if finally came into view, set my soul asunder.
A silver wagon, lurched slowly closer by way of the sliding snake, upon which bodies of men, women, and children were chained, crossed the view before me. The chains coiling their flesh were smaller than the one on the forest floor and they jingled their pocket change sound against the side of the vessel as it rumbled along the path. Destination unknown.
Were they dead? They weren’t bleeding or bruised. Their bodies were certainly intact. They looked merely sleeping, but bent in ways a sleeping body would never find comfort. They didn’t have a mark on them.
Save for one. A woman. I can see, now. In the row behind the first. She was facing away, but in between her shoulder blades I could see…what was that?
I couldn’t give away my position by getting closer to see it. Nor, truth be told, did I want to get any closer to the wagon of chained bodies. As it travelled along, though, the sun shined fully on the woman’s back and illuminated the marking. It appeared to be a tattoo of some type. A tattoo that changed colors at will, like some sort of sickening mood ring. It sparkled in the sun for a moment before the woman was blocked from view and eventually the wagon, too, rolled out of site.
I stayed still for a few moments after the wagon of what could be best hoped for as unconscious people had gone. Then, I slowly rose and determinedly chose a path of travel opposite them, hoping that was the right path to freedom.

“Ike! Jesus, put some clothes on!” Roberta scorned. “I swear you get worse and worse every time you take an edible. And take your ear pods out, God damn it. I turned your Bluetooth off an hour ago.” She twitched my phone in one hand, grabbing a pair of shorts off the wheelbarrow handle with the other. “You can barely hear anything with those in.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, catching the shorts she threw at my face.
“Now come inside. You’ve been walking around the garden like an idiot since I got back.”
Corn stalks towered to my left and right. Yeah, that tracks.
“I brought you back a club sandwich from the diner,” she continued. “It’s in the frig.”
“Oh, baby, I love ya.”
“I know you do, sugar. Now, listen, I was talking to Rita at lunch and she said that Bob just bought that old brick building on Lake and…oh my,” she uttered, as I passed her on the way to my sandwich. “You got a little red on your back. I prolly should’ve put some sunscreen on ya while you were passed out over the porch railing.”
She proceeded to poke me into better view while I reached for the handle of the glass door to the house. Someone else made the same movement in reverse and I paused. “Oh, sorry,” I said, stepping aside to allow the person to come out.
“Oh my lord, hun, that was your reflection,” Roberta said stepping around me and opening the door. To my surprise there was no one standing on the other side. “I swear you need to lay off those things. Who’d you think was even in there?”
“I dunno,” I muttered.
“So, anyway,” Rita said, at my heels on the way to the kitchen. “He’s looking for help with demo. Twenty bucks an hour, cash, under the table. I told her that you might be interested.”
“In what now?” The cold air felt good on my skin as I stood for a moment surveying the contents of the frig for my lunch.
“The demo job. For the place on Lake. That Bob just bought. Are you listening?”
“Yeah, yeah. Where’s my sandwich?” I asked, poofs of cold air swirling around me in a mist.
“In the frig,” Roberta said again, brow furrowing.
“Where?” I asked frustrated, waving my hand in the direction of the open door.
“The FRIG,” she said again. “Not the FREEZER.” Once more she reached out, closing the freezer door, opening the frig, grabbing the Styrofoam container and placing it in my hands.
“There. Now was that so hard,” I asked her sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re welcome. So, listen, what do you think?”
“About?” I asked, tucking in to a fry.
“Do you want me to smack you? Is that what you want? Because I totally will.”
“Ok, ok,” I laughed. “Bob. Reno. Demo. Cool.”
“Cool, meaning you’re in?”
“Yeah, sure. I can kill a couple weeks with a sledgehammer.”
“Awesome! I’ll call her and let her know. You start tomorrow 9 a.m., sharp. Thank you babe!”
And that’s how quick a day can turn around. Starts out lost and scared shitless in some weird bamboo forest and, now, I got a kiss on the cheek, a sandwich in my hand, and an upcoming few hundred bucks just for wrecking stuff.
Not too shabby, ol’ Ike. Not too shabby at all.

The sound came again, clearer this time—like the creak of wood under strain, accompanied by a faint rustling. I froze, every sense now sharpened to a razor’s edge. Slowly, cautiously, I crouched low, parting the dense bamboo shoots with trembling fingers.

There, not far ahead, was a clearing—a small break in the endless green walls of bamboo. And in the center of it, a structure.

It looked like a hut, hastily built from bamboo stalks and leaves, its walls leaning precariously as if held together by sheer will. The roof sagged in the middle, and smoke—thin and gray—was seeping through a hole in the roof. Someone was here. Living here.

I debated my options. On one hand, this could be salvation—a person who could help me, tell me where I was, and why I woke up naked in a forest. On the other hand… who builds a shack like that in the middle of nowhere? I couldn’t shake the feeling that stumbling upon it might not be a coincidence. What if whoever was inside had something to do with my current state?

A figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the dim light inside. They were short, hunched—an elderly woman, maybe? From the distance, I couldn’t quite tell. She didn’t seem to notice me, just stood there, staring off into the forest as if expecting someone or something.

Suddenly, her voice cracked the silence, sharp and clear.

“Ike.”

I felt my heart stop. My name. She knew my name.

“Come closer, boy. I’ve been waiting.”

She turned and disappeared back into the hut. Every rational part of me screamed to turn and run, but my feet betrayed me. Slowly, as if pulled by an invisible thread, I moved toward the clearing, stepping into the open where the bamboo no longer shielded me.

The hut was even smaller up close, and I could see it was made entirely of bamboo, the gaps in the walls showing glimpses of the inside. I hesitated at the entrance, the faint scent of smoke and something earthy filling my nose.

Before I could announce myself, her voice echoed from the shadows again. “I told you, come inside.”

I ducked under the low doorframe, the inside barely large enough to stand. The air was thick, stifling. She sat at a small wooden table, her back turned to me, stirring something in a pot over a small fire. The flicker of flames cast her wrinkled hands in a strange, orange light.

“How do you know my name?” I asked, my voice shaky, betraying the fear clawing at my throat.

She chuckled softly, her back still to me. “I know many things, Ike. You’re lost, confused. That’s natural. It’s how you get here.”

“Get here? What do you mean? Where am I?”

She finally turned to face me, her eyes deep-set and dark, like two endless pits. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, but it wasn’t a smile of comfort. “You’re not the first to wander here. And you won’t be the last. But not all make it out.”

My skin crawled at her words, the air around me growing colder despite the fire burning only a few feet away.

“What do you want?” I asked, feeling the weight of the situation settle into my bones.

“What I want?” she mused, standing up from her stool and walking toward me, slowly, each step deliberate. “What I want is to see if you’re worthy.”

“Worthy? Of what?”

Her eyes narrowed, gleaming in the firelight as she came close enough that I could smell the strange, herbal scent wafting from her. “Of leaving this place. Of remembering. You have no idea why you’re here, do you?”

I shook my head. “No… I just… I woke up and—”

“Exactly,” she interrupted, “You woke up. But you haven’t remembered yet. The truth, Ike, is buried deep. If you want to leave, if you want to know why you’re here… you’ll have to find it.”

I took a step back, the weight of her words sinking in. “Find it where? What do you mean?”

She moved closer, her voice dropping to a whisper, her breath hot against my ear. “You already know where. It’s in you. It’s always been in you.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse thudding in my ears. “And if I don’t?”

Her smile widened, cold and calculating. “Then this forest becomes your prison. Forever.”

Without another word, she turned back to her fire, her voice dismissive as she added, “Now go. Time is running out.”

I stumbled backward, my mind racing, the weight of her cryptic message pressing down on me. What was buried inside me? What truth was she talking about? I turned and fled the hut, crashing back into the bamboo forest, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

The forest seemed darker now, more sinister. I ran, unsure of where I was going, but knowing I couldn’t stay. Somewhere, deep inside me, there was an answer. I just had to find it—before it was too late.