Lily woke up feeling cold and groggy, there was a sharp pain on her head and she didn’t know why. She could feel the wet ground pressing onto her back. As she slowly began to open her eyes she became aware of the musky scent of wet earth. Things were slowly starting to come back to her. Lily remembered walking out of her dorm building and going to the woods just outside of the campus library. Everything after that was all fuzzy and dark. She had been glad that finals were over and to celebrate Lily had decided to go out to the woods, take some pictures and just relax.
At the thought of her camera Lily shot up, immediately discovering what a bad idea that was as the blood rushed to her head, she frantically started looking through the forest ground for her bag. As her eyes start to roam the forest ground she sees her camera bag lying at the foot of a tree all packed just like she remembered it.
Lily got up and grabbed her bag and started to wander around the woods trying to find her way out all the while hoping to discover how she ended up lying on the forest flood. Nothing came to the forefront of her mind and that terrified her. How was it possible that she couldn’t remember anything up until she had left her dorm? While wandering around Lily heard a dog barking behind her and a voice calling out, “Sammy wait up!” All of a sudden a gigantic golden retriever was running toward her. He was running so fast that he didn’t have the chance to slow down and ended up colliding with Lily and they both tumbled to the ground. As Lily was pushing the dog off of her, she saw a guy who appeared to be around her age, “I’m so sorry about that. Sammy must have heard you walking around and gotten excited. I’m Jake by the way.”
“It’s alright. I was hoping someone would come by. My name’s Lily.” Lily replied. “Listen; do you know how to get out of here? I’ve been roaming around and I haven’t been able to get out.”
“Yeah, sure just follow me.” As soon as they started on their way, Jake noticed the blood from Lily’s head wound. “Hey are you okay? There’s blood on your forehead. It wasn’t Sammy was it?”
At the mention of the blood Lily lifted her hand to her forehead. “I can’t remember actually. The last thing I remember is walking towards the forest and after that everything goes blank, next thing I know I’m lying in the middle of the woods with no idea of how I got there.”
“Let me take you back to my place and we can get you cleaned up a bit, no offense but you’re a bit of a mess.” Jake said as he led Lily and Sammy out of the woods.
“Thanks, I appreciate the help.” After that there was silence, all that could be heard was the crunching of the leaves as the strange trio walked. They reached the edge of the woods in no time.
“My car is just a few minutes away,” Jake mentioned. As they continued to walk Lily noticed a green Jeep a few hundred feet away. As soon as they reached the car Jake unlocked the doors and had Sammy jump in the back seat while Lily took the passenger’s seat. At this point the wound on Lily’s forehead was starting to give her a headache and she was sure that she would pass out at any moment.
“Do you have any aspirin? My head is really starting to hurt.” Lily asked.
“I have some at my apartment I can give it to you then. Here, take this towel to cover the wound, we wouldn’t want you to pass out from blood loss.” Jake said as he handed her a small hand towel.
“Thanks.”
The ride to Jake’s apartment took about fifteen minutes, had it taken any longer Lily wouldn’t have made it awake. “Well here we are. Come on let’s get you inside before you pass out.”
Jake’s apartment was on the third floor, the three of them piled into the elevator and Lily leaned against the door hoping that the cool metal of the door would help with the pain. A few seconds later they arrived at Jake’s floor and started to walk towards his apartment. They entered his apartment and Sammy immediately ran to his water bowl and started to gulp down on the water. “Wait here a moment, let me get you that aspirin.” Jake said as he walked into what Lily assumed to be the bathroom.
As she waited for Jake to come back she started to walk around the small living room and stopped at some pictures over his television set. There were several of Jake and who she assumed were his friends, and there were several with the same girl who must be his girlfriend. As she reached the last picture she noticed something familiar about it. This picture stood out from all of the others; there were no people in this one. The picture was of a forest, there were trees everywhere. Something was starting to connect in Lily’s head; she knew this picture because she had taken it in the very same woods where she had awoken not half an hour ago. She had a favorite spot in those woods and this picture showed that spot, she even had the same picture in her bag. At that realization Lily started to frantically look through her bag for the picture, but she couldn’t find it.
Then another photo caught her eye; this one was like the rest, there was Jake with another guy who looked like an older version of Jake. This person made chills run through her spine but Lily didn’t know why. Just as she was trying to figure out why this person looked familiar to her the door to Jake’s apartment opened and the man in the picture walked in.
Lily and the man stared at each other, at that moment Jake walked in saying, “Here’s the aspirin Lily.” Once he saw the man at the doorway he stopped in his tracks.
Lily looked from Jack to the stranger at the door and back, she knew why this man looked familiar. As soon as she discovered how she knew this man everything went blank and she knew no more.