Faye, for the first time in her life, slept in a tree. She’d been camping, even went on a five-day hiking trip through the Okanagan in which she slept under the stars, but even then she had a sleeping bag, food and a map.

Now she didn’t even have shoes, and her feet stung with the pain of a hundred tiny cuts she’d sustained over the previous day’s events. Her knees weren’t faring much better.

But she was alive and free, and as she woke up that morning, she found herself thankful for that.

However, the uncertainty of her situation quashed any feelings of joy she might have experienced otherwise. She’d feel a million times better sleeping in her own bed, then watching Netflix with her cat.

She hoped her mother was feeding her, but she knew she was more likely beside herself with worry.

Nonetheless, she felt some relief to her body and soul as she stretched out, looking to the sky. It was well past sunrise, and she was surprised she was able to sleep as well as she did propped up against the thick trunk of a tree with long, drooping boughs the reminded her of a pine tree.

In fact, looking at it in the light, she was fairly certain it was a pine tree.

The three of them had walked up the creek for well over an hour in the darkness, attempting to use the stars to guide them, but the stars weren’t familiar, and it without any sort of North Star that they might have identified, it was useless.

Thankfully, the sky was bright with them, and a vast yellow-purple nebula was visible in the night’s sky. It was among the most amazing sights Faye had ever seen. Not that she was at leisure to truly appreciate it, but it was still a sight to behold.

And when the moons rose, they washed the forest in a strangely beautiful bluish hue that reminded her of the bioluminescent shores of Vancouver Island. They, too, were a sight to see. Both were waning-- at least she assumed they were waning, but both were varying shades of blue and appeared to have some sort of atmosphere, and were at least twice the size of Earth’s moon.

She stood up, brushing the pieces of forest still attached to her through the night. Next to her, Owen still sat sleeping, but Emma had obviously woken before them, and was kneeling outside the boughs of the wayward pine.

“Everything okay?” Emma asked.

Emma turned around and looked to Faye, putting her fingers to her lips. She didn’t seem to be frightened of anything, so Faye walked out and looked over her shoulder.

About ten meters away from them, just by the side of the creek, were three small animals. At first, Faye mistook them for ferrets. They definitely had similar colorations on their fur, but they were a good deal larger, but seemed to be frolicking near the creek’s edge, tumbling over one another in play.

“Polecats,” Emma whispered.

“Polecats?” Faye asked. “Like skunks?”

She shook her head. “European polecats,” she said. “They don’t have the stink spray. At least, I don’t think they do.”

She watched as the animals continued to frolick. For the most part, they appeared to be aware of the presence of Faye and Emma, but they didn’t seem to be very frightened. Faye felt it best to keep her distance.

The sound of movement from behind her told her that Owen was stirring awake. He groaned as though pained, then commented, “I was hoping this was just some messed up dream,” he said.

Emma turned back and met his eyes, but then cast them downward and looked back to the polecats. “We should move soon,” she added, looking away from both of them.

“Emma, if you need to talk about--”

“I want to get home,” she said. “Then I can talk about it.”

“I agree,” Owen added. He picked up Dillon’s camera bag, which Faye had left next to her while sleeping, and started to rummage through it. It had been too dark the night before to bother, but there had to be something useful in it.

In the end, it was filled mostly with useless odds and ends. Camera cords, usb drives , micro SD cards and empty wrappers. A lighter and a small metal pipe. A small canister with a little bit of pot in it. He pulled out an electric razor, a small flashlight, a small folding knife and the bluetooth speaker. The taser was quite obviously going to be of use, and inside there were also two phones, a large charging battery and a solar-powered charger. The phones weren’t going to be of much use except maybe as extra flashlights, but at least they were something familiar in a mostly alien world.

Thankfully, there were also eight packaged oatmeal protein bars. It wouldn’t feed them for long, but at least it would give them a strong start. They each ate one while discussing the plan.

Emma, of course, seemed to be the most experienced when it came to the woods. Faye still felt terrible about the girl’s father, but admired her stoicism. He’d done a good job raising her, and she suddenly understood why he’d decided to pass the family business to her at such a young age.

And Dillon… there was still a hollow feeling about what had happened, but Faye knew she couldn’t do anything about it.

Emma laid out her plan. They all agreed that the best course of action would be to find the bridge they had crossed in the wagon the night before, and Emma suspected that the creek would lead down and feed the river or ravine that it was built across. If they could find that bridge, they might be able to follow the road back to the portal, staying off the road and keeping to the trees as much as possible.

At least, that’s what the hope was. The way they were dressed made them stick out like a sore thumb, but maybe they’d be able to get their hands on some of the local fashions if they came across a settlement, and that might make it easier to move through the world undetected.

Faye, however, noted that Asians seemed to be markedly absent from the population she’d seen thus far, and worried that might present a problem. While Emma and Owen might have passed for a local if they changed their clothes, Faye’s pale beige skin would be a dead giveaway against the European-esque skin tones of the local population.

There was some variation among the locals, however. While some had a northern European appearance, she’d seen some with the more olive-gold skin tones common amongst people that lived along the Mediterranean. Maybe there were Asian or even African-like people in that world, but she’d yet to see them.

Nonetheless, Emma suggested keeping to the creek again. It was fine by Faye-- she was the only one without shoes, and the cool water soothed her sore feet.

With the plan settled, they set off. The polecats had moved on by that point, but they moved through the water, speaking quietly.

Faye was amazed at how much the forest of the other world looked like… well, a forest. They didn’t quite resemble the arboreal rainforests of the west coast of Canada, but it wasn’t too different than many forests she’d seen on the east coast, or even during her time in Greece.

Even what animal life they managed to come across looked as though they belonged. On top of the polecats, she saw plenty of birds, including a number of larger ones that were clearly crows. While their heads and wingtips were the familiar black, their bodies were greyish-white. Still, they cawed at each other exactly like crows back home. She saw cranes in a wading pool, and heard the call of a raven, although she didn’t see it.

At one point, Emma pointed out an animal walking along a ridge to their right. It was a way off, but the shape of the animal was immediately recognizable. It was a bear.

A big one, at that.

They felt it better to keep moving.

Eventually they reached an area of the creek that moved a bit more rapidly. The landscape was dotted with old stone with oddly geometric shapes. Despite that, the three of them felt it safer to walk alongside the creek for fear of being swept away.

All around them was tall grass, and another long ridge rose above them to the left. The strangely-shaped stones littered the ground all the way up to the top of the ridge, and the forest was thick.

Suddenly her eyes were drawn to the movement of a medium-sized green animal of some sort moving around between the stones near a copse of tall grass and foliage.

Was it a frog? She knew that world had giant wolves, why not giant frogs? But something was off about this frog. It looked like it had something on its head-- she suddenly realized it was a raggedy piece of cloth.

Then her heart jumped into her throat as it moved in an unexpected way. What she had thought was it’s head was actually the back of something that wasn’t a frog. When it stood, she could see pointed ears, a long aquiline nose, and yellow eyes.

It suddenly became aware of their presence and whipped its head toward them. It locked eyes with Faye. Behind her, she heard Emma gasp.

It wore a look of shock and concern, and nearly fell backward before it quickly turned and ran through the tall grass and into the foliage, chittering as it went.

Faye slowly raised her arm and pointed to the foliage the creature had escaped into.

“That was a goblin,” Faye said as her finger remained outstretched. She turned back to Owen. “A goblin.”

“I don’t think we should be here,” Emma said. “We should go before it comes back.”

“There’s no such thing as goblins,” Owen insisted.

“I think we’re well past no such thing, Owen.” She again pointed in the direction the small creature escaped to and shot him an indignant glare. “Goblin,” she repeated.

“You guys, it might have friends,” Emma said, the fear growing in her voice.

Faye laid a comforting hand on Emma’s back.

“Look if that thing is a goblin, then maybe Emma’s right. Maybe we should get out of here,” Owen added.

Faye took in his words and it suddenly struck her. In recent years, goblins had become far more kid-friendly. They were playable characters in video games. Goblins and trolls were cutesy, if grumpy little characters in a lot of the media she’d seen.

But in folk tales, they were far from it. Goblins were mischievous, murderous little creatures known for dying their clothing in the blood of its victims. They weren’t the cartoon-like, mechanically-inclined characters from World of Warcraft. They were bloodthirsty. Redcaps, so named for their proclivity toward wearing hats dyed red from the blood of their victims, were just one such example.

The creature she’d just seen didn’t seem bloodthirsty, and its clothing was more tan-colored than red, but she realized she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of waiting around to find out. 

“High ground,” Emma said. “We should get to high ground.”

“What happened to sticking to the creek?” Owen asked.

“First the polecats, then a bear, now goblins,” Emma said. “Next time it could be a tiger, or a giant spider, or something scarier. Herbivores feed around water sources. Where do you think most predators hunt?”

“It’s possible the soldiers aren’t even bothering to track us,” Faye added. “Maybe they know something we don’t.”

Owen huffed, but had nothing further to say.

“That ridge up there,” Emma said. “We need to get our bearings, figure out the lay of the land. The faster we find that bridge the faster we can get out of here.”

Faye agreed, and started to walk through the grass, avoiding bare stone where she could. Her feet stung nonetheless, but she suspected they would have hurt a lot more. She gave Emma and Owen a moment to put their shoes on while she kept an eye on the foliage. For all she knew, the goblin was still there, watching them. She felt a shiver run down her spine as she thought about it.

If it was, however, it didn’t reveal itself. Eventually they reached the tree-covered ridge and started to move up. The strangely-shaped white stones led halfway up the ridge, then abruptly stopped at the edge of a short cliff-face. It was maybe twelve feet tall, but it was entirely vertical. It was far too smooth to climb, but it seemed to dip down further along the side of the ridge.

Eventually they came across a number of small depressions in the earth at the base of the cliff-face. Caves. Small ones, but Emma was skeptical of them and kept her distance. Perhaps she suspected goblins might be in them, but didn’t express as much.

Eventually they reached a spot where the cliff’s edge dipped low enough for them to climb up easily, and they carried on. They reached the top of the ridge soon after, and Emma stopped to survey the area.

They could see the tops of the trees stretch out for quite a ways. Faye could make out the flow of the creek as it continued on into the distance, and to the south-- what she assumed to be the south anyway-- she could see the telltale gap of a roadway that ran through the woods.

Far behind behind them, mountains stood in the distance. The air there was clear enough that she could make out snow-covered mountaintops in the distance. They had to be at least a hundred kilometers away, but a yellowish haze rose in the distance, the telltale signs of a human settlement.

In the direction she assumed the portal to be in, all she could make out were treetops and the riddle of small clearnings as far as the eye could see.

“Guys,” Owen said, he voice grave with warning. He pointed down the slope of the ridge to a small clearing.

There were shapes moving through it. Shapes of brown and green, but shapes Faye recognized immediately.

Goblins. A half-dozen of them.

They moved toward them, and at least one was twice the size of the others. A hobgoblin.

The three of them immediately ducked, but a shrill yell echoed from the clearing below. They’d already been seen, and they were coming.

“We need to run,” Emma said, the panic in her voice rising.

Faye pointed to her feet. “I can’t run like you two,” she said. “Not right now, at least.” She looked back down to the approaching goblins. She estimated they only had a few minutes head start, but eventually she would be in too much pain to run any further. Already they burned.

“What about the caves?” Owen asked.

“No, I… I can’t. I can’t do caves,” Emma admitted.

“We need to hide,” Owen said. “We could fit in there.”

“Owen’s right, Emma,” Faye added. She understood Emma’s reluctance. She didn’t relish the thought of pushing themselves into a cramped space, but they were far too exposed where they were.

“But--” Emma protested. There was a pregnant pause as she moved toward the brush. “Fine.”

“Here,” Faye said. She unlatched the velcro bag Owen carried and pulled out the two phones. They were Dillon’s. His work phone and his personal phone. She passed one to Owen and turned on the other. “There’s a flashlight on this, so we can see.” She handed it to Emma as it booted up.

Emma took the phone, then gave a nod. Then they ran back in the direction they’d come from.