“Sure you don’t wanna come with us, Cal?” Ethan asks as I sit to put on my shoes.

I glance in his direction but quickly redirect my eyes toward my shoes. “Yeah.”

It’s better this way. They only really take me along because we live together. Apart from them, I know nobody at the party so I’ll probably end up sitting in the corner by the music box and just listen and silently sing along all night. No, I’ll find better ways to spend the night, even if they can’t imagine. Better ways to end a year.

It should feel special, probably. But it really doesn’t. After having witnessed this occasion about twenty times throughout my life, it’s kinda lost its glow.

“Alright, buddy,” Ethan says now. “Guess Adam will have company for the evening, then. You’re still more than welcome to join us later if you wanna.” He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder and I concentrate on not flinching away.

Instead, I get up and he takes his hand away. “Yeah, thanks,” I say and take my coat off the hanger. Adam is in bed with a fever. If he could stand, he’d come with them. But he can’t, so he won’t. Weird feeling that I’ve got a basically comatose guy for company.

“I really don’t get why you like going for walks so much,” he says, shaking his head, chuckling.

Yeah, of course you wouldn’t, I think. He’s an entirely different kind of person. He likes being around people so much he’s rarely ever alone.

I, on the other hand, like the quiet. I like the views and being alone. Not having to think, just having this predetermined route I follow on autopilot, breathing, walking. It’s a form of meditation. I don’t have to think.

Lucky me we live just outside of town. The others always complain that it takes so gruesomely long to get to uni and back, but for me it’s perfect. An hour every day spent getting there and back and in return it’s quiet here.

I put on my scarf.

“Okay, I guess we’ll either see you later or… next year.” He grins, like what he said is supposed to be funny.

I offer a vague smile. “Yeah, have fun.”

He nods, turns, and disappears back into the kitchen, where the others are waiting. Already drinking.

Checking my pocket one last time for the key, I open the door and step out into the hallway. I won’t be taking my phone. I always leave it in my room, don’t get why it’s so important to others. Well, okay, I do, but it’s just not to me. Who’s gonna text me?

I arrive at the bottom of the ugly stairs and open the main door of the apartment building and step out into the night.

It’s warmer than it should be at this time of the year. Fourteen degrees even though the sun is about to set. At the end of December!

I leave my jacket open, stuff my hands into my pockets, and make my way along the sidewalk towards the forest.

Since leaving home for uni I’ve done a really great job of just not talking to people. I think the last time I talked to my parents was a month ago? But I’m not sure. Could’ve been longer. The point is that they leave me alone and I leave them alone. We were never that close to begin with. They had to work and I had… books, mostly. Books and school. I’ve always loved reading, any genre, really. From romance to high fantasy, I’ve read a few books of pretty much every genre in my time. And I’ve never been bad at school so they never had much reason to worry. And now that I left school with almost perfect grades they have no reason to assume it’ll be any different at uni, which, granted, it isn’t. Okay, my courses aren’t really that hard – literary studies isn’t a subject known for its difficulty – but it’s still university.

In the distance, I hear the popping and banging and fizzling of fireworks. The sun hasn’t even fully gone down yet and they’re already at it. I don’t care much for fireworks. They’re nice to look at, I guess, but it always gets old quickly for me and they’re expensive and the streets look like shit the morning after. It’s like drinking on New Year's Eve. You end the year having fun and start the new one with a sickening headache. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

I turn the final corner and cross the street to enter the path into the woods. I like the smell here. The trees smell nice.

Underneath the trees it’s already kind of dark. I missed golden hour by only a few minutes.

The thing is, despite all the grades and success, I still don’t know where I’m going with this. I used to want to become an author and I used to be really good at coming up with stories, but it hasn’t been the same since I moved out. It’s like I’ve finally awoken from blissful naivety and now the prospect of simply living scares me. Yeah, I don’t get it either. It’s like… I can’t leave myself alone with my thoughts for any extended period, else I’ll spiral and while it hasn’t ever escalated to the final stage, I’m not sure it’s gonna take long until it does. The worst part about it is that I genuinely don’t understand it. Yeah, sure, my uncertain future blah blah, but that’s not it. Not alone at least.

Sometimes I think it’s myself. Sometimes I find myself looking in the mirror, trying to read emotions off a face I don’t recognise. Having friends could help, except whenever I try to get to know people I get really really self-conscious. Whenever I talk to people I don’t know very well, I become suddenly hyper-aware of my every flaw and then I run both out of courage and away.

Sometimes I feel like I’m just waiting for life to happen. Waiting and waiting, secretly knowing that it won’t. Because my life isn’t a book, written to appeal to people like me. Because I’m not going to take the initiative and let’s be honest, who’s ever going to swoop in and save somebody like me? I’m not pretty enough, not visible enough, not smart enough, not special enough.

I suck in air through my teeth, look up. I’m spiraling. Not how it’s supposed to work. I’m not supposed to think. Now I wish I’d brought my phone and headphones. Then I could blast my eardrums out with music. That helps most of the time. But it isn’t here now, so I’ll have to find another strategy.

Look around.

Fir trees, needles, branches on the ground, rocks.

Count.

What?

Doesn’t matter.

One tree, two trees, three trees, four trees, five trees.

As I count, my thoughts slow, settle like the sea after a violent storm. I realise that my heart rate has accelerated, but now it slows, too.

Don’t think. Focus on your surroundings.

Silence. Well, relative silence. Cars in the distance. Smell of fir trees, resin, fern, earth and-

Come closer.

I flinch, only now realising that the voice in my head isn’t my own.

What??

You understood me, the voice sounds in my head. Not mine. Feminine. Warm. Thank you.

She wasn’t meant to hear that.

A giggle. I’m in your head, dear. Please don’t be afraid. Come closer. I mean well.

I look around but I’m still alone. No living being in sight.

That’s not nice. Everything around you is alive.

So you’re what. A tree?

Another giggle. Come closer. The big fir to your right. Farther off the path.

I turn, finally spotting it. Weird that I never saw it before. It’s so much larger than the others, so much older, and still… so much prettier.

As if entranced, I leave the path and make my way to the underbrush, towards the tree. Then I stop before it uncertainly.

“What are you?” I whisper, feeling kind of silly for talking to a tree.

I’m the spirit of this forest. I’ve gone by many names, but you’d probably call me a dryad.

Somehow, I’m not surprised. “Why are you talking to me? Why doesn’t anybody else know about… your kind?”

A sigh. Because we retreated. We’re no longer welcome in this world, you see. So we’re hiding. For now. A pause. Don’t worry, though. We’ll still be here long after all humans have gone. Nature as a concept is as eternal as life ever gets.

“And what do you want?” I flinch just barely, realising that I probably could’ve phrased it a little more politely.

But she doesn’t seem to pick up on it.

I would like to help you. You see, I’ve been watching you for some time now. You come here often and you seem like a kind soul.

“Why now?” I’m genuinely curious. If she’s been watching me for some time now, knowing how I was doing, couldn’t she have helped me a lot earlier?

Because today is the day your people call New Year’s Eve. Just like the wall to the world of the dead is thin on this day, my magic is stronger. And I have to preserve energy to protect this forest.

Right, I think I’ve come across that in some of the books I’ve read. Wasn’t one of them a horror novel? Talking of which.

“How are you going to help me?”

By providing you with a new perspective. I promise it will not be to your harm and whatever spells I cast will only last for the night. I won’t be able to hold it past sunrise.

“So what will your spell do?”

That’s part of the deal, that you don’t know upfront, her voice says, soothing like a gentle caress. It will help you, that’s all I can say.

I can’t help but believe her. And anyway, what have I got to lose? I don’t have any plans for the night and even if she somehow tricks me… do I care?

With a jolt, I realise that the dryad can still hear my thoughts and that I probably just openly insulted her.

Don’t worry, she says now. It is up to you. I won’t force you.

And I find myself nodding and like from another world, my voice says, “Yes. Please help me.”

Are you certain? she asks, her voice neutral. She's just making sure.

I nod again, this time consciously. “Yes.”

Because fuck it. Because, isn’t this what I’ve been waiting for? For life to happen. However this may turn out, it’s definitely an opportunity.

Close your eyes, then, dear.

And I do. Close my eyes, tilt my head back ever so slightly. I breathe in and smell the old tree’s bark and raisin and then I feel myself change.

It’s a pleasant feeling, somehow. To feel muscles shift gently, to feel skin stretch and retreat like my body’s giving itself a nice massage. I’m aware of what’s happening the entire time but it doesn’t freak me, somehow. I just… accept it. My brain is blank. There are no thoughts, no emotional response to what’s happening. Maybe that’s part of the spell. Maybe that’s her influence on me. Maybe that’s the reason I accepted, believed in her existence in the first place.

And then my body has finished changing and the voice says, Go, dear. Go and find truth, and I open my eyes.

It has gone dark by now, I realise with surprise. It’d felt like less than two minutes, but clearly, it was at least half an hour. I turn around to ask the Dryad about that stumble back a step when the tree isn’t there anymore. Instead, I’m standing in a small clearing in the forest, alone.

I could just tell myself it was all a very vivid daydream if not for the obvious changes. My body’s been changed into that of a girl. My hair is long, my face feels different.

How is this going to help me find truth? I wonder and look up at the sky. Just as I’m done moving my head I see a little light shoot up into the dark and explode in a shower of lilac sparkles.

The last night of the year, the first night of the year, the night of change has begun.

SeptemberMorgan

Hey hey, as always, please tell me whether you like this story and what you're thinking - I just love getting feedback :)
A little disclaimer: This story is going to be a lot shorter than my other stuff. Right now I'd estimate it to end up somewhere around 25k words, but the plot will be properly exhausted by then, don't worry :) As off the day I'm posting this, Patreon also only has one chapter (because I'm impatient XD). But they'll get updates at a much higher frequency until they're at least three chaps ahead. Oh and before anybody asks, Your Superhero isn't going to go on pause. I'm simply in semester break now and need a little variety in my head XD