“There is,” said Eleanor for what seemed to be the hundredth time, quite done with her classmate, “No way that it would be prowling around the forest when it just escaped the lab. I mean, if it escaped from there, there’s no way it would want to stay so near to the lab! Besides, we’re just going there for one night to watch the fireflies. I bet you’re just scared of the darkness!”

“I’m not!” Alice, in fact even more done with her classmate, retorted back.

And as those two butted heads over where to go to celebrate the end of their exams, Avan shifted his gaze off the two arguing students and onto the rest of the students in the small room that served as their classroom:

“So, where do you guys wanna go?”

“Well, I don’t see any problem in going into Crater forest to go sightseeing. I mean, it’s just for one night.” Came running out of Lindsey’s mouth almost without hesitation.

Avan now focused his gaze on Castasia:

“I- um, well, it did escape from the lab just a few days ago..”

“It? As in the Lusus Naturae?”

Avan asked.

“Y-yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna be safe…”

Lindsey smiler cheerfully at Castasia:

“Well, I heard that it’s not nocturnal, so it’ll probably be safe.”

A flush crept up Castasia’s cheeks as Lindsey’s body touched his.

“Besides,” Avan’s lips became a half smile, “You wouldn’t pass up the chance, would you?”

“Chance? W-what chance?”

“There’s only so much you can hide when the classroom is this small you know.”

“H-hide what?”

“Your crush on her.”

“And who’s t-that?”

“Lindsey, of course! Didn’t you write a love letter to her?”

“H-how do you know about that?”

“Like I said, the classroom is only consistent of five people, there’s only so much you can hide.”

“Say, do you think I could have a c-chance with…”

“With who?”

“L-lindsey..”

“Sure you would! So, would you come?”

“Y-yes!”

The boys’ voices had dropped to a whisper by now, with Castasia’s face stained red with embarrassment. But when they turned around, Avan had already got what he wanted- Castasia’s agreement to go to the forest.

He looked towards his right, where his two classmates are still squabbling whether to go Crater Forest or not. In truth, He actually had another motive for going to Crater Forest. He had a crush on Eleanor, had it since the 5th grade, and had never confessed to her before. But now was his chance, as he had told Castasia. It was his chance to confess to Eleanor. So with great ardor, he approached the still-arguing pair, and whole-heartedly assured Alice (to which she blushed) that their sightseeing trip to the forest would be fine, to which she accepted almost immediately. Therefore, it was set, this sightseeing trip of theirs.

.

They had to wait till nightfall before they could sneak out of their houses and rendezvous at the village fountain. There was but one entry into the Crater Forest, the forest that lay next to Kelt Village, with nothing significant except the fact that the entire forest ground sunk down towards the ground, so low that the highest canopy was reduced to the height of a sapling on the village grounds. Access into the forest is highly dangerous if one plans to just slide down the slopes. The slopes were steep, had mostly no ledges, and was crawling with insects. Therefore, the only safe method was via the stairs, which was really just a ladder that lowered down into the forest. Nobody uses it anymore, the adults hunt for game in another forest. It was only because one of their seniors had told them that there were beautiful fireflies that “gave off a light like no other” that they decided to go into the forest.

Imagine, a world where just the 5 of them could enjoy, alone, looking at the beautiful fireflies. This was the only thought that was going through Lindsey’s mind when suddenly-

“I see adults!”

A hushed voice came from behind her.

“What do we do then?”

Another voice, equally suppressed, asked.

“We climb down as fast as possible, duh!”

And with that, the five of them started climbing down.

“Hurry up, they’re walking towards here, I think they heard us.”

Eleanor was the only one that had safely reached the bottom of the Crater Forest when Avan’s alarmed came from above. Lindsey was only halfway down when the five of them heard:

“Hey! Who’s there?”

A state of newfound panic ran through the beings of all five children.

And as they heard the footfalls of the adults approach them, Avan, the last in line to go down the ladder, took a step backwards, took in a deep breath, ran up the ledge, and lept.

The rest of the party that still had not went down the ladder went through another wave of panic. As of now, they had but 3 options.

One was to jump down the ledge and risk injury.

Two was to hurry the others down the ladder and climb themselves.

And three, the most undesirable of all three, was to hide from the adults and wait it out, something quite impossible to do since all that surrounded them was grass.

Castasia, the fourth in line, took his chances and jumped down the ladder.

“Jump! Alice! Jump down!”

And with that, she weighed her chances, glanced down at Lindsey’s silhouette slowly climbing down the ladder, and jumped.

.

Truth to be told, the small group of five children would have been alright after they had all entered Crater Forest.

They could’ve regrouped, for one, and all rushed into the thick foliage of the forest before the patrolling adults reached the staircase leading to Crater Forest.

There was, however, a third influx of panic induced in the five children partly due to the nearing of footsteps presumably belonging to the adults, but mostly due to the voice of one of these presumed patrolling adults asking his partner:

“I bet it’s those kids again.”

‘Those kids’ referred not to the 7th graders, they were almost invisible to most of the village save their teacher and parents. It referred, instead, to the 9th graders who, on several occasions, slipped into the Crater Forest to fulfill a dare. These dares became more and more frequent after news spread that a test subject called Lusus Naturae had escaped from one of the governmental labs and into the forest. It was still fresh in their minds, the image of the 9th graders being publicly spanked when it was found out that they had snuck into the Crater Forest again.

They certainly did not want to be punished in such a way.

And when all five of them heard that, and had the consequences of being found out sink in, they reached a state of panic that could only be described as pure insanity. And as they scrambled to find a hiding place, their frenzy reached a point in which they cared solely and only for their own selves.

Hastily, frantically, their knees scraped past the forest shrubs as they ran with all their might into hiding, into the thick foliage that the forest provided.

Humans are, you see, fundamentally selfish. And when escaping from danger, they would, many a times, forget about the other people around them and concentrate solely on their own safety, their own wellbeing. And that was exactly what happened as they trampled across herbs and weeds alike as they made their way towards the foliage. It was, in every right, every man for himself. As the five of them made their way to the forest, their vision blurred, their mind screamed to them to keep on running, lest risk being found out. Their thin legs carried them a great distance as they sped towards the forest, intent on getting away.

At this point, there was really no telling who was who, nor any point in that. They all existed as the selfish little brats they were, rushing, panting, running, putting as much distance between the adults and them.

They only allowed themselves to stop, to recover, when they were sure nothing but vines and wild jungle vinery were a good distance between them and the village. They were well away from the village by this point. Alien terrain surrounded them as they caught their breath by a lake trickling by.

It was only when she scooped the water and splashed herself did Lindsey fully awaken from that state of frenzy that engulfed her as she was escaping. Her feet were buzzing, probably from overuse. She never ran long distances, and that was certainly a damn long distance they ran.

It was about this time when everyone, fully recuperated from the exertive running, splashing water onto their faces, panting hard, noticed something was amiss.

“Wait, where’s Alice?”

All eyes went to Avan.

“I just caught her, put her down, and ran off. I thought she would’ve followed me.”

Avan shrugged and sighed:

“And now we have one missing person to add to our list of problems.”

“Problems?” Eleanor frowned:

“What problems?”

“Haven’t you lot noticed? We have completely no idea where we are in the forest.”

“Oh great.” A groan escaped Eleanor’s mouth,

“There goes our sightseeing trip to the forest.

And probably our right to go outside after we return to Kelt.”

“So?” Lindsey sat down on the tree branch.

“I-I think we should find a place to sleep.” Castasia awkwardly piped up.

“Sleep?” Eleanor whirled around to her stutter-prone classmate.

“What about finding Alice? Or going back to the village? You’re telling us to just abandon everything and go to sleep?!?!”

Eleanor’s outburst hung heavily in the humid forest air as the four students shifted in their resting place, be it sitting or standing. Nothing good was left to say.

Then, out of nowhere, a blue light faintly flickered, and lit up. The four of them saw a firefly in the middle of the circle they unconsciously formed. Then, slowly, beautifully, blue lights came to life around them. For a second or two, the four of them were completely immersed in the beauty of the fireflies. They threw away the worry that had burdened them for the few seconds, and as they looked on at the blue flames around them, realisation began to dawn on them. That they were still lost, that a classmate has been separated from them, and that they were stuck here until they could find a way out of the winding forest.