Out of all the things I thought I would be doing on my summer break, perching in a tree, awaiting certain death was not even close to being on my mind.

My first week of summer was great, perfectly normal. But I just had to get curious. I just had to think my life was too boring. I just had to wish for something fantastical. Well, the old platitude, “be careful what you wish for” won’t stop repeating in my head now.

I can feel the tree beginning to shake, and I can hear the rumbling gate of my pursuer. I’ll be dead in minutes. I’ll die looking at a dying tree.

That’s somehow fitting. Death amongst death… Wow, when had I become so morbid?

I shake those thoughts out of my head. I still have hope. Suzanna could come any second now, assuming she isn’t dead– again with the morbid thoughts. I just have to occupy my mind with happier thoughts, ones that can’t turn sour.

Suzanna is a good start. She’s always very happy, optimistic, even to an irritating extent. I met her during my second week of summer. Of course, when I think of new friends, I don’t envision someone like her. Well, you can’t envision what you don’t believe in.

I had always been into reading and the world of fantasy, but it was all just that, fantasy, fiction, not real. But, I guess those stories had to come from somewhere. And now, according to Suzanna, that somewhere is colliding with here.

Apparently every thousand years or so, the world of “myth” and our world are pulled together. Hence, monsters and creatures from Egyptian and Greek myth, Medieval stories, and others tend to mirror each other: fairies, fawns, trolls, and so on.

The same world keeps clashing with ours, letting creatures get pulled into both– humans and monsters, swapping places. Of course, Suzanna isn’t a monster, just a mythical being. She looked normal at first, and that’s why I trusted her. Then I learned she could turn into trees.

Dryad, she’s a dryad.

She was sent as a warning. The more harmful creatures of her world are planning to destroy the human world. They had been planning for centuries, and finally the worlds are colliding again.

All we have to do to stop them is seal the rift from both sides, Suzanna on the monster side and me on the human side. It was simple. Simple until we were found out.

Now, I’m sitting in a tree, just waiting around for the beast below to figure out where I ran to. Good thing for me cyclopes take lumbering steps, not fast ones.

Wow, that sounds ridiculous once I put it into words.

Well, ridiculous until I remember the very real threat this fellow brings. Why couldn’t it have been something I can reason with, talk my way out of? I’m not athletic enough to just escape something. Even with adrenaline, I’m slow– something I learned while running from the cyclops.

I sigh. That guy is nearly below me, and there’s no sign of Suzanna. I can see the epitaph now:

Zachary Grey

2000-2017

Brutally killed by

nonexistent creature

because he skipped

gym.

Okay, I’ve officially moved past morbid into the realm of macabre. Where in the world is Suzanna? I sent out the distress signal… how long ago was that? Fifteen minutes? Five? Twenty? I’m not sure. It seems like forever ago, but I’m not quite thinking strait.

My heart skips a beat when I see a large figure beneath me. How did I miss him when I wandered into his camp? Stupid, stupid, stupid. In my panic, I even dropped the stone I needed to seal this side of the rift. At least my mind was sound enough to think to let out the distress signal, not that I had done it correctly or with enough notice for Suzanna to do anything.

As I watch the creature under me, I can’t keep grim thoughts out of my mind. Thoughts of not hugging my mom last time I saw her, thoughts of never going to the movies with my friends again, thoughts of what might happen after death.

Lucky for me, I’m shaken out of those thoughts when the branches around me start moving. I would have jumped or made a noise if I wasn’t acutely aware of the danger down below. The branches keep moving until I’m almost shielded from the view of the creature. Unfortunately, he looks up just in time to still be able to see me.

The tree disappears, and I fall about ten feet to the ground. Pulling me up off the ground is Suzanna. She begins running, still pulling me along. It takes a couple steps before I get my balance and can run next to her. I glance back, but we have a good twenty feet on the big guy. Thank goodness for those lumbering steps.

I turn to Suzanna. “How did you–”

“I was coming after your distress signal,” she explains between breaths, “but I could feel the ground rumbling. I just made sure to turn into a tree that looked inviting to climb. It worked; you climbed it.”

I glance back again; we still only have twenty feet or so. He’s getting faster.

Now I'm never one to back down from an adventure, so when presented with the option to go to sleep at a decent hour or to sneak out the window for any reason whatsoever, my choice was undeniably clear. Though looking back on it, maybe if I would've opted for a few more hours of sleep I wouldn't be tangled in such a mess.

Anyway, I guess I should've figured a clang against my window at twelve am was a recipe for disaster from the start.

"Romeo, oh Romeo, keep throwing rocks and you'll break the window," I yelled out, careful to wake the neighbors.

"Funny. I always thought of myself as more of a Noah Calhoun type... but that's not the point. Can you come outside? Please, Del?" Will asked.

I put on a sweatshirt, changed into leggings, and was outside from my second floor bedroom in under ten seconds flat.

"So there's this huge camp out in the woods tonight. I was wondering if maybe you'd want to go with me?"

"In... the woods? That sounds really stupid."

"Come on it'll be fun."

"Fine, fine. But only because I have nothing better to do," I joked.

The walk towards the woods was freezing, so as we approached the party, I was happy to see many of them were sitting around a campfire.

"Want a marshmallow?" Someone asked as I drew closer to the fire, taking in the warmth. When I unwillingly turned from my heat source to reply of course (because who wouldn't want marshmallows at midnight?) I heard a distinct "oops" and looked into the wide eyes of a girl I had never seen before. "Sorry," she squeaked, dashing out of sight, leaving both the marshmallow and stick behind... in my hair. Great.

"Will, we're leaving."

"Come on, you're not going to let one little marshmallow ruin the whole night are you?" My immediate thought was I will let a marshmallow ruin my night if I damn well please, but I felt like I wouldn't be able to actually say that without laughing. So, the campfire group managed to convince me to stay for a round or two of truth or dare. Rules with this crowd are slightly different. If you refuse a truth or dare, you're out of the game - and the party. And I'm never one to back down.

"Delilah, truth or dare?" Heather, the girl who always stirs up trouble, asked me first.

"Would I be me if I said anything but dare?" I responded confidently, matching her cunning glare.

"Dare you to kiss Derek." She gestured across the circle towards him, acting like I could possibly not know who he is. But everyone who was anyone knew Derek Kleinsen.

I didn't know exactly what Heather was plotting because it didn't seem like her usual ruin-the-night dare so I marched over toward him, bit my lip, and kissed him hard on the mouth. I felt his hand run through my hair just as I was tackled from the side. "What the-"

The thing is though, Derek's hand was stuck in my hair, and apparently it was his girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend? Oopsie.) who side-tackled me. At least that's what I assumed from her "How could you do this to me?"

But back to the whole hair situation. Now Derek's... whatever she is, she didn't know about the marshmallow dilemma. So she's trying to figure out why he is still holding my head while he's apologizing profusely.

Meanwhile Will left the circle, and everyone else is laughing hysterically, so I'm left with an angry girl yelling at Derek and me, a hand stuck in my marshmallow-filled hair, and the possibility of spending the next few months with little to zero strands of hair left in my head. And an even more likely possibility that I'd die right there on the spot from severe humiliation.

All because I had to sneak out my window in the middle of the night in search of adventure.