I grew tired of the walls. I have never had claustrophobia or been uncomfortable in cramped places before, but this is different, knowing that I’m trapped here leaves me desiring exploration. Time has a way of doing that, lessening your experience over the days, that’s why I’m writing these down. As I think about it now, I don’t feel fear, I am as ready as ever to get out there.

Looking back on my previous venture notes, I can remember them, but not the fear of being in the situation. I am a target, and I may as well be defenseless. Nothing in this place makes sense to me and I’m not mentally equipped to handle it.

But what else is there to do? Wait around, just go mad as Father Time chips away at whatever time is left on my clock? That’s not an option. I will lose my mind completely.

I decided I would go out again, but this time I would stick to the outskirts of the woods, not go into them. I wasn’t prepared for whatever was out there… My best bet would be to take it slow and approach them carefully.

I grabbed my pack and headed out early in the morning, this time going in the opposite direction of my last outing. Stick to the edge and everything will be fine, no need to take unnecessary risks.

I trodded slowly out from the library and circled the building, heading towards the massive stretch of forest that lay directly behind my residence. If I kept track of where I went in maybe this would be a simple hike.

My feet moved carefully along the edge of the woods as I walked alongside them. Now and again there would be a small rustling, but I never caught sight of any creatures that could have been responsible for the noise. Everything was lifeless as usual.

After a few hundred yards I noticed one peculiar thing though, a small mushroom with a blue hue underneath. Every nine or ten yards there would be another small cluster of them against the base of a random tree. Like clockwork, exactly that many steps, and then there were the mushrooms.

I don’t know anything about identifying mushrooms or anything at all that is found in nature, but there was something about these… They were strange…

They have the faintest aroma of sliced apples, if you rubbed your finger against the underside, it left a small stain against it. If they were poisonous, then they were the most appetizing-smelling poison that I had ever had the pleasure of coming across.

I found a small pouch in the bottom of my bag, I collected a small handful before moving forward and doing the same thing again. It didn’t take long to fill up the pouch. I even remember feeling excited as I watched it fill. It felt good to be accomplishing something, even if it was such a small and mundane task.

Before long I stared at my full pouch and felt a little bit of pride. I had gathered something useful from the woods of the most dangerous place I had ever been. Foraging didn’t seem so bad. Maybe living out here had a few simple pleasures after all…

I started to make my way back home…

It should have been simple, stick to the edge of the woods, and move back the way that I had come, I had stopped roughly six times which meant there should have been a few hundred yards between where I had started and where I had ended up.

But then again… This was Willow Village.

I still hugged the edge of the woods and could see directly inside of them, but the town was gone. Not a building in sight, just me and the woodsline.

Don’t panic, just approach this as rationally as possible. Towns don’t just disappear. But they don’t sit around desolate either, and there’s no such thing as endless sunsets. What kind of mushrooms smelled faintly of apples? This place knew what it was doing, these woods knew what they were doing. Even sticking to the edges didn’t guarantee safety.

Okay… Focus. This place doesn’t want you dead, that much is obvious. There might be some things in here that would do the job, but just try and steer clear of them.

Getting lost is just going to happen with these woods, it’s unavoidable. No matter what I am looking for or run into, coming in here means the woods are going to shift and get me lost. It’s almost as if they are alive.

Stick to the edge, no point getting scratched up in the thick brush today. Getting lost is just part of the process. Home is never going to be right where I had left it, that much is blatantly obvious. So that is good to know… lost is just going to happen if I leave the village.

I took a seat in the grass after my legs grew tired. I pulled a piece of bread from my pack, I nibbled on it peacefully as I watched the sky.

That’s when I saw them.

Stars are visible in the sky. This early in the day? That is odd…I counted maybe fourteen of them in various spots. I also noticed that they glowed the wrong color… Instead of the normal bluish hue, these were dark red that were visible against the blue sky.

Blinking…They also appeared to be blinking. Some rapidly, others slowly, but they were all participating.

Maybe it was some kind of code…

Let’s see what we can do here…I grabbed a notepad and a pen from my pack and spotted the brightest of the stars. It was directly overhead, it had the fastest rate out of all its peers. The next closest star was directly to the left, and then another directly below that. I followed them one by one and let their rapidly shifting lights tell me a story.

I could hear words in my head as I wrote them down on paper. My vision blurred as I followed the stars one by one. Center and then left, then right, above me again. Now back to the left.

My eyes flickered as my hand wrote at an unprecedented pace. There was a message here and it was being given directly to me. It was being streamed directly down into my mind.

I saw stars in the sky and in my mind as well, it was nauseating. It felt like my head was being crammed full of information that couldn’t possibly be processed in time. What could they possibly be trying to tell me?

Then just like that… It was over.

I blinked once or twice as my knees almost gave out, I steadied myself against the door before I fell.

Wait… The door.

I looked around and with just a tinge of relief realized that I was back in the village, in the library itself to be precise. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be surprised anymore.

The message… I had almost completely forgotten about it, even though the notepad was still in my hand. For a moment I felt the stars speak in my mind again. Perhaps it was best to let this stone go unturned, but then again it could be a way out…only one way to find out.

I looked down at the message and almost laughed. There in my handwriting was a message that served absolutely no use to me.

“No Way Home.”

Thanks for that, you didn’t have to get inside my head just to tell me something that I was already completely aware of. Does everything in this place have to have such a flair for the dramatic?

I pulled out that piece of paper from the notepad and scribbled some more words on the sheet behind it. Words that seemed as if they somehow fit to me.

“The stars that speak.”

Shame they don’t have anything worth while to say… wasting my time with their invasive messages, messages that don’t even offer decent information. What a nightmare this place is.

I need to get some sleep.