Chapter 1

Emma:

Year: 2018 (16 years later)

Do you know the feeling of being chased by a beast?

I do.

A furious, giant, blurry monster has been always after me. I can smell the stench of his mouth, and feel the heat from his husky body. Scared, but familiar. Every time when he swoops down on me as usual in the misty forest, baring his fangs and red eyes --

“Grrrrrr!”

I wake up and spill my breakfast smoothie onto the table. Again.

I sigh and see a cute dog barking at me. She’s my dog Zoey, annoyingly replacing the beast in my constant nightmare, who’s never stopped showing her hostility to me since I turned 18. I am never able to figure out the reasons, just like I don’t know why the nightmare is haunting me.

“Em, we are late, I’m leaving now!” mum yells from outside. 

I roll my eyes and clean up the smoothie. Without glancing at the clock, I know we still have 20 minutes left. It’s only according to mum’s internal clock that we’ll be late. But it’s fine. She just doesn’t want me to miss my final exam.

I rush out and jump into Mum’s car.

“Are you ready for the

final paper?” mum asks as she turns onto the highway.

“Yes, I’m hoping for another distinction in this one.” The perfect last paper to end the second semester, Personality Theories, it’s a psych module. I want to be a criminal profiler so it is a must.

“So what is the plan for your summer?”

“Find an internship for my future career.”

“Honey, you’re just 18. You’d better spend your spare time on...”

“Mom.” I keep staring at her until she turns towards me, “Don’t worry about my social life, OK? I have Lei.”

Mum smiled reluctantly, “She staying over then?”

“Of course, she just broke up with Tyler cause he is a deush-bag.” Lei is my best friend. She and Tyler

have been on-again and off-again since high school and it is just tradition for her to stay over by me during the off-again.

After mum drops me at campus, I find a quiet place on the bleachers and get back to my old friend Sigmund Freud, that sick man and his psychosexual theory. But I catch the word “investigation camp” from some girls nearby -- my classmates are talking so excitedly over a flyer.

“Hey guys, can I have a copy?”

“This was the last one. but you can take a picture of it.”

“Thanks!” I take out my phone while I scan the flyer. How damn good, it’s an internship camp administrated by Protection & Security Agency (PSA) for junior and senior students of Trinity University and Bloomer University. The PSA associates with a private university, which is located in a forest...

Wait. The forest...?

I rub my chest. It suddenly hurts so much.

“Are you alright?

We’ve gotta go

’cause the camp starts tomorrow and we have to pack the luggage.”

“Sure.”

I gathered my wits together and message the picture to Lei.

'Here’s a place I must go on this summer holiday.

Pack your suitcase, we’ll leave tomorrow.

Also, a perfect way to get over Tyler ;) xoxo Em' 

Without waiting for her message, I just calm my palpitation and rush to finish my final paper. Yes, I must get a good score, and also the internship.

“But convince me. Why do I have to go to the camp with you?” Lei glances at me with a skeptical look while I sign up online for the camp sitting beside her in her car.

“Don’t ask me to imagine any hot guys there. Your version of hot guys are just geeks with glasses. And they’re definitely not hotter than my terrible boyfriend.”

I think for a while. “Because I’ve never been so excited and expectant for anything?”

“More like you want to get away from your little beast.”

“See, now you are thinking more like me, love!” I say in a British accent to amuse her.

“You wanker. You’re hiding something. I can tell.”

Yes. But what can I say about the forest in my nightmare? I’ve never seen it clearly actually. The one on the flyer just feels like it. Lei wouldn’t understand it.

Lei drives me home and calls her mother to get the permission for the intern camp. However, my mother is not that easy to deal with.

“TOMMOROW?! You’ll leave me tomorrow, and leave for three months?!”

“Mum, I’ll be back, OK? It’s just an internship.”

“Yeah. Your father said the same thing to me.”

“I’m not sure he was doing an internship -- ” I stop my awkward joke because my dear mum starts to sob.

“I will have to go and see the outside world sooner or later.” I murmur to her.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of her. Trust us.”

I cast a grateful look toward Lei.

Mum wipes her tears away. “OK then. Tell me exactly what the whole camp is. How do you pay for accommodation?”

I let out a sigh of relief, knowing this means “yes”.

“Our earnings from the internship will cover that.” Money is a constant problem for us. So I have used to take part-time job on holidays to help out with the family expenses. Mum’s salary alone is never enough to pay for any additional expenditure.

“And I’ve just searched for all the information. You’ll know it’s absolutely not a big deal.”

Sorry, Mum, I’m not telling the whole truth. It IS a big deal.

Because the forest is calling me.