orest around her would have been swallowed in darkness had it not bee

remember stopping at the gas station to admire it with Victoria, but as she searched

far as her eyes could see. She seemed

, she could not remember the road to the valley being surr

e tried taking a step forward but quickly came to th

m bells in her head, warning her to move her legs and a

and ankles painfully held her fast against a thick, wooden po

as tr

alled out, her

me go! This is all some sort of misunderstanding. You've got the wrong per

as going to die? C

? Why am I in a forest?" These questions plague

her heart in

to you!" She screamed into th

n't have to do this!" She pleaded to whoever was out there. It wasn't her fault that the San Francisco Chronicle had been assigned the

b and did not deserve to

t it was to no avail. The shackles were fastened so tightly that the more she move

orts were futile. She tried calling out again. "

e sobs she had tried so hard to hold bac

ows. "Indah does not recognize you, child. Who

uinting her eyes, she tried to see where the voice

, hoping that the voice belonged to someone fr

ou are," The voice said slowly as the owner em

rangest person she had ever encountered in

he was draped in a loose white cloth that merged with her wrinkled, pale skin and white hair, making

Naomi muttered in disb

ifferent. Her deep, rich, and almost masculine voice was repl

this all a dream or had she already been admitted to a psyc

at herself," The old woman said as she slinked closer to Naomi,

" Naomi answered, trying to be brave as

s extremely clever or this child did not belong on this plane. She did not care t

do not belong here, so Indah would send you back. All of you

led, beckoning to the old woman but she had turned away, walking tow

n to chant in a language that sounded like a mixture of various

ided to get her attendants to strap her dead body to a pole, above a platform of firewood where s

er constraints. That was unexpected but it meant nothing as the shackles would with

Indah chanted repeatedly as the fires in her hand crackled,

, chanting all the way. Simultaneously, four masked figures poured

come any closer!" Naomi cried out, t

g her before the old woman did, and the

She tried to move, to somehow escape the growing heat tha

hen she could have switched shoes. All s

, smiling menacingly as the four

at's going on but we can resolve this without fire!"

s end. Indah will not let your corruption fester," Indah declared as she slo

an energy that Naomi hadn't felt before; it

od-curdling scream that was proof of the t

orce of the power unleashed from deep within her disintegrated the shackles holding her in place, extinguished all the torc

e wooden platform,

ed forth from her was gone with the only evidence

could manage to whisper befo