Gabriella stood at the edge of the clouded forest in anticipation. Her cousin, Finn, was going to visit. Every month, it was like this. The fog allowed a rift in the space-time continuum, and allowed him to come from the other universe. He wasn’t, of course, actually related by blood to Gabriella, but they were so close that it seemed they were cousins.

Normally, the fog wasn’t this bad. It was just a light mist in the forest, dew on the grass and flowers. To Gabriella, weather and fog conditions didn’t matter. Just the same, every month, she would stand in front of the forest in sunshine, rain, storm, whichever.

She was clutching a book to her chest. It was a journal. Whenever Finn would come, they would flip through the journal and add notes to it, about plants and animals and everything from Finn’s universe. Finn carried a similar notebook, except it wasn’t a notebook at all. It was a strange little rectangle, only the edges weren’t sharp, they were curved. If he tapped a white space in it, it would pull up a “keyboard”, in Finn’s words. He would simply press a letter on the keyboard and it would pop up in the space. Finn called it an eye-pad, which is ridiculous, since it is not a pad that you would put on your eye.

Gabriella recalled the first time Finn had visited. He had been shocked. Yellow trees?? he had yelped. It was true. The trunks were yellow, and the leaves were blue. The fruits tended to be black and gray and crinkled at best, but sometimes, after a while, they would turn strange colors and nobody would eat them. For example, oranges were slightly round, black and wrinkled, but they would turn orange and an orange coating would surround the fruit.

Finally, Gabriella heard a bush moving. She turned towards it and out came Finn. She grinned, then her face fell.

He was all scratched up. There was a long scar across his cheek, stretching from under his eye to his chin. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“. . . Finn?” Gabriella asked worriedly. His head snapped up.

His eyes were glowing golden instead of their usually pale blue color. There was something so unsettling about the golden eyes . . . Gabriella almost backed away.

“Finn?” she repeated in a whisper.

Finn— no, he wasn’t the Finn that Gabriella knew— stood silently and wordlessly. Then he turned around slowly and headed into the forest, jerking his head in a universal sign that she should follow him. She did.

She was never found or heard from again.

*** *** ***

Every month, a new child around Gabriella’s age at the time would go to the forest and try to find out how Gabriella disappeared. Some didn’t want to give up hope. Others’ hope was already long gone. A boy named Owen decided to be brave. He knew that none of the ‘investigators’ would return. He intended to be the first.

See, this was years later. Owen was only seven when Gabriella disappeared. He had rather admired her. She made math fun, made reading interesting, made science into a game. And then . . . She was gone from the face of the Earth.

Now, he was nine. Old enough, he thought, to go on a mission to find Gabriella. He was one of the people who never gave up hope.

He ducked out the back door one night, when his parents were still sleeping. He carried a backpack with a bag of pretzels, a flashlight, and . . . That’s pretty much it. He didn’t really know what to bring. He headed to the edge of the forest.

He cautiously peeked around, unsure. The fog was heavy that night, as it now always was. It was the same as the night exactly two years before. But he didn’t know that.

Now, Sir Owen, he told himself, thinking of his dad’s nickname for him, never give up hope. You’re going to go into the forest and you’re going to save Gabriella and you are going to find out how she disappeared. What he didn’t realize was that Gabriella was much too far from saving. And that he was next.

As he trudged deeper into the forest. A shadow whizzed past him and brushed against his arm. He felt a sharp pain. He froze.

Slowly, he shined his flashlight where the shadow had touched him. Blood leaked from a wound. But there was no knife. There was only ash clinging to the thick, red liquid spilling from the cut. Owen fainted dead away.

He was ripped apart by the dagger of ash.

He was gone.