Emily got to surveying her surroundings, suddenly very happy that she had a sturdy pair of shoes for walking on. From what she could tell she must’ve been deep, deep in the woods. There were no sounds of cars, no power lines, not a single sight of a road or a building to be found in any direction.
“Well I can’t just stay here, I’ve gotta find high ground or something. It’s the best chance of getting a rescue.” Emily muttered to herself, as she often did when stressed and frightened. Still, she had to admit, the surroundings did make it somewhat hard to be panicking. There may not have been any roads nearby, but if she wasn’t mistaken, she did spot what looked like a trail lined by a row of pines that led vaguely upward. That gave her a flicker of hope. Trails meant humans were here at some point, she reasoned.
She took her mug of coco in hand and set off down the trail, finding it longer than she expected as it wound uphill. She was immediately grateful for the shade of the tree cover, because the warm noonday sun beating down on her in her heavy woolen sweater would’ve been unbearable. As it was, she couldn’t ignore that she was sweating like no one’s business, and she also found herself afflicted by a sharp pain in her back.
Emily was no stranger to long hikes, track after all was one of her preferred ways of staying in shape for her cosplay activities, but under the current circumstances she was struggling. She also ended up taking frequent breaks as the deeper into the woods she went, the more she noticed certain discrepancies with this environment. She crossed paths with wildflowers that grew waist high with palm sized petals, bigger than any she’d ever seen, and vividly brighter too. Every dozen or so trees she passed, she’d notice lichens and mosses on the trunks that came in blues and greens. Unless she was hearing things, those mosses seemed almost to hum. There were mushrooms too that grew in perfectly equidistant fairy circles. She’d heard they do actually do that in the wild, but on top of everything else, it contributed to the subtle surrealism of her surroundings.
By the three hour mark, Emily was spent. She was exhausted, her clothes itched and drenched in her sweat. Her shoulder blades ached, and her ears too felt like they were inexplicably burning. Then she was greeted by the sweet scent of fresh water. Sure enough, there before her was a small waterfall of cold spring water. Emily just couldn’t pass up something like this in her current condition. She set her mug on a log that was fallen nearby and approached the basin. Cat nine tails that grew on the water’s edge seemed to part in the breeze just for her benefit.
Emily lifted her sweater up and over her shoulders, folding it carefully and setting it on the dry grass. In her leggings and white bra, she knelt down next to the edge and splashed the refreshing water across her face. Looking down at her reflection, she blinked a few times, wiping out her glasses. She instantly recoiled when she saw what looked back at her. The reflection was clearly her own, but her brown hair was down out of its bun and was braided full of beads, golden baubles, and flowers. Her face was accentuated with some of the best cosplay quality makeup she’d ever seen, way outside of her own price points, and she was clearly wearing a very well fitted pair of prosthetic elf ears. If she wasn’t mistaken, it looked like a pair of shimmering amber colored translucent wings rose above her shoulder blades. Emily touched her face. Nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the soreness in her back not having subsided.
She stared around her surroundings, scratching her head. “What the fuck is this place?” She mumbled.