Chapter 2: Echoes Of The Missing
The footsteps led Lana deeper into the heart of the forest than she'd ever imagined possible. What had started as tentative pursuit soon became a desperate chase as the sounds seemed to stay perpetually just ahead of her, always moving, never quite close enough to reveal their source. Her lungs burned from the exertion, and the cut on her temple had begun bleeding again, sending warm trickles down the side of her face.
She'd been following the invisible guide for nearly an hour when the footsteps simply stopped.
Lana froze mid-step, straining to hear any sound that might indicate where her mysterious companion had gone. The silence that greeted her was so complete it seemed to press against her eardrums like a physical weight. Even her own breathing sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness.
"Hello?" she whispered, then immediately felt foolish for whispering. If someone was out there, they already knew exactly where she was. "Please, I just want to find my friends."
The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before being absorbed by the towering pines that surrounded her. She was standing in what appeared to be the oldest part of the forest, where the trees grew so tall and thick that their canopy blocked out most of the sky. The few rays of sunlight that managed to penetrate created an almost cathedral-like atmosphere, with shafts of golden light illuminating columns of slowly drifting dust and pollen.
It was beautiful, in a way that made her chest tight with an emotion she couldn't quite name. But it was also wrong somehow, like a painting that was perfect except for one small, disturbing detail that your eye couldn't quite identify.
Lana took a step forward and immediately stumbled over something half-buried in the thick carpet of pine needles. She looked down, expecting to see a fallen branch or exposed root, and instead found herself staring at a backpack.
Not just any backpack—she recognized the distinctive purple fabric and the collection of enamel pins attached to the front pocket. This was Maya's bag, the one she'd been carrying on the bus that morning. The one with her name embroidered inside in her mother's careful stitching: MAYA ELIZABETH TORRES.
Lana's hands shook as she picked up the bag and unzipped the main compartment. Inside, she found Maya's things scattered and disheveled: textbooks with bent covers, pens with their caps missing, a half-empty water bottle, and Maya's journal—the black leather one she wrote in constantly but never let anyone read.
The journal fell open in Lana's hands, revealing Maya's familiar handwriting sprawled across the pages. But as Lana began to read, her blood ran cold.
Day 1 - They took us during the night. I woke up tied to a tree about two miles from where the bus stopped. Lana was unconscious nearby, bleeding from her head. I tried to wake her but couldn't get close enough. When I managed to get free, she was gone.
Lana's heart hammered against her ribs. This couldn't be real. She would remember being tied to a tree. She would remember Maya being there.
She flipped to the next entry, dated just one day later.
Day 2 - Found David hiding in a drainage pipe near the old logging road. His glasses are broken and he can barely see. He says he watched them take Sarah and Marcus. Says they had masks and moved like soldiers. Professional. This isn't random.
The pages blurred as tears filled Lana's eyes. Maya was alive—or had been alive when she wrote this. But when had she written it? The entries were dated, but with no reference point, Lana couldn't tell if they were from yesterday or last week.
She flipped through more pages, finding increasingly desperate entries:
Day 4 - We're being hunted. Not by animals. By people. They leave things for us to find—food, supplies—but it's never enough. It's like they want us hungry and desperate but not dead. David thinks it's some kind of experiment.
Day 6 - Lost David yesterday. Heard him screaming around midnight, then nothing. Found blood on the trees this morning but no body. I'm alone now. If someone finds this, tell my parents I love them.
The final entry was dated just two days ago:
Day 8 - I can hear them getting closer. The footsteps at night, the voices in the distance. I'm leaving this bag here with everything else. If Lana is still alive, if she finds this, she needs to know: Don't trust anyone. They're everywhere. Even people who look like they're trying to help.
Lana's hands were shaking so violently she could barely hold the journal. Maya had been conscious this whole time, aware and terrified, while Lana had been... what? Unconscious? Drugged? How much time had passed since the bus trip?
She stuffed the journal back into the bag and continued searching through Maya's things. At the bottom of the main compartment, her fingers closed around something that made her gasp—Maya's cell phone, still in its glittery case.
Unlike Sarah's phone, this one still had power. The screen lit up when she pressed the home button, showing seventeen missed calls from Maya's mother and dozens of text messages. But what made Lana's stomach drop was the date displayed at the top of the screen: it had been nine days since the field trip.
Nine days. She'd been missing for over a week, and she remembered none of it.
She tried to unlock the phone, but it required Maya's fingerprint or passcode. Frustrated, she was about to put it away when she noticed something else—the phone's camera app had a red notification dot indicating recent photos. She managed to access the camera roll without unlocking the phone, and what she found there made her blood run cold.
The most recent photos were dark and blurry, clearly taken in desperation or fear. She could make out glimpses of forest, shadows that might have been people, and what looked like some kind of structure built into the side of a hill. But it was the photo metadata that truly terrified her—the last picture had been taken just six hours ago.
Six hours. Maya had been alive and taking pictures just six hours ago.
Lana fumbled with the phone, trying to figure out how to see the location data for the photos, when a sound made her freeze. Voices. Human voices, speaking in low, urgent tones.
She crept toward the sound, clutching Maya's backpack to her chest. The voices were coming from somewhere up ahead, beyond a thick stand of young pines. She could hear at least two people, maybe three, but couldn't make out what they were saying.
Moving as quietly as she could, Lana crept closer. The voices became clearer as she approached, and what she heard made her heart race with both hope and terror.
"—found her pack about an hour ago. She can't have gone far."
"The other one's been more trouble than she's worth. Maybe we should just—"
"No. The parameters are specific. We need all of them for the next phase."
Lana pressed herself against the trunk of a massive pine, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. Were they talking about Maya? About her? What parameters? What next phase?
She inched forward until she could see through the branches. Three figures stood in a small clearing about thirty yards away, all wearing dark clothing and speaking in the clipped, professional tones she associated with military or police. But these weren't uniforms she recognized, and something about their posture and movements seemed wrong, predatory.
One of them held what appeared to be a tablet or handheld device, its screen glowing blue in the forest shadows. "Subject Three moved through Grid Seven approximately twenty minutes ago. She's following the breadcrumb trail exactly as predicted."
Subject Three. Were they talking about her?
"Good. The psychological profile suggested she'd respond to the journal entries. Emotional manipulation works better on this type than physical threats."
Lana's mouth went dry. The journal entries—Maya's desperate, terrified words—had they been faked? Written specifically to manipulate her?
But that was impossible. She knew Maya's handwriting better than her own. Those entries had been real, filled with Maya's specific fears and speech patterns. No one could fake that level of detail.
Unless...
"What about the boy in Sector Five? He's been off-script for three days now."
"Cole Martinez. His psychological profile indicated potential for extended resistance. We may need to escalate his scenario."
Cole Martinez. Lana knew that name—he was in her biology class, a quiet kid who sat in the back and rarely spoke unless called on. Was he here too? Was he also part of whatever nightmare she'd stumbled into?
"And the others?"
"Subject Twelve broke yesterday. She's ready for collection. Subject Seven is still showing signs of rebellion, but his conditioning is progressing within acceptable parameters."
The casual way they discussed her classmates, reducing them to numbers and psychological profiles, made Lana feel sick. But she forced herself to keep listening, to gather as much information as possible.
"What about long-term viability? The sponsors are asking questions about success rates."
"Phase One has exceeded expectations. Seventy-three percent adaptation rate, with only minimal permanent psychological damage in the unsuccessful subjects. Phase Two should yield even better results once we implement the new protocols."
One of the figures consulted his device again. "Subject Three should reach the next waypoint within the hour. Make sure the bait is properly positioned."
Bait. They were using something as bait to lure her somewhere. But what? And where?
The figures began to move, heading in different directions through the forest with the confident stride of people who knew exactly where they were going. Lana waited until she was certain they were gone before emerging from her hiding spot, her mind reeling with what she'd overheard.
This wasn't a random kidnapping or some twisted survival game. It was organized, professional, with "sponsors" and "protocols" and psychological profiles. Someone—multiple someones—had been planning this for a long time, studying her and her classmates, learning their weaknesses and fears.
But why? What could they possibly want with a group of high school students?
As she stood there trying to process what she'd learned, Lana became aware of another sound drifting through the forest—faint but unmistakably human. Someone was crying.
The sound was coming from somewhere to her left, deeper into the woods where the trees grew so thick that the ground beneath them was carpeted in years of accumulated pine needles. She hesitated, remembering the conversation she'd just overheard about bait and waypoints. Was this another trap, another manipulation designed to lead her where they wanted her to go?
But the crying sounded so genuine, so full of despair and terror, that she couldn't ignore it. If one of her classmates was out there, hurt and alone, she had to try to help them.
Moving as quietly as possible, Lana followed the sound through the dense undergrowth. The crying grew louder as she approached, interspersed with what sounded like prayers or pleas whispered in a voice she almost recognized.
She crept around the base of an enormous pine tree and found herself looking down into a natural depression in the forest floor, almost like a small amphitheater carved out by decades of erosion. And there, huddled against the far wall of the depression, was a figure she recognized immediately.
Jenny Rodriguez, a junior from her Spanish class, sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth as tears streamed down her dirt-stained face. Her clothes were torn and filthy, and she had what looked like rope burns around her wrists.
"Jenny!" Lana called out before she could stop herself.
Jenny's head snapped up, and for a moment her face was filled with such pure joy and relief that Lana felt tears spring to her own eyes. But then Jenny's expression changed, cycling rapidly through confusion, fear, and finally settling on something that looked disturbingly like suspicion.
"Lana?" Jenny's voice was hoarse, as if she'd been screaming. "Is it really you?"
"Yes, it's me. Are you okay? What happened to you?"
But instead of answering, Jenny scrambled backward, pressing herself more firmly against the earthen wall behind her. "How do I know you're real? How do I know this isn't another test?"
The question hit Lana like a physical blow. Another test. What kind of tests had Jenny been subjected to? What had been done to her to make her doubt the reality of her own rescue?
"Jenny, it's really me. I found Maya's backpack, and her journal. She wrote about what happened, about being taken. I've been looking for everyone."
"Maya's dead." Jenny's voice was flat, emotionless. "I watched them take her yesterday. She fought, but they were stronger. They're always stronger."
"No, that can't be right. Her phone had pictures from just a few hours ago. She was alive this morning."
Jenny laughed, but it was a broken sound, devoid of any real humor. "Time doesn't work the same way here. Nothing works the same way here. They can make you see things, hear things. They can make you believe anything they want you to believe."
Lana slid down into the depression, moving slowly so as not to frighten Jenny further. Up close, she could see the full extent of her classmate's condition. Jenny had lost weight, her cheekbones sharp against hollow cheeks. Her eyes had a wild, darting quality that spoke of sleepless nights and constant fear.
"Jenny, we need to get out of here. We need to find the others and get help."
"There is no help." Jenny's voice was barely above a whisper. "Don't you understand? This is what they do. They take kids from schools, from families, and they bring them here to play their games. We're not the first, and we won't be the last."
"What games? What are they trying to do?"
Jenny looked at her with an expression of profound pity, as if Lana were a child asking why the sky was blue. "They're breaking us. Piece by piece, day by day, until there's nothing left of who we used to be. Then they rebuild us into whatever they need us to be."
The words echoed what Lana had overheard from the three figures—talk of conditioning and adaptation rates, of subjects and psychological profiles. But hearing it from Jenny, seeing the evidence of it in her hollow eyes and trembling hands, made it real in a way that eavesdropping hadn't.
"But we can fight back," Lana said, surprised by the determination in her own voice. "We can resist whatever they're trying to do to us."
Jenny smiled sadly and shook her head. "That's what I thought too, at first. That's what we all thought. But they're patient, and they're smart, and they know exactly which buttons to push to make you break. They know your fears, your weaknesses, your deepest secrets. They use them against you until you don't know what's real anymore."
As if summoned by her words, a new sound drifted through the forest—the mechanical whir of an engine, growing steadily closer. Jenny's eyes went wide with terror, and she scrambled to her feet.
"They're coming," she whispered. "They always come when we start to remember too much, when we start to connect the pieces. You have to run, Lana. You have to get away from me before they find us together."
"I'm not leaving you here."
"You don't understand!" Jenny grabbed Lana's shoulders, her fingers digging in with desperate strength. "I'm bait. They use us against each other. The ones who break first, they turn us into bait to catch the ones who are still fighting. That's why I'm here, that's why you found me so easily. I'm the trap."
The engine sound was getting closer, accompanied now by the crack and rustle of something large moving through the underbrush. Jenny released Lana's shoulders and gave her a hard shove toward the opposite side of the depression.
"Go! Now! Before it's too late!"
But even as Lana scrambled up the earthen wall, she could see the hopelessness in Jenny's eyes. Her classmate wasn't expecting to be rescued. She was expecting to be collected, processed, filed away like all the others who had been brought to this place and broken down into component parts.
Lana reached the top of the depression and looked back one last time. Jenny had sunk back down against the wall, her brief moment of desperate energy exhausted. She looked smaller now, more fragile, like a bird with broken wings waiting for the inevitable.
"I'll come back for you," Lana whispered, though she wasn't sure Jenny could hear her over the approaching engine noise.
Then she turned and ran deeper into the forest, carrying Maya's backpack and the terrible knowledge that she was just one small part of something much larger and more sinister than she had ever imagined. Behind her, the mechanical sounds grew louder, accompanied by new voices—calm, professional, discussing their latest acquisition with the detached interest of scientists cataloguing specimens.
But as she ran, one thought burned bright in her mind: she wasn't broken yet. Whatever they had planned for her, whatever psychological conditioning they intended to subject her to, she still had her will, her determination, her refusal to give up.
It wasn't much, but it was a start. And sometimes, in the darkest places, a start was all you needed to find your way back to the light.
The forest swallowed her footsteps as she disappeared deeper into the maze of pines, leaving behind only the echo of Jenny's warning and the promise she'd made to return. Whether she'd be able to keep that promise remained to be seen, but she was going to try.
Even if it killed her.