The Vanishing
I slept fitfully, lightly, forest noises piercing the flimsy nylon of the tent. It was the darkest moment of night, the time the world is holding its breath, caught between midnight and the promise of morning. I was dreaming of golden eyes and shouting crowds when a noise, low and rasping, shattered my sleep. It was not a noise from the dream. It was real.
The growl was strange to me, a low, trembling vibration that appeared to emanate from everywhere at once, shaking deep in my bones. It was a raw, unadulterated sound of threat. I lay up in my sleeping bag, my heart pounding against my ribs instantly. The air inside the tent was cold. Outside, the happy crackle of the campfire had been replaced by a thick, claustrophobic silence.
"Adrian?" I breathed, and my voice was a parched crack in the darkness.
There was no response.
A cold fear, hard and sudden, started to creep its way up my back. I struggled with the zipper on my sleeping bag, my fingers fumbling in sudden haste. "Adrian?" I called out once more, my voice raised this time, a shake of fear in it. The only answer was the sigh of the wind through the pines. I crawled to the opposite side of the tent. His sleeping bag was vacant, the dip where he had lain already chilled to the touch. The flap of our tent was open a little, a dark, yawning mouth opening out into the frightening night.
My first instinct was a rational one. He'd had to pee. He'd be right back in a minute, laughing at me for being so nervous. I waited, timing the seconds, each one stretching into eternity. The quiet of the forest closed in, no longer peaceful, but ravenous. The memory of the growl, of Adrian's strange tension earlier tonight, of his enigmatic challenge of war zones—it all began to converge in my mind, forming a terrifying picture.
After five minutes that had seemed like five hours, the weak wall of my excuses fell apart. Something was amiss.
"Adrian!" I wailed, my own voice tiny and insignificant, lost in the emptiness of the forest. No response. Silence.
Panic, hot and sour, coursed up my throat. I fumbled in the side pocket of my pack for my flashlight, my hands trembling so badly it took me three attempts to manage to light it. The harsh beam sliced a shaking, thin line through the utter blackness of the inside of the tent. I struggled out into the chill of the night air. The fire was a heap of pale, glowing ashes, and it cast long, skeletal shadows that capered and swayed like ghosts. The campsite, so cozy and safe only a few hours earlier, now seemed strange and threatening.
"ADRIAN!" I yelled, slowly turning on my heel, my beam of light slashing wildly through the impassable thicket of trees that ringed our little clearing. "This isn't funny!"
I started sweeping the edge of the beam, my light dancing off trees and trunks. I searched for footprints, for a snapped twig, for some indication of which way he might have gone. But the ground was a mat of dry pine needles, and nothing was visible. It was like he had just been swept off the ground, gone into thin air. I was panting in uneven, terrified breaths. He would not just leave. He would never, ever just leave me alone here.
A cold splash of water hit my cheek. And another. I looked up to see the stars, so brilliant a moment before, overshadowed by a thick, unattractive blanket of clouds. The wind began to pick up, its low, mournful wail a warning. The rain began, a cold, dismal drizzle at first, growing stronger until it was a pounding, drenching downpour.
All possibility I might catch a glimpse of a trail was swept away in an instant. The last of our embers spat and died out, leaving our campsite darker still, illuminated only by the wild, sweeping curve of my flashlight. I stood alone in the middle of our deserted, rain-soaked clearing, wet and cold, my panicked cries of his name taken away by the rising scream of the wind. He was gone. My anchor, my sun, my best friend—he had disappeared into a cold and heartless vastness that was quickly attempting to swallow me up as well. I was utterly, awfully, alone.