The Secret of Mirror Forest

“Hey!!!! It’s over here,” Chevy yelled at Cassie from the wooded cliff. The two were at the edge of humanity, thousands of feet in the air and surrounded by the foliage of Mirror Forest. “Marry a rock climber, they said…it’ll be fun, they said…” Cassie mumbled as she dug her boots into small areas of strategic, terrifying footing. After almost five years of intense, passionate marriage, the two adventurers were looking for some extra spice in their life together. Despite the tales of Mirror Forest, Chevy convinced Cassie that the two were experienced enough to take on yet another tall, inhospitable branch of land – a worthy challenge for the two.

Chevy always led when they were climbing, and Cassie would follow his path. Unsurprisingly, Chevy made it to the top first and began inspecting and observing the land that surrounded him. The sun was still rising in the sky, beautifully pink, purple and orange like a swirl of cotton candy. There was this quietness that surrounded Chevy, this dense sound of nothing…and when the wind would gently pick up, all he could hear were the soft swishes of the pines moving it’s branches up and down – like the trees were dancing themselves awake. He turned around and looked for a good place to sit down and rest a minute while he waited for Cassie to finish her climb. “Perfect!” he thought as he took a branch and brushed off a seat on a flat rock that came up to about the height of his waist.

As he went to sit down, a black object a little smaller than the size of his hand caught his attention. Chevy reached to the ground and pulled up a small black notebook. “It must be someone’s travel notes,” he thought. Out of curiosity, Chevy opened the cover and began reviewing its contents.

“What the fudge are you doing? You’re not in a library, you know,” Cassie exclaimed as she hoisted herself over the ledge.

As Chevy twisted the black notebook around and around, he replied, “I think this is a map of Mirror Forest. Someone drew this by hand…it looks like it’s leading us to something close to here.”

“What, now we’re following a treasure map?? I guess it’s not the weirdest thing we’ve done…” Cassie said, as she thought back to their time with the Shamans and villagers in Peru while drinking Ayahuasca. “Let’s see what trouble we can get into, we already made it past the hard part, let’s have some fun, “ Cassie teased Chevy.

After they collected their gear, they began walking into the depths of the darkness that is Mirror Forest with only the found map and their compass to guide them. Swwwwsshhhhhh, swwwwshhhhhhh, the trees faintly hummed as Chevy and Cassie walked deeper and deeper into the abyss. Although it was warm outside, Cassie had goosebumps, and she noticed that surprisingly she hadn’t seen a single animal since they’d started their mysterious adventure.

“Here it is!!” Chevy said excitedly. Right where the map indicated, there was a green, camouflage box about the size of a shoebox. It was waterproof and had a code combination lock.

“Is there a code in the notebook?” Cassie asked, enthralled that there was actually something at the end of this treasure hunt. “Yes, it’s 2679,” Chevy squeaked out in excitement as he started turning the lock to the code. Chevy pushed in 2…6…7…9… and the lid popped open revealing ten bundles of $100 bills.

In complete shock and excitement, Cassie asked, “is this real? Is that real money?” Chevy took one of the bills and held it up, and quickly took bill after bill out of the box holding it up to the sky, “they’re real,” he said in awe of this blessing. The two looked at each other and began kissing so intensely that they thought they were back on their honeymoon.

Schnnnnappppp, the sound of a large branch breaking startled the two lovers. It sounded as if someone was walking in their direction, but they couldn’t see anyone. “Get down,” Chevy fiercely whispered as he pushed Cassie towards the ground with one arm and grabbed the box with the other. “When I tell you to run, do so as fast as you can, and stop about 10 feet from the edge,” he instructed Cassie.

As the sounds of the branches breaking continued, they finally saw the silhouette of a tall man approaching. When he was about 40 feet from the couple, Chevy yelled, “RUNNNNNNNNNNN,” and the two took off towards the cliff.

The man, clearly startled, hesitated, and then ran towards where Chevy and Cassie were previously kneeled. When he approached where the box was, the man became visibly upset and he started shaking. “NOOOOO, NOT THE MONEY, NOOOOO,” the man exclaimed, as he turned and ran towards the escaping couple.

“Oh my God, what if he catches us? What will we do? Is he dangerous?” Cassie thought as she dodged and ducked her way out of the thick trees and brush of Mirror Forest. She could see the cliff, about 100 yards out, but quickly approaching. Cassie ran as hard as she could until each of the tendons in her legs were on fire, she looked behind her and saw that Chevy was 5 feet away and that the man was about 10 feet from Chevy. Cassie saw her mark and prepared her body for the abrupt stop before the edge that it would come to… “NOW,” she thought as stopped the momentum of her body while the adrenaline continued to coarse through her.

Approximately, 1 second later, Chevy stopped running too, and as the man approached them Chevy perched his body in position. “What is he doing,” Cassie thought as he watched her husband prepare himself for attack. Suddenly, Chevy took a step towards the man, grabbed the man by his shirt, and used the momentum of the man’s running body to lift and throw him off the cliff.

Cassie screamed, as Chevy looked over the edge to see if the man had fallen – he had. The man’s corpse was lying at the bottom of the cliff, pooling with blood. A vision that would haunt Chevy’s dreams.

Chevy walked back to his wife. “No one can know,” he whispered as he grabbed and held Cassie who was shaking and crying. “No one.”