Journey to a Forest party

3 weeks ago an English friend of mine -actually he's more of an acquaintance as opposed to a friend- Jack (not Daniels), invited me to a random illegal forest party hidden within the trees of Hampstead Heath. I live miles away from there so it took an eternity to get to my destination, to make matters worse I couldn't use my mobile data making it even more difficult in finding the exact location, the journey just begun and already it seemed bleak and hopes of finding the place was slowly fading away. Hope was restored momentarily when I happened to by chance come across a public Wi-Fi spot. Once tethered to the Cafe's hotspot, I took screenshots of the planned journey using the Google Maps app. The clock struck 12am, there was complete darkness as far as the eyes could see ( I could just about see 2 feet in front of me) and there was an eerie substance in the air. After about 10 minutes of strenuous walking I felt a cold shiver run down the back of my spine. It was probably the most chilling sensation I had ever felt. You know the saying right? when in danger your fight or flight response kicks in?... yeah, well it so happened that both my feet were frozen like fish fingers from Iceland, I was determined to find a safer route (the flight response) albeit my feet had other plans (the fight response). It was almost as if I was in a trance, mindlessly walking towards a doomed destination.

After what felt like a millennia of walking there was a waft of familiarity in the air, It helped ease the spookiness in this God-forsaken place. The smell of singed wood because more apparent; this comforted me as it was a sure sign of civilisation. in front of me there hung a wooden bridge, it went across a decrepit lake with stagnant water. I was certain I saw bubbles of nasty gas being let off the surface. It was an awful foul smell; one whiff would have been enough to intoxicate a 410 lbs sumo wrestler. The underlying notes of the fire burning somewhere in the distance somehow managed to keep me sober, safely guiding me across the bridge. I was one leap away from leaving the foul waters behind and so I took the leap of faith. 'SQUELCH'!.. upon hearing that noise my heart stopped. I knew exactly the predicament I fell into. Panic set in, I frantically searched for my phone, first the left jacket pocket then the right, moving down to my trouser pockets... got it! out came the phone and bright was the light that beamed off it. It had happened ... living out one of my worst nightmares... I leaped into the gunkiest, gooiest muddy puddle I'd ever come across. The beautiful clean Jordan shoes of mine became dirty. As time passed that had became the least of my worries, for only about 10 seconds later had I then realised the hem of my trousers were also submerging in the mud! The viscosity as well as other characteristics of the mud were similar to that of quick-sand. I was being dragged in slowly but surely. My fighting instincts kicked in and being well versed in how to combat quick-sand (experience from watching movies and surfing the web) I took action. I felt a strong resistance upon raising my right foot, doing so I incurred retaliation from the mud; It was fighting back! my left foot was being dragged in more. I felt afraid and thanks to the built up of adrenaline in my system I managed to gather all my strength and jolted my left foot out and haphazardly sprinted on the gooey surface of the mud. Relief engulfed me top to bottom as the sole of my right foot hit the hard surface of the grassy terrain. The feeling of cheating death several times in a short period was washed away when the thought of "I could have died now" arose. How can I be this lucky? surely it's going to run out soon enough. Having composed myself after the ordeal I had been through I used the torch on my phone to guide me in this total darkness. There were numerous trees of differing heights and width. The trees were wild by nature (excuse the pun) as a result they had branches sticking out from all sections, causing me to wave my arm frantically in front of my face out of fear of being struck in the face. 5 min's or so later I saw a glimpse of a strobing light not too far away from where I had been standing. The forbidden forest party, boy it had better be worth the troubles I had been through. The make-shift torch on my hand started to vibrate, the name 'Jack' was plastered on the screen. I answered the phone and from-the-bath Jack requested I bring alcohol on my way. Without hesitation I replied "I can't, going back now would consume too much time, besides I'm merely minutes away from the location. Jack had hang up. I did not want to go through the trials of the Goblet of fire another couple of times or even worse encounter death. I had arrived , there where about twenty people, some dressed promiscuously others dressed like they were attending a civil party. This was far from what one would describe as a civil party, as the pungent aroma of weed filed the atmosphere as did the smell of beer. The bellowing sound of terrible techno music could be heard. Some were dancing to the music, others could be seen talking in groups, a few were sitting on tree stumps conveniently placed around the fire.

There's more to say about the party, but that's a story for another time... hopefully this story intrigued you enough to want to find out about the party...