"Jesus Jim, where the hell did you go?" Rain thumped off the windshield of the car behind me as I slammed the door shut. I squinted into the woods disturbing the darkness, pine trees looming up through the SUV's headlights.

"I'm going to kill him. Who plays hide and seek at a time like this?" I glanced at the clock on the dash. 8:39 PM. Christ. We were definitely going to be late.

"Jaaaaaames Frederick! Get your butt back here! We need to go now if you want to make it to Dianne's house in time!" The forest swallowed up my voice, and the clouds above continued to sprinkle the land. I shivered as I looked around. Glumly, I read the sign we'd passed just before the car broke down. 10 miles until Fairport. "Last time I'm taking him to a sleepover. Period."

I pulled my red rain jacket tighter, and dug into the glove box for the emergency flare. A missing kid was certainly an emergency, but it wouldn't help if I went missing myself. I twisted off the top of the flare and set it off. Placing it on the top of the car, I pulled out a flashlight. I sucked in my breath and tried to beat down the panic climbing into my throat.

"JAAAAAAMES! Where are you?! This isn't the time for games!" I began to walk through the forest, sweeping the beam of the flashlight side to side. As soon as I walked underneath the trees, the sound of the rain began to lessen and the darkness lurched into my ears. Startled, I nearly dropped the flashlight, but I looked back at the car, lit by the flare and the headlights. Reassured, I resumed my calls.

As I searched, I made sure to keep the car in sight. My heart was thudding in my chest, and eventually the flare went out. Where is that little twerp? I tried to tell myself it was normal for kids to disappear. That they were always found. You know it's not. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! I WILL find my son.

"JAAAAAAAAAAAAAMES FREDERICK! WHERE ARE YOU!" My voice trembled with the effort. I sucked in air and as I did so heard a sudden flurry of twigs and something that almost sounded like a giggle. "Jim? Is that you? Come back to me, we need to get back to the car!" I swung around, pointing the flashlight in the direction of the sound. I just barely caught a flash of movement before it disappeared deeper behind the trees.

Anger overtook me and I began to sprint into the trees. Abandoning all restraint, I shouted, "You little dooshwaffle! You made me so worried! Get back here!" With a snap, my foot caught on a rock and I fell. The laughter sounded again but this time it was behind me. I rolled over while grabbing the flashlight.

This time I saw what was making the sound. It was perched on the trees above me. The beam from the flashlight swung through it, parting the coalesced shadows around its form. Frilly wings spread from its torso, and its long neck stretched out above the body, ending in a pair of humanoid lips. Its form shifted as it continued to giggle - an awful hiccuping sound quickly turning into a cacophonous cackle. It was joined by more guffaws from higher in the trees, and I saw more shadowy shapes, each just as monstrous.

"Mom?!"

That single word startled me and my body froze while my eyes frantically searched the darkness for confirmation I didn't just hallucinate. I shook my head. That wasn't him. That was not Jim’s voice. Yet... something very familiar... “MOM! CLOSE YOUR EYES!" I took the strange voice's advice and shut them just in time for the laughter to be abruptly cut off. Moments later I could feel strong hands shaking my shoulders.

"We need to leave! We need to get back to the car! NOW!" Opening my eyes again, I found myself staring at a bafflingly familiar brown-haired face.

"I... who are you?" Then I saw the remains of a green rain coat mixed into the man's haphazard clothing. "Jesus Christ... Jim?" His only response was to wrap me in a dense hug.

"I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd never get out of the Forest." Tears were running down his face, joining with the fresh rain. I couldn't even say anything. All I could do was hug him back. We stayed that way for only a second, before he remembered his warning. "If you're here, then the car's nearby right? We need to leave, now. I don't know if those things are really gone."

"Wha- Wait, if you're Jim, what happened to you?" He spotted the car's headlights. Grabbing my hand, he yanked me back towards the car.

"We need to leave! I'll tell you more once we're anywhere else!" He glanced back at me, and for a moment I thought I saw my panic reflected on his face. "I don't want to go back, and I definitely don't want you to get lost too.." Once more he broke into a run, dragging me with him. This time, I followed, stumbling along as best I could.

We made it back to the car and Jim immediately slammed and locked the doors before finally breathing a sigh of relief. He glanced at me and said one word: "Drive."

I let out a shaky breath and obeyed.

It wasn't until we were in the next town that Jim finally spoke again. I booked a hotel, and we finally settled in. The front desk staff looked at Jim's patchwork clothing in disgust, but after making up some bullshit story about how it was a costume, they finally agreed.

We walked up to the hotel room, opened the door, and locked it. Finally, I turned around and truly saw my "son" for the first time since I'd taken my eyes off him earlier that night.

He was almost 15 years old now, or so I estimated. Through all the grime, sewn together plant fibers and the remains of his old jacket, it was hard to make it out. Underneath that, I could see his lean physique covered the gangliness of adolescence. He sat on the bed, hands folded, and stared at me. I met his eyes, sunken into his face, and was shocked by the scars horror and suffering had left behind. There wasn't even a hint of the 7 year old kid I had lost. But even despite the ever-present despair that had sunken into his gaunt face, I could still recognize my beloved son..

"Jesus Christ Jim, what happened to you?" It was all I could think to say.

"I was lost." He continued to stare at me warily. There was a madness that lurked in his face like a frightened animal, ready to run at any second.

"Is that all?" I couldn't believe it. After all of that night, my son(?) was sitting in front of me, refusing to talk.

"Yeah."

"What were those things? What did you do to them? Why are you so much older?" Tears began to run down my face again, and I leaned back against the door for support. "Jesus Christ Jim... what was tonight? Some sort of nightmare?" I began to sob, and I slid down the door as my hands covered my face, seeking to block out this black dream.

He pushed off from the bed and wrapped his long arms around me again. The smell of sweat, earth and crushed pine enveloped me. This time I didn't hug him back. It felt good to cry. It brought a little bit of relief to this crazy night.

"It was a nightmare, but now it's over. I get to see my mom again." He helped me to my feet and over to a bed.

"Try to get some sleep. Don´t worry about whatever you might dream tonight. I... have met most of my nightmares in person now. And I can assure you, here in this bed, you will be safe."

Jim never did tell me much more about what happened to him. After that night, I made several attempts to get through to him. I even tried to set up a therapist for him, but he always found a way to hide when we went. She ended up being more for me than him.

We tried to get back to normal life. Or at least, as normal as we could get when your son is missing 8 years of his life. It wasn't easy to explain what happened. Where my son had gone. Where this new kid had come from. I was always just barely able to convince people, but it eroded my trust. I wasn't ever going to let anyone take Jim from me again. I began to mistrust anyone who asked questions about him.

As for Jim... he coped as best as he could. I managed to get him back into school, and it became obvious that the 8 years he'd "lost" hadn't done him any good. He had a private tutor, who came to our house. Jim had inexplicable knowledge of mythology - stories I hadn't told him, that I had never even heard of before. He wouldn't ever explain why.

He couldn't interact with people very well anymore. The haunted look never truly left his eyes, and he was always skittish after that night. Even in our own home, I had to be careful not to startle him. But he wasn't mad, just disturbed. I began to hope he could recover.

Unfortunately, word has a tendency to spread whether you want it to or not. It wasn't long before someone came around to investigate. Someone official. It began with a knock on the door.

I opened it up after looking around to make sure Jim had disappeared. He knew the drill by this point. Outside of our house, Jim didn't exist anymore. Peaking through the peephole, I saw three jacketed shapes, shivering in the winter cold. The front one was a sandy-haired man with round glasses staring directly at me, through the door. Beside him was a woman with her hair in a ponytail. Finally, there was an old man with wispy hair.

I cracked open the door and glanced out. "Yes?"

Glasses spoke. "We think we can help your son."

I immediately closed the door. 

Seconds later, I heard the knocking again. "Marion? We know what happened to him. I'm also willing to bet my hat that I can help him open up about it. We just need a bit of both of your time."

They knew what happened to him? I didn't even know what had happened to him. That wasn't possible. But... I was getting curious, and every time I tried to talk to him, it pushed him further away. There were simply too many questions that I wanted answered, and Jim wasn't going to be the one to answer them.

I opened the door again. "First you tell me. Then you might see him."

"I think that's understandable. Do you think you can come out and talk?" A sheepish smile crawled across Glasses’ face. "We've had problems with 'looking suspicious' in the past. I'd prefer we avoided that."

I nodded and unchained the door. Stepping out, I quietly closed it behind me. "What is this about? Who are you people?"

"We are Ordo Ignis Salamandra. And we're here because we're reasonably sure your son, and very possibly you as well, had an encounter with an environment we call 'The Dark Forest'."

I crossed my arms. "I'm listening."