William Royden

The energy had been drained from him, and his headache was worse.

He flinched at the slightest noise.

I told him if he wanted to look at something different, we should go across Rosanda to Marquette Street.

From where we were, all we had to do was cut through a thin strand of trees to get there.

We started to go through them, and I expected we would be on the other side of them in less than a minute.

Instinctively, I started videotaping again.

Something happened.

The trees kept going and going, and for a second I thought I had made a mistake, but I couldn't have.

I had taken this shortcut dozens and dozens of times as a kid.

I didn't remember a path leading into the woods, but there was one, and we just naturally found ourselves on it.

Since I hadn't been in that spot in many years, I assumed the path had been somehow formed in the interim.

But finally I called out for Cording to stop walking.

He turned around and asked me what was wrong.

I wasn't sure.

The woods went in all directions, seeming thicker than I ever remembered.

The path split them perfectly.

Somehow we had gotten lost, or construction over the years had moved things, but construction only took forest away, never...

Added it.

Cording asked, are the woods bigger than you thought?

I said yes, and that we should turn around.