The wind was blowing. Trees were rustling. Leaves were falling. Temperatures were below 0 degrees celsius. And yet somehow the leader of our group, Finx, was still trekking through the mud in bare feet and minimal clothing. I, on the other hand, was struggling to even move a bit with leather boots and warm clothing. And mostly all of our group was like me, warm clothing but very tired. At this point, the only thing I wanted to do, was to go back to the village and camp next to a warm fire.

Finally. Our group had made it to the cliff. Just one more night and we could leave this torture.

“Who’s ready for some marshmallows?” Finx asked, “After all this walking, I think we all deserve some, eh?”

“I guess this ‘torture’ wasn’t that bad,” I thought, nodding my head to some delicious marshmallows.

“Here’s a toast to walking to this unknown territory!” Rachel, another member of our group, said. We all cheered and ate until Finx brought out the sleeping bags to get some rest. I snuggled in my sleeping bag, gazing at the stars and looked forward to tomorrow.

“RISE AND SHINE!” Finx screamed, “Are you guys all ready to venture back to our village?”

Everyone nodded as they were all still tired. Finx then showed the schedule for today and then did a role check to see if everyone was here.

“Marcus?” Finx called.

“Here,” Marcus called back.

“Linda?” Finx called.

“Here,” Linda called.

“Rachel?” Finx called, “Rachel?”

No one responded.

“RACHEL? Where are you?” Finx screamed, this time he was freaking out as he thought he had lost one member of his group. Everyone suddenly got up and started searching for Rachel, but she was no where to be found. At this point, Finx was really freaking out, but tried to stay calm, but we could all see through it. As Finx finished the role, he noticed that he was missing 2 more group members, Aurora and Jacob. Finx stopped everyone from searching and told everyone to stay together and always link hands so that no one would disappear. He split us into groups, and Finx's group started going back, while our group was ordered to stay back for a few hours, to see if the missing members were going to come back. As we waited, no one appeared so we all decided to go back. Step after step, we used all our perseverance to walk the long way back. While we were walking, a shadow appeared in front of us and stopped us from walking further.

"Hello, I am The Whisp," the shadow said," I have kidnapped 3 of your group members, and you will be next."

"Where am I?" I wondered. I looked up to a roof made of purely bark and leaves. As I looked around I saw some people that were still asleep.

"RACHEL! AURORA! JACOB! SYLVIA!" I shouted, "I'm so happy to see you! We all thought you ran away! But where am I?"

"I see you have woken up," The Whisp called, "Now, to answer your question, you are at my home! Isn't it beautiful?"

"Um, yes," I said, sarcastically, "But why are all my friends and I here?"

"You are the chosen ones," The Whisp answered, "Other than that, my boss told me to bring you here."

As The Whisp disappeared and the rest of our group woke, I explained to them everything that happened and my talk with The Whisp. Finally after a few hours, we were granted some food by The Whisp, but no one was really in the mood to eat. We all sat there and was thinking of how to get out of The Whisp's house. We all nodded and started to get to work. Sylvia, Aurora and I were supposed to make weapons for fighting, while Jacob and Rachel were on lookout. As time passed slowly, we finished making weapons and was ready to escape. We snuck through The Whisp's house until we found the door.

CREAKK! We slowly opened the door and started to run as fast as we all could. Some people were slower than others, but we didn't care, as if we looked back, The Whisp would catch us. As we ran out of energy, we hid in a small hole of a hanging cliff to catch out breath.

"Finx is probably worrying a lot right now," I said, and the others nodded, as they were too out of energy to speak. Since we all thought The Whisp wouldn't catch us anymore, we walked the rest of the way to the village and started searching for Finx and his group.

"BAILEY!" Finx called out to me, "We were all so worried, did the others that were missing appear?"

As I slowly began to tell Finx our story, Jacob began cooking marshmallows, and we all toasted to two days of friendship, adventure, and mystery.

"The next time you guys plan on going forest trekking, I am not coming," I said and laughed, "What about you guys?"

"Neither am I," Sylvia said, "Or at least pick a place that has an actual place to rest, not just on the side of a cliff!"

And we all laughed and feasted on some very tasty marshmallows.