“Please, will you climb up a tree this time?” My best friend asks, looking at me with those eager, trusting eyes of hers.

Not a best friend — I correct myself — not anymore. They're all equal to me.

I protect, I lead, and I provide for every single one of those previously stranger people.

Where I go, they follow.

“You have to give it up. We are here to stay,” I say, as the camp members reverently kiss the ashy skin of my left hand – a blessing, a silent prayer for a successful hunt.

“There’s no other people out here. Not a soul. We’re still alive. Isn’t this enough evidence that we’re meant to be here?” I ask the question, not waiting for an answer.

We have found gods in trees and advice in the wind. We believe, all of us learned to believe that there is a reason as to why we got lost, but not her.

I dread having to tell her — again — that we haven’t found anyone.

“ We will check, don’t worry,” Matthew says with a wink.

The walk to the woods is so well known to me, so well traveled, that the grass has trampled right in the middle, forming a path. I note that its color reminds me of pickles. I miss pickles.

Last week I found a deceased deer, and couldn’t carry it to the camp by myself. That’s when I started bringing Matthew with me. I can’t afford to let anyone else go hunting, I can’t allow them to see me as anything less than a god.

“ If anyone was searching for us, they would’ve found us by now,” I break the silence.

“Those assholes don’t care, that’s why they’re not looking,” He scoffs.

“This place is our home. Forever. How can you possibly, after everything we’ve been through,

side with Emily?” I ask in disbelief.

“I’m not siding with her. I’m giving her hope, a reason to go on.

She is not a believer, you know that,” He says.

“She will be,” I mutter back.

As we reach the river, I fill my lungs with the crisp aroma of cold spring water. Water.

We made it through the winter. I hear the frothy clear liquid hit the rocks, and the birds’ enchanting melody is so very loud in my ears.

I feel the warm embrace of hope. Not the hope that we’re going to be found, but the hope that we weren’t abandoned after all. Not by the ones that matter.

I reach down to take off my raggedy, disintegrating sneakers — Matthew has given up on wearing those a long time ago.

We lock hands and put our feet on the slippery rocks, as the cunning stream tries to knock us off our feet.

My heart beats faster as I hear a peculiar sound ahead of me.

When I lift up my head, for a few seconds my heart forgets to beat at all.

I blink, and it’s gone. It’s gone. Did I imagine it?

“I saw that” I hear my partner's quiet voice on my left.

For a moment we stand there, feeling the cool water slide through our toes, trying to remember how to move our own bodies. When our feet finally hit the damp ground, my eyes are desperately searching for that mysterious figure.

For the savior I gave up waiting for 764 days ago. It took me 15 months to lose the hope that we will ever be found.

Then why was I still counting days?

I push this question into a tiny box at the farthest room of my mind, as I realize I’m looking at a pair of little eyes looking up at me from behind a tree.

For a moment I feel as if I’m watching a frightful, hopeless animal behind the glass at a zoo.

Matthew raises his hands to his chest, palms out towards the little mystery, in an attempt to seem as cordial as possible.

A quiet “ Hi there,” from his mouth was enough for the child to turn around on the heels of her tiny feet and start walking in the opposite direction.

Against our best judgement, we follow. I use this time to study the youth.

Her appearance makes me wonder whether that child has ever known love.

The girl seems to be about 5-6 years old. Her tangled, auburn hair is down to her buttocks.

On her body is a piece of brown, torn fabric —I struggle to call it clothing — she doesn't have any shoes on.

I become painfully aware of my cold, sweating palms, of my racing heart.

I would never— I could never— admit it out loud, but I am afraid. Afraid of what we will find, afraid of what we won’t.

“My mom always told me not to follow suspicious looking children into the woods” my partner murmured.

“You’re not funny. She’s probably here on a hiking trip with her parents. ” I snap back.

My tense state must have affected my ability of time perception, but I am quite certain that we’ve walked for a few hours.

Not once did the little enigma turn around, or sat down to rest, or stopped to fulfil primitive human needs.

Matthew takes my hand in his, and I notice that my hands are violently shaking.

I lift up my eyes and the sight of a tall wooden fence enclosing a huge territory makes my mind go in a million different directions.

While imagining what — and who– is behind those gates, what I feel is heartbreak.

My chest aches, as the memories of what I’ve had to sacrifice in order to survive flood in.

“ I can’t talk to you when we’re inside. You need to follow me. I will bring you to Him” says the child.

“Him?” I ask.

But I am met with no answer.

The girl bows her head down resulting in her face being covered with her tangled hair.

In the few seconds it took the little girl to open the huge doors, I managed to grieve every part of me that I’ll never get back. It’s hard to keep my composure when I see what awaits inside.

People, dozens of people. Walking around, as if they have some important business to attend to inside of those walls, as if they weren’t in the middle of nowhere. With miles and miles of wilderness all around them.

None of them knew that my entire world just collapsed, that the life as I knew it for the past 4 years just shattered into a thousand pieces.

Still holding hands, we enter the village at the footsteps of the kid.

I don’t feel real, nothing around me feels real. I haven’t seen a fresh face in many years, and even though I’m surrounded by people, I can’t see a single one.

Their heads are bowed down, their posture indicating that it’s their usual stance.

We’re strangers to those people, yet I don’t feel a single look on me. There’s no curiosity in them- children, adults, women and men alike.

Every person in here, excluding the youngest, is dressed in something that looks like a bunch of different colored fabric pieces sawn together. Those clothing items resemble potato sacks.

The kids are dressed in the same thing I saw on our current guide, a potato sack but of a solid color – brown.

I fear that we have entered some work camp. That the inhabitants here are enslaved. That something bad is going to happen to us.

I thought that meeting that girl was a blessing, that it’s our way to civilization. But this place doesn’t look like a temporary camp.

The ground is foot-worn and there are dozens of single story stone houses with roofs each painted a different color of the rainbow. There is a well, and a chicken pen.

“I think we should go back.” I say, my voice achingly low.

“Don’t you feel excited?” He sounds like he’s smiling.

“Don’t you feel unsafe?” I fire back.

Deep down I know that I wouldn’t turn around even if he’d agreed. My need for answers is too strong. My anger is overpowering everything else - my curiosity, my instincts.

All I am is just angry. At myself for giving up on looking, for not searching hard enough, for encouraging everyone else to stop hoping.

At those people, too. They are throwing their lives away, doing god-knows-what in the middle of god-knows-where.

We reach our destination, it’s too late to leave. This particular house catches one’s eye right away. It’s bigger and taller than the rest, and looks newer.

The girl knocks and walks away. A man in his seventies opens the door, smiling from ear to ear.

Instead of asking the questions I so badly wanted answers to, the first thing I utter is

“ We searched everywhere. For years!!” I gasp. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

“She actually brought someone. Who could’ve thought? Come in, children,” he says.

Matt instinctively reaches for my arm, holding me in place.

“This is what we’re not gonna do,” he barks. “Where are we? How long have you been here?”

My companion does a better job than me at asking questions.

“This is a place of refuge for wounded souls, for the ones in need of guidance. I believe it’s been… 10 years of no contact with the outside world. Although time passes much slower here — it tends to do that when you’re peaceful,”

His hair is charcoal black and doesn’t have a single white hair. His wrinkles are the only thing that gives away his age. The man is wearing new looking clothing. I already caught him on a lie.

“If those people asked to leave, would you let them?” I ask. I’m certain that he wouldn’t.

But I want to check whether he’s going to lie again.

“The gates are open. They’re free to go. Anytime they want. The girl wants to know what is out there. She goes to the woods whenever she pleases.” He replies.

“ Are you mad? There’s predators out there. And she is 6!!” I shriek.

“ Will you provide them a way home if they ask to leave?” Matthew chimes in.

“They don’t want to leave. They needed hope, and I gave them hope. I am not answering any more questions. I understand that you’re lost, I can give you a map. However, if you decide to stay here, the map is going to be out of the question. This place will heal you, my children. You will be reborn,” The old man says.

On the other side of the gates, I stay silent while Matt is studying the map.

How could I judge their way of living when ours is much worse? The fact that unlike us they chose it should’ve made it better, but it didn’t.

I can’t breathe from the shame of what we’ve done, while the map was a mere couple hour walk away. I was only 21 when I signed up for that hiking trip with my friend. I was only 21 and I have never in my life felt understood, seen, appreciated.

Not until that group of strangers saw something special in me. I became irreplaceable, “wise”. They worship me. They expect me to get them through the hardest of times. And I did. I got us through. Again, and again. I tell myself that the way we honored the people we’ve lost was the right way. I’m losing an argument with myself.

Everyone back at the camp is hungry so we stop to catch fish. We start a fire to prepare it.

Emily is practically jumping from excitement when she sees us at the camp. “Did you look out from a tree?”

“The tallest one. I’m sorry, there’s nothing” I say quietly.

“Maybe next time,” my partner adds.