He’s always late and I knew 8 meant 8:15, it always had but for some reason I knew this time was different. 8:20 had already come and gone with not even a text. I had to move and it had to be now.

‘Where the *fuck* did he always tell me to go?’

Go bag. Feed the cat. Get the hell out.

My chest tightened and my arm twitched. I downed the front steps of our apartment, my hands so deep in my jacket pockets they nearly tore holes.

‘A backpacks all I need right, it’s all i can carry and keep my hands free, RIGHT?’

I bulled my beanie down close to my eyes. Questions spun and echoed.

‘Is he there? What happened? What if he’s not there? What do I do then? I can’t go back, right?’

Stay low. Stay quiet. Move faster.

‘I won’t go back.’

I moved along the backroads logging ever car that passed in my head. I won’t be followed. He taught me to always be vigilant. The headphones didn’t play any noise, I wasn’t stupid. I had to be sure I wasn’t followed.

You see the castle was on the outskirts of town, where the trees took over and the beast played at night.

When it was all clear you were to enter the forest and find the pillars they marked the start. He told me to walk the fifty paces and stop at the center of the clearing.

‘What the *fuck* kinda games was he playing?’

So I did.

And the castle isn’t what it seems and I know this now. It’s nothing at all actually.

So I stopped and I waited and he never showed. *HE* never showed but someone did. My heart skipped beats and froze in fear. Best not to turn around I swear I heard the wind warn. My hands raised above my head.

‘Is he nearby? Is he still alive?’

I could hear more than one of them, taunting me. Their silence begging me to respond. My hands twitched ever so slightly. A sudden pop and the sunlight steamed through a new hole in the tree.

Slow breaths. Stay alert. Stay focused.

‘You can’t find him can you? That’s why you’re here, cause you need me? What’s he done this time?’

I was running out of options. A second hole in the tree. Lower, closer to my head.

‘Will you speak or at least just kill me already? Why the charade?’

I spoke and spun about to face them. All I could make out were their eyes a glint of light caught them swaying.

‘He said you’d come. Are you off the grid, a spook?’

They watched. I waited. Silence.

‘Will I die tonight?’

The others swiftly moved. The castle was compromised, seized by the opposition.

They led me further in, deeper than the light would willingly travel. My eyes darted but i don’t dare move my head. Surprise was the only thing I may have left. But in a thicket so unfamiliar it wouldn’t serve me well.

A small encampment emerged in the distance, a half dozen others milling about. They converged to watch our arrival.

This was it. I was made. I had failed.

But to my surprise I was met with warm regards and applause. At the center of the camp a fire crackled. Just beyond the fire he stood, tall and smug.

‘You are *fucked* in the head! What the hell did you just do to me?’

“You had to prove yourself before I could tell you,” he said, “this is what i’ve been preparing you for.”

‘Preparing me for? What are you talking about? I fully thought you were dead!’

“Well I’m not, sis. Welcome to the resistance.”