Aster furrowed her brows, leaning the map closer to her. The edges of the parchment crinkled beneath her tense grip. After scanning through each landmark, she looked up at the entranceway ahead, then back at the map.

“This doesn’t seem to be on the map at all,” she muttered, frustration beginning to gnaw at her, “I could have sworn that we were following the map correctly.”

“Perhaps we are,” Cerise called out, her lively voice piercing the quiet atmosphere as she stepped closer to the entrance, to which Aster jerked her head up. “And we might just have to walk through to follow what’s on the map again.”

_Just walk through… _Aster’s gaze fell and loose strands of her hair slipped from behind her ear as she frowned. But it still didn’t make any sense — the entrance would be written as a landmark on the map. She narrowed her eyes at the spot on the map where she and Cerise were, and there, she spotted a blot of ink, covering part of the name where they were meant to be. Aster blinked and looked at it again. _How could I have missed this? Was I reading too quickly that I overlooked something so obvious? _Just then, her spiralling thoughts were stopped by a bloodcurdling scream that echoed from the entrance. Aster’s eyes shot up to the void of the entrance. Her long pointed ears shifted as she realised that the singing birds she heard before could not be heard anymore, and the swaying trees suddenly became motionless, as if nature itself held its breath. The only thing Aster could hear was the start of her heart hammering against her ribcage as she could feel the tension beginning to thicken the air.

“I think we should go back…” Aster’s voice trailed off into the silence as she began searching for Cerise, only to find her missing. Panic began to flood through her.