I met her only about a week ago. I was sitting on the edge of George Emmanuel River with my bare feet lightly breaking the surface tension of the water. Dozing off, my mind filled with a dull fuzziness. The setting sun made the vision of my closed eyelids glow a slight pink. Shkk! Thump! The sound of a pair of high top sneakers stepping on my rock and a butt landing surprisingly hard directly to my left shocked me out of my stupor. “Hi,” she said as if I weren’t just slumped and drooling. “Um... Hi.” She cocked her head, reminding me of some sort of flightless bird, like an ostrich or Emu. She was rather pretty, but it would be a misstep to say she looked normal. Her neck was about one and a half of a normal person’s neck. Her lips were thick but her mouth was narrow. Her ears protruded out from head, giving the impression that she was really interested in what I was saying. But her eyes were the most intriguing part of her. Deeply set, wide and blue, nearly bulging out, she stared through me. “What were you dreaming about?” “I-I don’t think I got that far.” “Oh? Sorry about that.” “It’s fine.” My face tensed into an unnatural no tooth smile. She didn’t seem to notice. “Ok!” Every time she finished speaking, it sounded like she had more to say. Without knowing what else to do, I stood up from the rock and said as I wobbled on one foot, trying to put my socks back on, “You look familiar.” She didn’t. “Do we have any classes together?” “Do you go to McCarthey High?” She asked. “Yeah! I’m a junior. Sorry if I forgot your name. What year are you?” “I don’t go to school.” I tried not to show on my face the annoyance at her asking what school I went to just to say she doesn’t go to school with me no matter my answer. I finished tying my shoelaces. “Well, I actually gotta get going. Catch you later.” She didn’t respond. Admittedly, I was being weird, but I really did have somewhere to be. Walking away, I peaked back over my shoulder. She was still sitting there, looking across to the other side of the river. She splashed her shoes in water. Odd. The next day I saw her from my second stories bedroom window. She was picking mushrooms. I called down to her. I still didn’t know her name, so all I could yell was, “Hey! Hey, you!” She either didn’t hear me or just didn’t respond. I didn’t feel like looking like a crazy person yelling at a nice girl, so I stopped and closed my shades. I spent the next four days on edge, expecting her to pop out from around every corner. But she never did. I didn’t know why, but the idea of seeing her again made me very nervous. It was the following Saturday next time we met. Halloween was the previous week and I was wondering around the empty hedge maze. We moved to Willowin when I was six. It was early November, so the maze was empty and funny enough, the fence they usually put around so people couldn’t sneak in through the side was taken down by this time. After that, it became a kind of traditional. So, on Saturday, I meandered through the familiar maze, whistling the tune to a song I couldn’t remember the name of. Then I was blind! All I could see was black. But... no, I wasn’t blind. I looked up. The sun was gone. I peered around for any source of light, the moon, stars, street lamps. There was nothing. Attempting to not freak out, I thought everything’s fine; I’ll just go home and ask my mom how long I’ve been gone. It’s probably just cloudy and there’s a power outage. I began my journey back home. 20 paces north, take a left, 15 paces west, break through two hedge walls, and you’re out. Easy. But after my 20 paces, there was no left turn. I knew I was on the far west side, so I attempted to just break through the hedge walls, but when I tried, thicket of bushes and bramble was too dense and thorns tore open my skin. Upon further inspection, It appeared that I could no longer see over the hedge, even with a leap. I was stuck.