hi hello this is like the first fanfiction i've published on here.

Mae considered herself good at two things and two things only, softball and singing. Both of those things started with the letter S which she considered very nice and aesthetically pleasing. Between the two Mae liked singing more out of the two but it was still pretty close.

Her father made her play t ball when she was 5 because he wanted to coach the team, it had been a dream of his ever since he became a father. Mae had hated it. She constantly got in fights with the other kids then cried when they hit back. She thought it was stupid how they had to hit the ball of the t stand and would constantly grab the ball off the stand throw it in the other direction and make a break for first base swinging the bat around her while screeching at the top of her lungs.

She told her dad after he scolded her the first time it happened that "It was to keep the other kids away so she could score the points because 'that's what dad wanted, right?' all while snot and tears dripped down her face. The other parents withdrew most of their kids and the team was down to 5 kids including Mae, not really a team anymore.

However, Mae's dad kept her practicing and made sure she knew the rules. The next thing her parents knew Mae was a high school freshmen and on the varsity softball team. Her dad was the proudest he'd been since he signed her adoption papers.

Although she was great at softball and had gone far in the sport, there was a part of her that wanted to do what she wanted. It was the same part of her that, as a child, would madly swing the bat every which way while doing her best dinosaur impression. Mae believed she was better at holding down that impulse now. Although she hadn't completely grown out of her habit of crying at almost everything.

That being said, Mae believed she had discovered her talent at singing all by herself, (which was not true her 5th grade music teacher had discovered it and made Mae her number one pick for solos for the elementary school choir) and she loved it. She loved to randomly burst out in song to remind people that she was better them in at least one way and had developed the habit of narrating what she was doing by song.

So, for a recap Mae was good at two things, everything else was mediocre at best and downright disgraceful at least. She had believed these were the only talents she had really needed as a 15 year old girl who's only worries were finishing her math homework and practicing either for games or concerts.

But at the moment she wished had been good at something else. Figuring out where you were by the stars or knowing which plants were poisonous because that seemed awfully useful in this situation. Mae was lost. She had absolutely no idea where she was and how she got there. In one moment it was Saturday and she was walking down the sidewalk on her way to softball practice and now she was in the middle of some forest which didn't look familiar whatsoever. After all, Nevada didn't have any coniferous forests as far as Mae knew.

Mae spun in a slow circle gripping the straps of her baby blue backpack that had her baseball bat handle sticking out from the top, and tried her hardest not to let the tears pricking her eyes fall.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

A raven cawing in the distance was the only response to her rhetorically screamed question.

After about a minor ten to fifteen minute meltdown, consisting of incoherent ramblings and furiously walking in the same circle that started to make a groove in the grass, Mae's face was undoubtedly puffy and swollen from her tears. She sat on the ground unceremoniously, snot dripping down her face. Grimacing she wiped her nose with the back of hand and then quickly wiped that on the grass beneath her knees, looking around in case anyone had seen her. Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, she was undeniably alone and terribly, terribly lost.

She thought back to the few times she had gone camping with her father and brother, "If you're ever lost" they had told her, "stay in one place until someone finds you."

Mae brought her knees to her chest and hugged them uncertainly, did it really count if you were somewhere very very far from your home and with absolutely no way for the people looking for you to know? She fought off another wave of tears, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating again.

She pulled off her backpack to dig through to find her phone she had haphazardly thrown in it when she was leaving her house. She hoped that maybe-

Wait a minute.

Her phone?

Her phone!

Oh, thank the gods of technological devices, (Mae wasn't 100% sure if there was such a god but if there really wasn't there definitely should be.) she was saved! Digging through her bag with much more vigour than before with an ecstatic grin on her face she couldn't stop her happy thoughts when she finally found that little blue piece of plastic. She rubbed the screen lovingly against her cheek and gave it a quick kiss before unlocking it and tapping on the call app on the bottom left of the screen.

It was only after she started scrolling through her contacts when she realized that she had no service.

None.

Zero.

Zilch.

Any other synonym for zero.

The little green bars were nowhere to be seen in the top right of her phone.

This was it, she was going to die here in this stupid forest, because the universe decided to pull some stupid trick on her. Goodbye cruel world, it was nice knowing you!

The tears were back in full force now as she knelt forward her hands ripping at the grass beneath her, imagining all of the situations in which she would die horribly, terribly, and painfully.

She wasn't sure how long she laid there crying and wallowing in her own depressingly hopeless thoughts but by the time she tired herself out and rolled over onto her back the sun was considerably higher than it was when she first arrived in this stupid forest.

She didn't want this to be the end, she hadn't got her softball scholarship or- or started her singing career. She hadn't finally kicked her brothers butt at mario party 8. She hadn't got to hug her mom one last time or see her dad smile at her with pride when her team won a game.

There was so much she hadn't done yet.

Tears started to well up in her eyes once again and Mae tried to scrub them away. She was still such a crybaby even after all this time. She was 15, almost an adult! Well, sort of, but she was supposed to be somewhat, what was the word? Adulty? By now? She glared at the sky above her, she hated that all she could do was sit there and cry like some baby, waiting for someone to save her.

She sat up cursing the forest, the situation, and the forest. She half heartedly kicked at the grass.

"I'll show you, you stupid forest." Mae mumbled, "I can save myself just fine."

She stood up fully, hands clenched at her sides.

"DID YOU HEAR THAT?" She screamed at the nonresponsive trees, "I'M GONNA BE AN ADULT AND RESPONSIBLE AND SAVE MYSELF AN-AND THERE'S NOTHIN' YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!"

The forest didn't seem too concerned with her declaration, only a passing wind brushed the tops of the trees.

Mae looked pretty bad, swollen eyes, dirty pants, and there were definitely some leaves stuck in hair but her gross face was set in grim determination as she threw her now useless phone into her backpack before slinging it onto her shoulders and headed off in a completely random direction.

But not before she hit her head on a tree branch.

mae's and idiot and i love her