Charlie, who had her eyes shut tight, opened them abruptly. She froze. Why wasn't she in her grandmother room anymore?

"What the...?" she whispered, barely moving her lips.

Still stunned, she tried to get a better look at the unfamiliar environment by only moving her eyes in their socket. Green. It was green as far as her eyes could see. There was no house, no road. Maybe, there was something behind her, but she was still too shocked to be able to do the simple movement of turning her body around so she could get a panoramic view. She concluded, with the few parameters that she had, that she might be in some kind of clearing.

'Have I been drugged?' she thought for a second, panicked. 'Okay-okay, don't panic and be analytic. For a start, you're not in some kind of disused factory -' her eyes looked down. '-you've got all your clothes on and, finally, you don't feel sore anywhere.' she sighed, relieved. 'So, if we forget the fact that you don't know where the hell you dropped off : overall, things are looking pretty good. Thank you very much twisted brain for letting me think of the worst scenario ever.'

She moved her hands cautiously to her backpack, that was still on her knees, as if she was afraid that if she moved too fast, somebody would notice her. 'Very logical Charlie, if you're indeed sitting in the middle of a clearing : good chance you're preeeetty visible.' She fetched for her ipod to look for the time. It was six past five in the afternoon. 'Well that coincides with last time I checked.'

'What could it be then? Oh, got it! This might only be a dream! This have to be dream.' she pinched herself, still making sure to avoid making unnecessary movement . 'Ouch. No. Damn.'

'Ok try to focus. What is the last thing you remember?'

She reenacted the last fifteen minutes in her head.

"Oh my god. The ring!" she said.

'Oh fuck!' she slammed mentally her head for saying that out loud, still afraid that she might not be alone in that clearing.

Really slowly, she turned her upper body, to catch a glimpse of what was actually behind her, and to know, once and for all, is she really needed to be extra cautious. To her relief, there was no one. She sighed. She also discovered that, behind her, there was indeed a road, which led to a small countryside village. It was too far, though, for her to see it well.

"Looks like an hour of walk or so. Better start now... But before, let's try to remove that ring."

She tried turning it around her finger, with no success. Then, she tried pulling it, still nothing. She tried harder : it didn't move an bit.

"Goddamn it, you will let go of my finger you motherfucking ring." she knew that insulting the object wouldn't technically get her any chance to remove the ring : but it made her feel a whole lot better.

Unsuccessful, she looked furiously at the ring, panting.

'What kind of sorcery is this? The ring size was perfect, it shouldn't be that difficult to remove?' She stared at her hand with wide-eyes.

She looked at the faraway village.

"Well, with chance, I'll find someone that could tell me where I am and maybe that same someone could also lend me some soap, or anything to help me remove that stupid ring."

She stood up with shaky legs, picked up her backpack, put some music on and started walking in direction of the village.

Author's note : Well, yeah... That's short. But, eh, it's Christmas and I wanted to upload something! Happy Xmas to y'all! :)