OK, I'm officially lost now, Layne thought to himself as he attempted to make sense of his surroundings again. In this part of the forest, everything looked the same and the trees were so dense, he couldn't see the sky beyond them. There were no paths anywhere. And it was beginning to get dark. That didn't help any.

The game was becoming increasingly stupid by the second. The point was to see how long it took Adze to find you. Staying on the path would have made it too easy. He had picked a tree to focus on and backed away from it. He thought he had stayed within a safe distance but one glance away and he couldn't find the tree with the huge knot anymore. He had been wandering for hours and had yet to come close to escaping the woods.

With one glance around, he decided to light a fire. That would at least make him feel more comfortable. His Magyck always did.

Layne held his hand flat out in front of him and stared at it. A little spark over his palm told him it was working. His other hand guarded the growing flame from the slight breeze that had managed to drift through the trees. The flame grew to fit comfortably in his palm and he began to calm down…until something whizzed past his head.

A small thump signaled that it had hit something behind him. Slowly, he turned and saw a creature lying at the base of a tree. An arrow was set squarely in between its eyes. Layne dared a step closer to see what it was. The beast had the head of a frog and a limber body made up of a lizard and an imp. Its eyes were coal black with translucent eyelids half-closed over them. A fat, black tongue hung out of its drooling mouth between two rows of razor sharp teeth. Dark blood began to ooze out around the arrow. Layne backed away out of disgust.

Suddenly, a twig snapped behind him. Startled, he dropped his fire and spun around. As soon as the flame left his hand, it died. Without his light, it was very difficult for him to see. All he could make out was the silhouette of a girl about his age. Layne had forgotten about who had sent the arrow, staring at that thing. The girl was very thin, not too tall, and held a bow. Her long hair was pulled back into a high ponytail.

"Thank you," he whispered.

She didn't seem to notice. She stepped out of the underbrush and walked straight up to the creature, completely ignoring him. He wasn't used to that.

"Thank you," he offered again, a little louder. Again, nothing. She knelt down and grabbed the shaft of the arrow. Layne could tell she was making a point of not touching the creature. With one strong pull, she easily wrenched the arrow out of the beast's head. Still not acknowledging him, the girl walked over to a low bush with wide leaves. She kept her back to him as she carefully wiped off the arrow.

"It was you who shot the arrow, right?"

The girl straightened and slid the arrow into the quiver over shoulder. He took that as an answer.

"Are you going to say anything?" he asked, trying to make the annoyance obvious in his voice. The silence drew out between them. It was finally interrupted by a groan from the creature on the ground. Layne took a few steps back. "It's not dead!"

"No," she said as if it was the most obvious this in the world. She was finally facing him but in the quickly dying light he could read her expression.

"Oh." He could sense that she was rolling her eyes.

"There's a river a few meters that way." She pointed behind him and off to his right. "Follow it upstream. You'll be home before the sun sets. And no more fires."

That didn't boost his trust in this person. He wasn't comfortable with taking her advice already. "Why not?"

"It's not safe for you," she said gesturing to the creature on the ground that had just groaned again.

"And it is for you?"

"I'm not the one who's lost."

She had a point there. Layne glanced over his shoulder, where she had directed. There was nothing discerning about it. How could she be certain that a river was that way? He was about to say as much when he heard leaves rustling. The girl was gone. A few waving branches were the only indications of which direction she was moving.

"Hey!" Layne called after her. Before even thinking about it, he began to follow the girl. At first, he used the moving branches to chase her. It wasn't very exact but eventually he caught up enough to be able to see her maneuver through the trees. She was like a shadow, moving so easily. She never slowed or tripped over the tree roots that Layne had to watch out for. And she knew exactly where she was going. She must be elfin, Layne thought to himself. That would explain how she knew the forest so well.

Rather abruptly, the forest ended as if stopped by an invisible barrier (and it might have been). Layne stopped just behind of the tree line and watched the girl dash into the nearest house. If you would call the buildings houses.

The house the girl ran to appeared to be the only one with a complete roof. The others seemed to be caving in on themselves or had tarps or blankets covering the gaping holes as best they could, but still not doing a very good job. Just about every window was broken or nonexistent and any shutters that remained were barely hanging on to the side of the house. Patches of mismatched wood and siding made up the walls and whatever foundation was left was about to crumble away. The earth around them was a scarred brown. The only green was from the line of trees he was standing in. There were no trees anywhere beyond the forest, but the brown grass came up to his waist. From what he could see of the roads, they were broken and hardly usable. The few (very, very few) people who wandered the roads looked terrified of everything around them. This was not where he thought he'd end up. This was the Unsorted village.

She must not have been elfin.

What she was is Unsorted. And Layne could not believe that he had followed her. Now regretting his decision, Layne turned around to head back the way he had come. But again, he was met with the same problem as before: He had no clue where he was going. To make things worse, the sun had officially set, leaving it pitch black under the trees. With a sigh, he turned back to the Unsorted village, specifically the one house. Like it or not, she was the only way he could get home right now.

Layne carefully traced the girl's path up to the house. He paused at the base of a set of stairs that led to a small, enclosed porch. They didn't look to safe. They leaned to the right and most of the boards were either worn, cracked, or barely there. He couldn't help being surprised that it was still standing. Layne managed to make it to the door without damaging the porch any further. He hesitated again before opening the door and walking into the house.