This was the day that Jean Kirschtein got lost.

Jean had been worried for several hours.

At first it had been cute, Marco falling asleep. For more than a few miles it had just been him and the sat-nav, him scowling at it while it blandly gave him directions. They stopped half way through as well.

At first, Jean was reluctant to stop because he didn't want to wake Marco. It was obvious that the guy was tired, because it wasn't like Jean's truck was silent. Far from it actually; as soon as he turned the ignition on, the whole street was suddenly alive with noise. The first time Jean had heard it, he could have sworn blind that the guy standing in front of it was going to need ear defenders. Jean had never particularly liked this loudness but for the sake of getting his own car, he had lived with it.

Just fact that Marco had fallen asleep whilst inside, was a small miracle in it 'self. But Jean needed diesel, and fast. The small pointer was on the red and also there was a small icon flashing 'LOW FUEL'. So Jean had pulled over at the next station. He slowed the car down gradually, just one of the things he did to try and not wake Marco. As the car came to a stop by the fuel pump, Jean looked over to Marco.

A mile ago, when he had last shot a glance at Marco, the man was mostly expressionless, but now he looked slightly saddened and distressed. Jean didn't like the thought of Marco having a bad dream, as there was not an ounce of bad blood in him, so he disregarded the thought and reached for the door handle.

The air outside the car was stifling and suffocating, compared to the nicely air-conditioned car. It took Jean a few minutes to get used to this new humidity in the air as he filled the car up with fuel. A short click from the pump notified him that the tank was full and he proceeded to screw the fuel cap back on and stride over to the small shop to pay. A wave of cool air hit him like a speeding train; he could feel the sweat that had formed on his back from standing outside for just a few minutes. The lady at the counter was being hit with a constant wave of cool air from the air con but even so she looked hot, bothered and very tired.

'$54 please,' she held out her hand expectantly, pointing to the sign that said in caps; CASH ONLY. Jean, who was fed up with this ignorant woman already, fumbled into his back pocket. He drew out the cash and handed it to her. The till sprung outwards to reveal hardly anything. Jean suddenly realised that he hadn't needed change and praised himself for filling up so accurately although he was suspicious that the lady had charged him a couple of cent extra because she had no change.

'Are you okay?' The lady was staring at him as he stared blankly at her, hand suspended in the air, the receipt she had given him fluttering in the breeze of the air-con.

Jean walked out hastily, swinging the door wide open as he stormed out of the shop and into the car, forgetting about Marco entirely and slamming the door in his sudden, irrational anger. Remembering about his sleeping buddy, Jean turned and even after everything, he was still sound asleep. The car roared to life at the turn of the key and Jean raced off again onto the open road.

Marco was asleep the whole of the rest of the journey, quietly muttering to himself occasionally. Jean was doing his fair share of muttering cursed words at the sat-nav, who constantly reminded him to; 'turn around as soon as possible' because of a road works diversion which had taken them almost back on themselves. The detour was long winded and on a lot of dirt roads but finally the car came up to what looked a bit like civilisation. A sign on the side of the road informed Jean that this was the country park of some obscure place he had never heard of, he kept driving anyway.

The park was not really a park but more of a very out of place forest. It was extremely overgrown and it just stopped very abruptly at the edges to give way to dirt countryside. There was a ranger shelter but the windows were smashed and the whole building seemed to need a lot of maintenance work, especially the roof which sagged in the middle, threatening to collapse at any second. The door was dangling precariously off of its' hinges and there were huge scratch marks down the door. Jean thought it best not to stop and see if anyone was unfortunate enough to still be in there, so he kept on driving.

There was a very rough track ahead which was also overgrown. The track was hard to see but Jean tried to follow it as best as he could which wasn't too difficult because there was trees lining the sides of the road, one false move and the truck would have been out of action for good. Jean didn't think this would be too good seeing as Marco didn't bring a phone and Jean wasn't really on speaking terms with his parents.

At the end of the track there was a clearing, which Jean assumed must be the dead centre of the forest. He checked the clock; 19:23. 'It's going to get dark soon,' Jean thought to himself. He parked the truck at the edge of the clearing and jumped out. Looking into the window, over to the passenger side, reassured him, Marco was still asleep, and still very troubled looking.

First thing that Jean wanted to do was find the map, the better he could recognise and learn his surroundings, the more safe and secure he would feel. Over the other side of the clearing, was a board, Jean was sure that this was the map, it had to be. So he walked over to it.

The walk was further than he expected and it had already stared to get dark and the shadows drew in towards him. The board was in a total mess, it was covered in green moss and vines, which had wrapped themselves up the legs and around the board. Jean drew out his pocket knife and started to hack away at the thick vines, who were reluctant to release the tight grip they had on the legs of the board.

Finally, after the vines were more-a-less freed from the front of the board, Jean looked up to find a very distressing message.

'BEARS. CAYOTES. BEWARE.'

The message was in a brownish pen across the board which made it difficult to see anything behind it. Jean cursed. He moved closer to the board and recoiled almost immediately because of the horrible stench emitting from the board. Jean drew in a huge breath and clenched nose. The picture behind was hard to make out, faded and covered in scrawled letters. It was also incomplete, with huge rip marks and water spots on it. Jean guessed it had seen better days; it didn't look like there had been anyone there for months. Unsuccessful on his trip across the clearing, he headed back to the truck to break the bad news to Marco.

He was totally and unbelievably lost.