Suddenly, he was gone.
So was the house.
I propped myself up on one arm and pushed myself to my feet. Brushing dirt off my jeans, I took a glance around. I was still in a forest, but these were definitely not the same woods I had been in. Spongy green ferns lined the forest floor, and the trees were much taller than the ones I was used to; a few feet to my right, huge slabs of rock jutted out of the ground.
The sound of movement a few yards away startled me, and I spun around, squinting to find its source. As you can imagine, when my eyes settled on two hikers making their way uphill about thirty yards to my left, I felt absolutely euphoric.
I frantically ran toward them, tripping over my own feet more than once. God, I must look like a sight, I remember thinking. I was worried they'd think me a lunatic, flailing toward them, covered in every soil and stain imaginable. As I got closer, I could see one of them was a tall man clad in a tan jacket and faded blue jeans. His dark, short, curly hair barely stuck out from beneath his worn red ball cap, and his the mahogany skin of his neck took on an amber glow in the bits of late afternoon sunlight breaking through the trees. The other hiker was shorter, a pale and athletic woman, her skin flushed with pink. She trudged along in her deep green flannel shirt tucked haphazardly into a pair of khaki shorts.
"Hey!" I called out, waving to them. "Hey, hello!"
The two paused, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then they smiled at each other and talked a bit, the woman sipping from her water bottle while the man pointed into the distance and explained something.
I didn't think much of it, to be honest. In the moment it's easier to be optimistic. So I went right up to them, putting on my best smile in spite of my disheveled appearance. "Hey," I started, "God, it's good to see someone out here…"
"—up the trail there, it's easy, really. And the view, it's beautiful…" the man continued. "And you should see it in autumn sometime. Everything reds and golds."
"Wow," the woman nodded. "Sounds great."
My face fell slack. I prodded the man in his chest. "Hello?" I said pathetically. I tried waving several more times, even with my hands right in front of their faces. Neither of the hikers reacted to me. It was as if…
They can't see you.
The static filled my head, and I gritted my teeth. "So I noticed," I mumbled. There was no point in running or fighting.
