She was suddenly jarred awake by a pair of hands gripping desperately onto her shoulders, thrusting her body around frantically. The girl gasped while her back remained plastered to the ground, startled by whoever was violently rattling her. Her eyes were met with another pair, which were mere inches from hers, and were wide and frightened while they searched her face.

It was a young man who was drenched in concern, his anxious, brown eyes being slightly obscured by his rectangular, black glasses. His clothes were muddled with dirt stains and sweat dripped down his face. A single, salty droplet fell off the tip of his nose due to his shuddered breath. The tiny bead splashed on the smooth plane of her forehead, somewhat snapping her into awareness.

"Hey," he said to her, his voice pitched with anxiety. "You're awake-"

"Who the fuck are you?" The girl yelped and scrambled to her feet, slapping off his dirty hands before standing a little ways back. He put his arms in the air as if surrendering while retreating a couple of steps.

"I- I'm Dwight. I don't know what is going on-" His voice cracked and tears began pricking his eyes as his arms swung down defeatedly. He took his glasses off, rubbing at the wetness leaking down his face. "I don't know where we are…"

Before she could really process what he was saying, the girl naturally looked around in confusion at her surroundings. It was dark out. A bright and foreboding full moon was settled in the sky, yet she could barely make out the wilderness that engulfed them. The shadows crept up so close that it was hard to see much beyond the first layer of trees- at which time the girl noticed the campfire beside herself and Dwight. It crackled and danced, helping to give somewhat of a comforting glow against the pitch black of the night. There was a bizarre energy emanating from the forest- something that she couldn't quite explain in those few seconds of trying to assess what her current situation was.

A slight breeze passed and whisked through her hair, serving as a shot of deja vu as she suddenly recalled the last thing she'd been doing, which was taking her usual jog through the woodland trail outside of town. It'd been a windy morning… Morning? Her eyes grew narrow as she wracked her brain, desperately trying to find any shred of memory that could bridge the gap between that typical run and where she found herself then. She tried until it hurt to think, but still came up empty. What happened in all those hours before nighttime? Did she pass out? How did she make it to that campsite? And who the fuck was this Dwight guy?

"What's your name?" He asked her. There was a pause as she surveyed the darkness again, taking it all in. Her eyes never left the wall of black as she spoke with him.

"Meg." Is all she supplied before taking a step toward his hunched figure, jabbing her finger in his face as she finally looked toward him. "I don't understand, how did I end up here? Did you bring me to this place?"

Dwight looked at Meg as her accusatory tone pierced through him. Again, he put his hands up, guarding his good will.

"No! I swear, I have no idea- I don't even know how I got here!" He cried back at her.

They were interrupted by a foreign voice, causing the pair to sharply turn their heads across the campfire.

"H- hello?" The unsteady greeting was spoken in a soft and cool tone, belonging to a young woman who seemed to have miraculously appeared out of thin air right beside them. Meg's heart skipped a beat at the sudden sight. The stranger's brows furrowed, then she blinked slowly, looking between Meg and Dwight in a hazy way. Apparently it was the straw that broke the camel's back, as Dwight began to feverishly shake his head.

His hands ran through his ebony hair nervously. "What the fuck is going on?!"

Meg put her hands out. "Just calm down for a moment-"

"Who are you?" Asked the new girl. Meg noticed that she had a slight accent but couldn't quite pin what region it belonged to. "Where am I?"

"We are all trying to figure that out." Muttered Dwight, who was bent over near the edge of the darkness, bracing his hands on his kneecaps.

Taking a deep breath, Meg struggled to maintain her composure herself given that their situation up until that point felt like a fever dream. But it was starting to become real, really fast. She clutched her hands tightly by her chest, feeling the tips of her fingers quiver.

"What's your name?" She asked the stranger through a shaky breath. It was getting harder to keep her unsettled nerves at bay.

"Claudette- I- Who are you both?"

"I'm Meg and this is Dwight…" Another deep inhale. It only served to make her feel worse as she sucked in a bunch of smoke from the fire. She coughed and crouched down to evade the blackened air, staring into the dirt like a zombie. Her mind was moving so slow yet so fast it felt like she was having an internal malfunction from all the stress.

Claudette seemed to also be so shocked that she couldn't make up any words, choosing to just stand by while awkwardly staring between them, probably trying to put puzzle pieces where they didn't fit within her mind. Meg was on the same step. There seemed to be no resolution no matter how hard she dug through the recesses of her memory. She couldn't remember how or why she was there. Everything was normal and then bam- She was being awoken by Dwight in a place that was unrecognizable to her.

It felt as though hours passed before someone got the courage to try and get to the bottom of their debacle. It was actually Claudette who cleared her throat and peered up at them, flames reflecting off of her glasses.

"We should go find help. We can't be far from-"

"-No!" Dwight stopped her. "This is not… normal."

Both the girls looked at him. It felt strange to agree with him, because realistically nothing seemed to be too disturbingly wrong at that moment, yet he did have a point. None of them knew how they got there and that was enough to spell out the fact that something was amiss. Meg was okay with staying by the fire until morning. She knew well enough that walking aimlessly in the woods at night was not a great idea.

They fell in a strained silence. Eventually Dwight started muttering again.

"We don't know anything. We don't know what's out there- If there's people…"

Meg's heart sank when she heard him say that. There had been a feeling, an awful feeling slowly growing within the pit of her stomach the more time they spent by the fire trying to figure everything out. She really didn't know why. There was just something malicious about the shadows that surrounded them.

"Do you hear that?" Claudette asked before swiftly putting her finger up, gesturing for them to be quiet and listen. Meg honed in on whatever it was that she heard, identifying some rustling leaves in the distance. It started off soft then increasingly became louder and louder until it turned into the thunderous sound of footsteps charging right at their campfire.

Dwight's breath hitched and he ran to Meg's side, putting his arm out in front of her. Claudette froze and could only stare into the darkness as the footfalls came nearer and nearer until…!

BOOM!

A slim and nimble figure pounced out from the shadows, landing with a hard thud on the forest floor. All of the strangers around the campfire cried out until they collectively noticed it was no monster, just another random stranger like them.

He stood immediately, panting and looking seriously at all of them with shrewd eyes. "Do not… go out there."

"Why? What's out there?" Dwight asked him, never minding that they had no clue who the person was. The newcomer shook his head.

"I don't know. And I don't want to find out…" He paused, a look of realization coming across his face. "Who are all of you?"

Dwight sighed, gesturing around at the trio. "Dwight, Meg and Claudette. You?"

"I'm Jake."

For the first time, Meg felt relief that she was not in this alone.