"The Red String"

The crisp air filling that January night was no different from any other. The gushes of wind interloping through the cracks of my window, the cicadas chirping, and the lonesome night was all but the same. These nights were the most tranquil ones, the nights which comforted me in its embracing darkness, its lingering sounds. 

My name is Hikari, Kiku. I am a Junior in high school (16 years old). I currently reside in America. Living here since I was 3 years old.  I’ve been told that I am a dull person due to my enjoyment of the simpler things in life, so friends are not something I am acquainted with. I hardly speak to my parents, let alone strangers. Majority of my days are spent in my room being unproductive, at which I do best. 

But that night…something was different. 

Enveloping me was a feeling which I had never known. An unfamiliar yearning for something greater than me, and humanity. 

Something was…someone was calling out to me. 

At that moment I placed my hand on the chilled window and gazed towards the darkened forest parallel to my window, as this is what felt like my soul was being pulled towards. The strongest point of connection. I saw nothing but felt something. What is this, and why was it happening to me? I didn’t know and wished I did. But this feeling had begun to make me nauseous. That feeling when knots tie in your stomach, and you break in a cold sweat. Whatever was the cause for making me feel like this, I had to dispose of it somehow or someway. 

At the time, my best thought was to sleep it off and everything would be fine in the morning. How wrong I was. When I woke up that next morning, and got to school it had only gotten worse. Much obliged to my first block teacher, Mr. Peter, for placing me in the back of the classroom. I would have likely got in trouble for not paying attention in class. The feeling was so overwhelming that even focusing on school was hard. I had to leave early right after that class due to the insane amount of nausea which overwhelmed me.

 I walked home from school after the nurse gave me a pass to leave. She almost didn’t let me leave because I didn’t have a fever, don’t you just hate that? What’s up with school nurses about the whole “fever” thing? So, I don’t have a fever, that means I'm not in pain? If I cannot physically focus on school what's the point of even being there? Anyway, that 10-minute walk from school to my house was the worst 10 minutes of my life, even worse than when I broke my arm in second grade from landing on it wrong when I fell out of my treehouse. Ah, my treehouse. We had to leave that behind when we moved again, but if “Kiku's Treehouse” was still here, I’d never leave it. Childish right?... But after that day, I knew I just had to do something about this. I needed to follow where the connection was strongest, the forest. I had never visited the forest, nor heard good things about it. People have gone missing there, and lucky me, I live directly in front of it. 

The forest is uncharted, with no map, and I've even heard people believe the forest changes... like a maze. 

Every time you enter the forest it’s “different”. Of course, I don’t believe the whole “maze” thing, but the missing people? That’s a bit more believable… am I actually going to enter the forest? I had to. After today, I had this new feeling that this “red string” would not go away unless I did go. “Red string”? Yeah. That’s what I’m calling from now on. 

It’s a theory that everyone has a crimson red string attached to them, once their soulmate has been linked. 

My introverted self-will at least get a laugh outta calling it this. I started planning, researching whatever I could find about this inexplicit forest, gathering supplies I needed to be gone for about a week or so, and my star locket which I’d never left anywhere without. Before I knew it, it was time to depart. 

And with the night approaching, my adventure to determine what was tugging at this red string began.