But when I try to retrace my steps down the mountain, my feet falter. I don’t remember the paths branching out on the climb up. There aren’t any signs to help me determine where I should go, which path will take me back and which one will only take me farther away from the group.

Suddenly, the forest feels too vast, too deep. All the bamboos look identical, and there are thousands and thousands of them, towering over my head and expanding endlessly in every direction.

The beginnings of panic buzz along my scalp with the high frequency of a fire alarm.

It’s like taking a multiple-choice test, and I’ve never been good at those. I would always choose one of the answers at random, then doubt myself and change it, then wait ten minutes and come back to it, and change it to my original answer again. Make an educated guess if you’re stuck, the teachers would say, but that was on the bold assumption I was educated enough to make one. Compared to algebra, I’m even less educated on the subject of navigating one’s way around a forest alone.

After hesitating for a solid minute, I choose the path farthest on the left, a vaguely remembered poem about roads in a yellow wood playing over and over in my head. It’s the sort of thing I’m sure Cyrus has memorized.

And at first, I’m hopeful that I’ve made the right choice—the path winds slowly down, and the bamboos appear to thin, offering glimpses of blue that could be the sky or the lake. But the path makes a sharp twist up again, then disappears entirely, and my stomach plummets as I find myself trapped in a labyrinth of trees. Shadows stretch out from all around me, darkening and sharpening their claws as the sun sinks behind the mountain.

I swivel my head to the left and right in desperation, but I can’t even see where the steps are anymore. This part of the forest has been left to sprawl into complete wilderness.

Panic scrabbles deeper in my gut until it unearths raw, teeth-chattering fear.

Don’t panic, think, I advise myself. You still have your phone on you, right? If I can’t reach the group, then maybe they can reach me. Yes, it would mean confessing that I made the incredibly stupid mistake of wandering off by myself without telling anyone, and that I made the even more stupid mistake of walking in the wrong direction. Yes, I might disintegrate from embarrassment and never show my face to anyone in the group again. But I suppose it’s better than dying by starving or freezing in a forest. The air is already noticeably colder, the day’s warmth leaking out through the leaves.