“Hello? Cyrus?” Cursing, I start to call him again, but the signal’s gone. No matter how I angle my phone, the sign in the corner remains frozen at No Service.

Stay there, Cyrus told me. I couldn’t go anywhere else if I wanted to. Now that the cold really has set in, it has a way of amplifying every ache: the painful blisters splitting open on my heel, the sharp stitch knotting my side, the cramps squeezing my muscles. So I stay standing, too exhausted to do anything productive, too alert to rest. Every hiss of the leaves or tap of the branches makes my heart startle, then sprint faster. And as the last rays of sun wash away, doubt slithers in, twisting into my gut. What if a bear or a snake or a poisonous spider attacks me before anyone comes?

In my head, the news headlines are already writing themselves: Teen girl goes missing on trip in Guilin. Former model disappears in bamboo forest. Three-day search for high school student continues. The local news will interview my parents, my classmates from school. Of course we had no idea something like this would happen—we just thought it would be a fun educational trip to help her improve her Chinese, my mom will whisper, wiping at her eyes. There might be a comment from Cate, a deep, moving tribute to our years of friendship: I guess I liked going shopping with her. They’ll all say that I had a bright future ahead of me, since they don’t know any better. If I end up dying in a horrific enough way, maybe someone will even make a documentary about me. Getting invited to a movie premiere has been on Cate’s very public bucket list for years, right after kissing a royal, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if the movie happened to be about my disappearance.

I squeeze my eyes shut against that particular depressing thought, but when I open them again, it barely makes any difference—it’s as if the sky has closed its eyes too. Darkness falls over everything, sparing no inch of ground. I’ve never been bothered by the dark before, but I’m realizing that’s just because it was never truly dark in the city. There would be the soft blue glow of my alarm clock on my bedside table, or the headlights of a passing car filtering through the curtains, or the blink of the security alarm from the ceiling, or the neighbor’s porch light automatically flickering on when they returned home.

Nothing like this.