First Chapter of "Artemis"

                I snapped my eyes open. The speed bump now far behind the shock-absorber-faulty car lay innocently waiting for the next unsuspecting vehicle to trundle down the worn black asphalt.
“Uggghhh; slow down before the next speed bump, will you?” I muttered as I rubbed my crusted eyes blearily. Suddenly, it occurred to me that my iPod was still playing, despite the fact that I had dozed off. The audio book I had fallen asleep to was excellent, but a trickle of unfamiliar words told me that I had again forgotten to pause my mp3 before I fell asleep and had likely missed most of the last hour or so. I groaned at the prospect of finding where I had lost track, preparing to rack my still sleep-ridden brain for a dim recollection of where in the plotline I had fallen asleep. My best friend Etheryon asked sarcastically in response to my whining, “Are you okay back there, Kyria? You don’t sound so good, judging from the moan. Got whiplash?”
I groaned again. “Close enough. I lost my place in my audio book. Your lousy driving isn’t helping either.”
“Well, we’ll be at the hotel soon enough anyways. I’ve been driving for days with no help from you lot. It’ll be nice to wake up in the morning to a cup of coffee and without feeling like my neck is broken!”
“Oh, yessss. I can’t believe we’re almost there!” We both lapsed into silence, listening to the snores surrounding us and contemplating. Our journey was pretty conventional. Despite the fact it was in the middle of a secluded, untouched forest, the town we vacationed at every summer was so ordinary it might have been boring. Might. But this area was captivating; every year we came back, it changed a little while remaining seemingly comatose. I turned my head to face the deep, dew-dropped lushness passing beside the car.
I fell in love with this picturesque little mountain forest village years ago on my first field trip to it as a second grader. Klutz that I was, I became separated from the group within fifteen minutes and wandered off to a clearing. I, of course, believed myself hopelessly lost; so I sat down on a patch of grass, bawling and screaming for help. After a while I ran out of energy and flopped on the grass, staring blankly at the lazily swaying leaves above me. The light glowed vibrantly through the leaves as if they were glass, illuminating the dark vines crawling up the trees and throwing shadows everywhere. A single drop of water fell from a dew-soaked leaflet somewhere above, splattering on my hand. I couldn’t imagine being eaten by some imaginary bear-mutant-beast-thingy here, and slowly my choked breathing returned to normal.
Later I found out that this clearing was less than five feet off the trail. My classmates stood on the other side of the trees behind me, stifling sniggers behind their hands as I sobbed quietly. As you can guess, I was not particularly well-liked amongst my classmates.
Not that I wanted it any other way, really.
“Are you asleep already?” Etheryon’s solid voice jerked me out of my forest reverie. I hastily replied, “We’ll have to visit that clearing again this trip, or I think I’ll go insane. Really.” I paused as I muttered from the seat. “That’s all I was thinking about.”
                “Well of course, moron! What did you expect us to do, sit in the hotel all day long?” he retorted. “You think about that place too much for your own sanity as it is, though.” From the tone of his voice, he was only half teasing. And, to tell the truth, I agreed. It was a sanctuary to me, even when it was miles away. If I slept, it was there in my dreams as a refuge from the terrors of the dark; if I fantasized, it was the reliable setting in the background - as faint but true as a shadow.
“Better than you always dreaming about the perfect girl - at least my Achilles’ heel exists!” I chided back as he roared with laughter. A muffled voice cut us short.
“What the bloody hell is going on? Are we at the hotel already?” mumbled another companion from the other side of a pillow. Alyss was a light sleeper, the lightest of the bunch.
“No,” answered Etheryon, “but we’re only about fifteen minutes away. So you might as well stay awake.”
“I couldn’t fall asleep if even I wanted to, what with all of the racket you two manage to make. ‘Sides,” she yawned cheerfully, “I’m not all that exhausted anymore.”
“You? Exhausted? Who’s doing all the driving here? Why don’t you take a turn at the wheel?”
“And risk her terrible driving blowing us all to kingdom come? I think not!” I chuckled. Alyss, despite her declarations of alertness, promptly drifted off to sleep and the last few minutes of the trip passed in silence.
                The tiny, morbidly coffin-like hotel was as cramped as usual. The five of us - me, Etheryon, Alyss, Leinar and Andariel had to cram into two rooms, separated by gender, and sleep two to a bed. I, of course, got the floor in our room.
“Can’t I sleep in the bed just once?” I pleaded. “You two always do this to me!”
“What are we supposed to do, sleep on the floor?” said Alyss incredulously from the mattress. “Excuse me, but my back can’t handle anything stiffer than a couch!”
“After all, you’d just roll off the bed if you came up here. You would be in the same spot before morning.” dryly remarked a large pile of blankets.
“Was that you, Andariel? I thought you were asleep!” I exclaimed as she poked her fiery, fluffy head out and glared blearily at me.
“Of course I was. Not after you two came in from dinner though - too rowdy, as per usual.” She buried her face again, and the lumpy-looking redheaded blankets promptly went back to sleep. Alyss and I restrained our laughter, and joined Andariel in slumber. And yet, the quiet in the room was stifling rather than comforting. I left the room for the parking lot just outside the door after I gave up trying to sleep amidst the softened breath of my roommates.
Something felt different this year, and I couldn’t shake the vague apprehension that clutched so tightly at me. It was almost as if the forest had a more threatening aura, or was alive in a way unfamiliar to me, instead of the comfortable age that once settled upon each tree’s bough; and I felt nervous of going into the evergreen sea for the first time in my life. I just couldn’t imagine that clearing emitting that unusual -and somehow forbidding- feeling.
I crossed the parking lot for a small side path that trailed off to forest’s edge. My thoughts kept whirring distractedly as I plopped down on a log just out of sight of the hotel. I was imagining this, and that was all. No one else had mentioned any thing; in fact they seemed more than comfortable. Besides, it wasn’t as if the trees were different, nor were the townspeople. It was just me. Somehow, that revelation didn’t make me feel any more able to sleep, but I went back on the path meandering to the hotel anyways.
Less than five minutes later as I approached the door, it eased open to reveal Etheryon’s shadowed form hesitantly peeking out of the door. “I saw you through the window on your way back in, so I thought I’d ask you what’s up.”
“You couldn’t sleep either, I take it?”
“Not really. I feel ... nervous, somehow.” He had just confirmed that I couldn’t be the only one! Perhaps there really was more to what my intuition whispered.
“Do you think something happened this winter? To the forest?” I asked as quietly as I could. “I can’t help but wonder why everything feels so ... unwelcoming ... compared to usual. It doesn’t mean anything, though, does it?"
                The next morning, we all ate a hot, if somewhat bland, breakfast in the hotel lobby before leaving for the afternoon. The ancient coffee pot that had been here as long as I could remember was a puttering mess and had yet to be replaced; so the lack of coffee put a definite damper on the conversation, and the stale bagels vanished bite by slow bite in sleepy silence as we each attempted to feel at least reasonably awake. I got the feeling that I and Etheryon weren’t the only ones fighting to stay conscious after a poor nights restless slumber after all; Leinar looked a mere step away from comatose, perhaps in the worst shape of any of us. Then again, it shouldn’t have surprised me since he was most certainly the sensitive and observant one of the group - and even I had picked up the wrongness of the mountainside - so he must have felt it worse than any of us. Why hadn’t they mentioned it? Were they as uncertain about what they felt as I, or were they merely tired from the long drive from home? I tried posing the question as innocently as I could.
“Hey, where do we want to go first? I know we usually go to the forest first, but....” I filled my voice with as much hesitancy as I could.
“Why ever wouldn’t we go there first?” piped Alyss dubiously. “I mean, it’s kind of a tradition, isn’t it?”
“I agree with Kyria. Let’s do something new,” broke in Etheryon nervously. For the first time that morning, I glanced at him. He was a wreck, not that I felt much better. His blond tousled hair lay in limp, tangled curls around his usually bright and now slightly hollow cheeks. The wrinkled sage green tee shirt that he appeared to have thrown on in great haste only emphasized the uncharacteristic slouch in his shoulders.
I stared at him a moment longer, then looked at the others and continued. “What about you, Leinar? I honestly haven’t heard you speak a word since we got to the hotel.” He didn’t answer, and remained slumped against the back of his chair with pale mouth slightly parted. Andariel jabbed him savagely with her fork a half dozen times when he jolted and smacked her away from his arm. “What the hell was that for? Where- Oh, never mind.” He faltered as she threatened him with another ominous wave of her fork.
“Uh, I have no idea. Please don’t take me anywhere with heights or sudden drops today, though. I can’t guarantee I won’t fall asleep and tumble over the edge,” he joked, face totally straight. He was the only person I’ve ever met who could tease someone so nonchalantly. On the other hand, he may have been dead serious this time; but at least the conversation was beginning to head where I wanted.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked, grinning a smile I really didn’t want to hold on my face for longer than I had to.
“Of course, I slept like a rock. Who wouldn’t after the trip up? I just usually don’t travel for six days straight in a tiny car with more people than should be legal crammed into it with me, and then arrive late in the evening and get no coffee the next morning. Does that sound typical to you?” Leinar said with a sarcastic smirk. Etheryon continued to stare straight ahead at the gutted coffee pot, and then it hit me: we had to be the only ones who felt it.
We had to be. Andariel was perfectly alive because of her extra two hours of undisturbed sleep during dinner -the only one in the sorry lot of us who was- and the others made it clear that there was absolutely nothing wrong other than a severe week of sleep deprivation. How could they not feel the electric emotion thrumming through the forest, when it set me on edge and unnerved me so? I got a distinct feeling that if I stayed here on the outskirts of it for much longer than two more days, I would melt down from the pressure crushing my mind.
On our way out to the car, we separated temporarily to go to the bathroom, and as we did so I managed to pull Etheryon off to the side. “Okay, I really need to know if I’m imagining things. What the hell is going on?” He offered nothing but an exhausted little smile until I glared viciously at him. He finally shrugged.
“If you’re saying...the forest?” His green-amber flecked eyes narrowed ever so slightly as if gauging my reaction even while his face seemed impassive. “I knew it! I couldn’t be the only one!  I was uncertain, but it figures it’d be you who felt it, Kyria.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I responded cautiously. I had never seen his eyes slit like that, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. He answered with a sly, sheepish grin on his face.
“You know them, they don’t notice much. Even when it’s obvious.” He gave a short, nervous laugh, paused imperceptibly and continued. “I dunno, though; sometimes you completely miss the point even when everyone else can see it, and I thought they were blind.” With an abrupt twist of his head, he looked away over his shoulder at the forest, then stalked away towards the car to meet the others without another word. I stared blankly at his back, mind whirring and digesting what he had said. What point had I missed?
We clambered into the car amidst the chatter of the other three, strapping in as Leinar took his turn at the wheel. Etheryon ended up next to me, and yet still managed to avoid my eyes for the next twenty minutes. Only once did our glances meet, and that was when I turned from the window - and the disturbing forest - and found him staring past my head at the tree line beyond with an unreadable expression glazing his eyes. When he started and began to look away, I gazed at his face and smiled distractedly at him. He stared down determinedly at his lap and refused to return the grin. His characteristic cheer was gone, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was the forest or our earlier mysterious, confusing conversation that had hollowed his face so.