"Buck It! I'm Lost."

Crud! I stop in my tracks. I look up and realize that I’m lost.

For the past weekend, I’ve been camping with a group called The Purple People Eaters Club. It’s called that because we’re a group of foodies that eat meals the size of people… Honestly, it’s a stupid name and I never understood it, but the people are very nice so I just pretend to know what I'm doing. I love hanging out with them and discussing different spice and meat parings at great length - two things only true connoisseurs of food can compare.

I search as far as my eyes could see and saw nothing but a slither of light slowly disappearing between the trees. I didn’t realize it was so dark and so late. The camp must have moved on far ahead of me, so I decided to play catch up and jog southward. Luckily, I packed a flashlight and I use it to navigate myself around the trees and avoid bushes and things that look like animals.

After what feels like an hour, I’m more than exhausted and there's not a single ray of light anywhere except from my flashlight, but even that’s dimming now. Everything is starting to look the same - trees and more trees as far as my eyes can see. I locate a stump to sit on. Where's the rest of the tree? I relax a bit and decide to rest for a couple minutes before I continue. I don't know how long I can last searching through the forest for the rest of the night. It's pitch black by now.

Damn – I hear footsteps! I fumble around for my flashlight and knife as they get louder. It sounds a bit like tiny feet lightly skipping towards me. Then randomly it stops. I relax again, turn off the flashlight and breath. Suddenly the cool breeze turns warm like hot pee spots in the ocean. I finally grab hold of my flashlight again and point it towards the warm air… YIKES! A pair of huge brown eyes are peering over me and I jump back and drop the flashlight as I trip over the trunk I was perched on. The dimming light from it reflected off its brown forehead and I realize it's a very large buck with giant, shiny horns. The flashlight finally dies and I lean back on the stump again to catch my balance.

The buck’s footsteps rapidly vanish into the distance and I don’t feel a trace of the buck or another being around me. With my flashlight out of commission, I rummage through my backpack for any matches I may have packed… Eureka! I find some. I get up and find a tree, walk a few paces away from it and turn around so that I don’t light the tree on fire. It was an irrational fear, I know.

I strike the match and suddenly a massive white flame broke out right in front of me. I take a step back and realize it’s a piece of paper stapled to a tree. And in the moment of sudden light, I realize that I’m surrounded by many white papers stapled on all the trees in my line of sight and I can’t see the trunk I was perched on anywhere. I must have walked further than I imagined! But wait, what’s with all these papers everywhere?

The light vanishes - I'm astonished that it didn't burn the tree at all. I lightt another match away from the tree I almost set ablaze the first time and read the papers - they're all the same. I see a picture. Of… Wait, is that me? I look closer and realize it’s a missing poster with my face on it. Before my match burns out, I light another one. And another one, and another one. Unexpectedly, I see a lot of shiny round eyes staring at me. I figure it’s the buck’s family intrigued by the light and commotion I’m causing.

I keep the light going and on my last match I get a glimpse of the picture again and notice that in it I’m sitting on the same tree trunk I was on before with the face of a very surprised person. A buck walks into sight and I smile as it comes closer. “Stay back, buck!” I whisper to myself, thinking nothing of it. I start to pull out my knife to scare it away and before I have time to defend myself, the buck bows his head and pushes me into a tree.

That’s the last I remember before I ended up in this white room, in a white robe, being prodded by folks in white jackets equipped with name badges and small bottles of pepper spray around their necks. No one has talked to me since and I have not remembered my name. One white-jacketed person walked past my room and we caught each other’s attention. I stared at them and they stared at me with a familiar pair of shiny round eyes.

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"Buck It! I'm Lost." was my first finished story...and in all its weirdness, I hope you enjoyed it.