With a wonderfully fragrant coffee in his hand, Ryker stood before a small blackboard against the back wall, right next to the elegant brick oven, in which a wonderfully warm fire was crackling. Behind the counter, he heard the bright voice of the waitress:

"Hello, dumbass. I would rather cut my tongue than call you if it weren't for the fact that I have a craftsman waiting for you bitch at my cafe."

"The name? No, I didn't ask. Wait a minute ..." Lowering the phone, the blonde waitress peeked at him from behind a corner. "Sorry, what was your name again?"

"Ray," he replied without taking his eyes off the pinboard filled with notes. "Ray Viltarin."

A while ago, he realized that he had no network outside the café and its Wi-Fi, so his mobile phone was completely useless. But better safe than sorry. And Ray wasn't entirely a lie—it was his nickname.

"Ray Viltarin," the softer voice echoed from around the corner. "Oh, no need to rush; take all the time you need. This guy can stay here with me for longer."

This time, the sigh passed his lips, and Ray felt an unpleasant seething inside him. He hated it when people looked at him like a piece of meat. Hoping to find some distraction, he began to study the notices on the notice board. Occasionally, he sipped his coffee, savoring the mixture of bitter coffee beans and sweet syrup on his tongue.

"Someone's coming to pick you up," the employee's voice finally said as she finished the conversation and returned to the front.

Ryker himself merely responded with a weak nod. His eyes did not turn away; they remained fixed on the spot, focused and captivated by the notices.

Everything was on the board: Requests for tradesmen, some faded or written on stained paper. Offers of furniture or decorations with Polaroid photos or drawings. But what caught his eye for longer were the profiles with bold, red headlines:

MISSING

On the wall were wanted posters from various places - presumably those in the neighborhood - and different years. The oldest one was six years old and correspondingly crumpled and worn. It showed a young man who, according to the notice, was 26 years old at the time of his disappearance—a student. In the grey picture, he smiled carefreely. According to the description, he had brown hair. Spucemist-Woods was given as his last whereabouts. The most recent profile, however, showed a color picture. It showed a young, blonde woman smiling shyly into the camera. The profile was less than a year old.
He counted eleven women and four men, ignoring the notices about missing animals—mainly cats like Blinzel, Pinkle, or Miss Marple.

That must have been what the bus driver meant by the lost hikers. Although some of the pictures were grey, Ryker couldn't help noticing that the young women looked surprisingly similar. They were all young and, according to the descriptions, blonde or at least brown-blonde, in contrast to the men, who came from every age group and were different from each other.
'Didn't anyone recognize that before?'

An oppressive, uneasy feeling spread through his stomach.
'This can't be a coincidence,' he thought, reaching out to take the latest notice off the wall. Ryker looked at the posters one by one. People often disappeared in wooded areas like this. But... Ray blinked as he realized the next sip had no coffee in it. Was he that lost in thought? How much time had passed since...

"Oh, that was quick," the blonde waitress snapped him out of his thoughts at that very moment. Turning his head, he noticed that the blonde had turned a glare of disgust on a car that had come to a halt in front of one of the large windows on the gravel car park.
'Wait a minute,' Ray thought, looking at the dark pickup truck parked in front of the café in the dusky evening light. He felt his features almost slip from his face like a falling toilet seat. His forehead, which had just been furrowed into severe wrinkles, inevitably smoothed out.

Ray could recognize the blue color in the sunset. Even a few bumps, particularly on the wheel arches and doors, which suggested rust, caused his memory to kick in. Uninvited, an image of what had happened just a few hours ago flashed before his inner eye. The dark blue pick-up sliding towards him. In his subconscious, he remembered the broken left headlight in particular.

'You're kidding me! This can't be true!'

He immediately felt the explosive mixture of anger and disbelief spreading through his chest.

This had to be a bad joke!

Turning away from the notice board and holding the now empty cup, he walked stiffly back to the counter and reached for his things. He was already going through several options as to how he should react.

Ryker was all the more surprised when another young woman entered the café instead of the blonde crow. And she bore no resemblance to the one from the afternoon. Her blonde hair fell in permed curls around a slimmer face as she entered the café with carefree, bouncy steps.

"Ray Viltarin?" a bright voice rose above the murmur. Her eyes darted searchingly, and she looked around with a cheeky grin at the corners of her mouth as if she didn't know everyone present.

The resentment fizzled out as quickly as it had arisen. Ray placed the empty coffee mug on the counter as he walked past and reached for his jacket.

"Present, Ma'́am," he announced obviously, holding his hand like a schoolchild and shouldering his rucksack as he approached the young woman.

"So you're the weird guy who's supposed to be hanging around here and waiting for a ride?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and scrutinizing him in exaggerated detail.

"What's with the bollocks? Are you drunk or stupid?" the blonde waitress hissed. The two didn't have the same sense of humor and didn't like each other.

Ray, meanwhile, completely ignored the waitress. Smiling slightly, he shrugged before responding to the joke and looking around to see if anyone else would come forward. Of course, no one did.

"It seems I'm the only weirdo here. I guess you'll have to take me with you, Ma'am."

A bright laugh rang out from the young woman as he grinned himself, and the rest of the tension dropped.

🍂🗝️🍂

The journey to the cottage took longer than he had expected. As the car rolled along the uneven forest track, there was silence between him and his driver, but that didn't bother him much. She switched on some music and kept bobbing her head or singing along a few lines, but that didn't bother him.

When he looked out the window, Everbreeze Lake appeared behind the tree rows. It almost looked like a passing dream, shimmering and glistening in the dusk, paired with the discolored leaves.

As the sun went down, the colors became darker and darker, from golden orange to reddish purple and finally to the blue of nightfall. The play of colors and the breathtaking view captivated his gaze, and Ryker felt his eyelids growing heavier with every passing minute.

The long day was taking its toll. He had been up early and had spent hours in a rickety bus that constantly seemed to be breaking apart. The seizure and the nerve-wracking near-accident had also drained his strength. Not to mention the pushy employee at the Bluebird. Even the coffee was no help. All he craved at that moment was a long shower and a warm bed.

Shortly afterward, they turned off the road onto a small side path that led directly to the lake. Small lights appeared between the silhouettes of tall trees that stretched their branches greedily, growing brighter steadily. Finally, they stopped in front of a much larger building than he had seen in the village.

Although it was dark, he could tell from the shapes that it was a two or three-story house with an extension. The building appeared old and rustic but had a unique charm in this landscape. Together with the location, the place seemed perfect for a guesthouse - just a little out of the center. But that hardly bothered anyone who came to this corner of Canada to relax.

Shortly afterward, they turned off the road onto a small side path that led directly to the lake. Small lights appeared between the silhouettes of tall trees that stretched their branches greedily, growing brighter steadily. Finally, they stopped in front of a much larger building than he had seen in the village.

Although it was dark, he could tell from the shapes that it was a two or three-story house with an extension. The building appeared old and rustic but had a unique charm in this landscape. Together with the location, the place seemed perfect for a guesthouse - just a little out of the center. But that hardly bothered anyone who came to this corner of Canada to relax.

"We've made it," announced the young woman with a trilling voice, who had introduced herself to him as Riona O'Brien - the very Riona O'Brien he had been looking for. It was only because of his exhaustion that the disappointment that this track would probably end in nothing had not yet been able to penetrate him with full force. "Welcome to Pinewood Cottage!" 

Ryker had to slam the door of the walking pile of junk with more force after getting out and grabbing his backpack from the seat in the back. As he looked around again, he recognized in the faint moonlight shining through the veiling clouds a footbridge leading out onto the lake just a few meters from the house. The light glittered like tiny gemstones on the water's surface, and small waves lapped against the shore of Everbreeze Lake with soothing regularity.

"Are you coming?" called Riona, who had already reached the front door.

He quickly tore his gaze away and followed the young woman to the front door, slipping into the house behind her. It was pleasantly warm in the cottage. The delicious smell of roast meat hit him and made his mouth water as soon as the door closed behind them. Ray's stomach, which had only had coffee since the early morning, immediately began to rumble.

"I'm back, and I've brought the surprise," Riona declared and took a few steps into the large living room, revealing a view of the kitchen. "The craftsman we've been waiting for so eagerly!"

Ryker hesitated for a moment.

Did she say, 'The one WE were waiting for?'

Who was 'we'?

He had barely asked himself the question when it was answered:

He would have recognized the little boy shoving the spoon into his mouth from among hundreds. The brown hair, the facial features ... everything was etched in his memory.

'Bloody hell!'

His gaze slid to the woman and clung to her like a fly to a sticky tape. She was also familiar to him. After all, she had recently abandoned him like a stray dog in the middle of the forest. This time, she had brushed the blonde strands of hair that had covered her left eye in the forest behind her ear. As a result, her face was bare, revealing a reddish, barely healed burn. The left eye was milky, slightly grey.

It was blind.

The tension in his muscles eased the moment he realized his mistake, and his own words from the morning flashed through his mind like a bolt of lightning:

'Are you blind or something?'

Wonderful. Why did he have to put his foot in his mouth? Even in this situation, it was improper, and he was a total ashole.

Now he understood her reaction.

Fuck.

Ray would have liked to slap his hand over his face with a groan.

He needed a little time to calm his heartbeat and his troubled mind. It was only a few moments, but they were enough to relax his muscles at least a little. An advantage of his training was that controlled calm was always the order of the day there. Self-control. So he took a deep breath, finally put down his rucksack, and removed his jacket before following Riona.