"Su?" Aspen scrambled to her friend's body and shook it, gently at first, then with increasing violence as panic overwhelmed her. "No! Oh god no, no! Su! Wake up! Please!"

After a few seconds Su gasped, gulping air as though she'd been drowning.

"Oh god," Aspen wept, nearly succumbing to the brute force of her relief. "I thought you were dead."

Su coughed and squinted at the sun blazing in a cloudless sky, her expression bland and disoriented, and patted at her clothing as if looking for something.

"Did I pass out?" Her words slurred slightly.

"I don't know."

Su touched her temples, as if anticipating a headache. "We slept outside? Ugh, what the fuck, did we just decide to crash on someone's lawn?"

"I said, I..." Aspen growled, annoyance taking dominance amid a flurry of other emotions, but she trailed off. A light breeze stirred, scurrying motes of pollen overhead as her disorientation began to clear, and awareness of their environment drove all other thoughts from her mind.

"Where are we?" she asked, and Su followed her gaze to the tree line.

"You're asking me?" Su answered, her eyebrows dipping in concern or anger. "Nowhere near the Fiddle, that's for sure. Do you feel okay, Woody? Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so." A quick self-examination revealed no injuries or discomforts. The familiar fog that followed a night on the town was absent, her weariness was gone, and her anxiety had vanished, but the low key stress that always haunted her remained. It was as if she'd been rebooted, clearing out the surface noise but leaving her inherent flaws intact. "No, I'm good. You?"

Su nodded to herself instead of answering and some of the unease left her shoulders. She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and tapped the screen. "Mine's dead. Do you have any bars?"

Aspen looked around, but the little backpack that passed for her purse was missing along with her cell phone, wallet, and the keys to her apartment. "I must have dropped it."

Su leaned forward and tried to stand, but she hissed and sat back down, massaging her bruised ankle. "There's no way I walked out here, Woody."

"Do you think someone just dumped us in the middle of a field?"

"I don't see another explanation."

"But why?"

"Your purse is gone."

"So someone carted us out here for twenty bucks and a couple of maxed out credit cards?"

"I'm just guessing, okay? Do you think they did anything to us?"

"I'm pretty confident I haven't been... assaulted." Aspen's nerves were buzzing with vitality, if someone had violated her she'd know it.

"Same," Su nodded with a sigh. "I want to call the cops."

"And say what?"

"No idea," she shrugged. "If this is a gag it's seriously fucked up."

Aspen stood and looked around, soaking in the scent of pine and flowering oaks as she scanned their surroundings. "If you don't have a signal we can't be close to town."

"No when I said it's dead, I meant dead. It won't even turn on. I had a full charge when I left home last night and I haven't used it since."

"Maybe we were asleep longer than we thought." Aspen reached down and helped Su to her feet. "How's your foot?"

"I won't be winning any marathons, but I can walk."

The two stood dumbly, searching for something, anything, that might tell them where they were. There were no power lines, no sounds of traffic, no airplanes or contrails, just a cloudless sky, tall grass, wildflowers, and a forest of trees surrounding them.

"Well, I doubt anyone's coming to get us and we can't stay here," Su said, shielding her eyes with her forearm. "I can't even tell what direction we should go."

Aspen chewed on the tip of her thumb, letting her brain cycle through what little information they had. In the end, she fell back on her intuition.

"Maybe that way?" she suggested, pointing to a group of tall, red oaks. If nothing else, the trees appeared less dense from where they stood. Without a reason to object, Su agreed and they hobbled off slightly south of east, toward the rising sun.

The meadow was bigger than it seemed, and it took them nearly twenty minutes to cross it, pacing themselves over irregular ground to favor Su's injured foot. They spoke little and Aspen's mind replayed the evening before, though it kept skipping the interval of night, refusing to locate clear memories of falling asleep or waking up.

When they reached the trees she began to second-guess her decision. It wasn't the kind of forest she'd encountered hiking in national parks. Old growth stretched before them with wide canopies that intercepted the sun, leaving only speckled beams and diffuse shadow to reach sparse ferns below. She hoped they were close to a highway so they wouldn't have to spend the day in that wilderness. They continued as straight as they could, relying on what they learned from reality survival shows and nature documentaries to direct their steps.

The surrounding woods were beautiful, and without the anxiety of being lost it would have been almost peaceful, like a miniature vacation, but it didn't last. After what felt like an eternity of walking, but was probably closer to two hours, they stopped at a fallen trunk to rest. Su had tiptoed the entire way in her heels on a bruised ankle, and was showing signs of fatigue.

"Was it supposed to get this hot?" Aspen asked, unfastening the hip chain and picking at her shirt so the air could reach her skin. Su had removed her jacket and pumps and was massaging her sore ankle and the bottoms of her feet.

"I guess. I'm tempted to strip."

"You're already half naked. I'm going to need a two hour shower when we get back."

"Slipper socks and a cold beer," Su confirmed. "Can I still sleep over?"

Aspen laughed, "I'll be so relieved to get home I might even be open to making out."

"Over the clothes, or under?"

Aspen grinned, but her good humor wound down quickly. She was starting to cool off and her calves were no longer aching, but resting brought them no closer to the end of those woods.

"Are you ready to move?"

Instead of answering, Su snapped the heels off her shoes and put them back on her feet, muttering, "Someone owes me two hundred bucks."

They continued their journey in roughly the same direction, hoping for a road or a river or anything that would break up the monotony of those endless trees. At first they talked, trying to keep each other motivated, but as hours passed, exhaustion, thirst, and mounting fear rendered them mute. Once, they spotted a pair of deer ahead, foraging among a cluster of bushes, and they waited for them to leave rather than scare them off. Aspen regretted leaving them in peace shortly after discovering that the pair had been feeding on berries.

"Huckleberries," Aspen sighed, finding no more than a dozen of the dark blue fruits. Su gave her share a dubious look, but neither was prepared to turn down food.

"You sure?"

"They might be blueberries," she shrugged, "but I doubt they're poisonous. The critters thought they were okay." Then she popped one into her mouth and bit down, savoring the rich, tart juice on her tongue.

"Great," Su murmured, sampling one from her palm. "Garnished with deer spit."

As the sun began to set behind them, their hopes were raised by the discovery of another shrub that yielded close to fifty berries each, and not long after that, the first real boon of what had been a miserable day: the sound of running water. While neither was in any condition to run, they shambled toward the noise as quickly as they could, and broke through a low hedge of bushes on the bank of a narrow creek, no more than two feet across, flowing south. The water appeared clear and pure and their raking thirst wouldn't bear hesitation so they knelt in the sandy, wet soil, scooping refreshment into their eager throats.

"Oh god," Su breathed, letting herself collapse. "I'll never turn down another glass of water as long as I live."

Aspen chuckled weakly and gulped another double handful. Weariness had been masking her fear, but relief that they'd found sustenance of any kind ached in her chest until she felt ready to cry. Though neither mentioned it, they both knew they couldn't take another step through the woods without a long, healing rest.

"Hey Woody," Su sat up slowly, leaves sticking to her black hair.

"Yeah."

"You scared?"

"Yeah."

Su nodded in agreement, rubbing her feet. "It would be worse if I wasn't so tired. Fuck these shoes, too."

"Losing the heels didn't help?"

"Probably made it worse. The movies lied."

There was no silence in the wood, but they'd begun to tune out the birds and the shushing wind through the leaves above, so the only thing that registered between them for long minutes was the tittering of the brook.

"Tomorrow we'll follow the creek." Aspen said, trying to stay positive. "At some point it should hit a river or a lake and then we can figure it out from there."

"At least we won't be thirsty."

If we don't end up with dysentery, Aspen thought. She read somewhere that you could get it from unfiltered water, but what choice did they have?

The air cooled noticeably as the light dimmed, and with nothing else to do, Su told her to collect sticks from the forest floor while she carved out a shallow pit in the dirt. Aspen watched while Su selected a short, tapered twig from their collection and began aggressively rubbing the sharp end along the crevasses of a thick section of bark.

"What are you doing?"

"It's called a fire plow," Su grunted with the effort. "My dad did it once when he took me and James fishing."

"Did it work?"

Su glowered back. "Shut up and find some kindling. Dry leaves, grass, whatever."

They took turns trying to coax heat from those two pieces of wood until the sunlight was nearly gone and both of them ached from shoulder to wrist, but a thin wisp of smoke finally bloomed from one end. Encouraged, they worked harder until they had accumulated a small pile of hot ash and carefully transfered it into a clumped handful of dry grass. Su blew carefully, tenderly calling the dying embers back to life.

"Shit!" she cursed as the first fingers of flame danced in her hand, and she dropped the wad of kindling into their makeshift firepit.

They cheered congratulations at each other, but it still took another hour of anxious tending while they shivered in the evening air before a respectable blaze took hold. By then they were utterly exhausted, overworked muscles trembling and stomachs growling.

"How are you holding up?" Aspen asked. Su stirred beneath her jacket, snuggling closer with her bare feet facing the flames.

"At least my ankle doesn't hurt anymore. I'll be ready for wind sprints in the morning."

Aspen's weak laugh turned into a jaw-cracking yawn. "It's not quite how I pictured the sleepover."

"Oh god, I'd pay a thousand dollars for a decent room at the Holiday Inn right now."

"Too easy. I'd straight up murder for a sleeping bag."

"And a burger with steak fries."

"Ugh, don't mention food." Aspen whined, clutching at the hollow twinge in her stomach. The last thing she'd eaten other than a handful of berries was half a sandwich at Tate's the night before.

"I'm just thinking about what I have to look forward to when we get home."

"We still don't know where home is."

"Somewhere out there," Su gestured. "Finding it is a tomorrow problem."

Aspen rested her cheek against the top of Su's head. "Why are you so optimistic?"

"Because we're the dream team, Woody," she grinned, then raised her hand for a weak high five. "As long as we have each other we'll be fine."

That whole toilsome day, their exertions had numbed her to lesser sensations, but now her skin seemed to burn and itch and the feel of Su's hair against her cheek electrified her nerves. Even after a day of sweat soaked hiking through the wilderness, Su smelled like warm sugar, the remnant of her scented body scrub. An ache in Aspen's chest that had nothing to do with fatigue urged her to seek solace from Su's touch. It wasn't a sexual thing, just a need for something familiar, but she felt like a hypocrite after rejecting Su's drunken kiss.

Neither of them slept well, startling at every unseen sound as the forest's nocturnal denizens began to hunt. They finally settled down near morning, however, and didn't stir again until the sun sat high in the eastern sky.

Despite a rough night, Su greeted her with a smile and renewed hope. She found a secluded bush to relieve herself, then stripped naked and rinsed her clothing in the chill stream. After an unenthusiastic argument, Aspen joined her.

Her limbs were stiff, promising a day or two of sore muscles ahead, and though the cold water was refreshing, it threatened cramps. She wanted a heating pad and an aspirin. She had to settle for feeling slightly less grungy.

Most of their clothing dried quickly, but even after wringing out her jeans Aspen couldn't bear to walk around in damp denim. Her cotton shirt fell to her thighs and would provide enough modesty if they ran into someone, so she carried them instead. If the weather was as hot as it had been the day before, she was probably better off.