Chapter 2: The Fog of Forgetting

Alex woke to the sound of Blake rummaging through gear, metal clanking against metal with aggressive efficiency. Pale morning light filtered through the pine canopy, and the acrid smell of a hastily extinguished campfire hung in the air.

"Morning, sunshine," Blake called out without looking up from his pack. "Ready to get moving? We've got serious ground to cover today."

Alex sat up in his sleeping bag, his neck stiff from falling asleep propped against a log during his watch. The events of the previous night came flooding back—Callie's strange behavior, her vacant stare, the way she'd walked into the trees and never returned.

"Where's Callie?" he asked, scanning their small campsite.

Blake paused in his packing, a confused frown crossing his face. "Callie? She's..." He looked around as if expecting to see her emerge from behind a tree. "She must be getting water or something."

"No, Blake. She left last night. During my watch. She walked toward the river and didn't come back."

The words sounded insane even as Alex spoke them. But they were true. He remembered every detail: the empty look in her eyes, the strange longing in her voice, the deliberate way she'd moved toward the water.

Blake laughed, but it was a harsh sound, edged with something manic. "Dude, you must have dozed off. Classic insomniac move—you think you're awake but you're actually dreaming. Callie's fine. She's probably just up early, doing her usual type-A morning routine."

"I didn't fall asleep," Alex insisted, climbing out of his sleeping bag. "And look around—her gear is still here, but she's not."

Blake's gaze swept over Callie's neatly organized section of the campsite. Her sleeping bag lay unzipped and empty, exactly as Alex remembered from the night before. Her backpack sat unopened beside it, her hiking boots still lined up precisely where she'd left them.

For a moment, Blake's manic energy faltered. His face went blank, as if he were trying to process information that didn't quite fit.

"She's..." he started, then stopped. His eyes took on a glassy quality that reminded Alex uncomfortably of Callie's expression the night before. "She's fine. She probably went for an early hike. You know how she is about sticking to schedules."

"In her socks?" Alex pointed to Callie's boots.

Blake looked at the boots, then at the empty sleeping bag, then back at Alex. For just a second, genuine confusion flickered across his face. But then it was gone, replaced by that unsettling manic grin.

"She's got backup shoes," he said with complete confidence. "Always prepared, our Callie. Speaking of which, we need to get moving if we're going to make the summit on time. No point in wasting daylight."

Sam was stirring now, roused by their increasingly loud conversation. He sat up, blinking in the morning light, his hair sticking up at odd angles.

"What's all the noise about?" he asked, then looked around. "Where's Cal? Don't tell me she's already up and doing jumping jacks or something."

Alex felt a surge of relief. Surely Sam would remember Callie properly, would help him convince Blake that something was seriously wrong.

"She disappeared last night," Alex said quickly. "She was acting strange, and then she walked into the woods toward the river. I've been telling Blake, but he doesn't seem to—"

"Disappeared?" Sam's face creased with worry. "What do you mean disappeared?"

Finally, Alex thought. Someone who would take this seriously.

But then Sam's expression shifted, becoming oddly vacant. He looked around the campsite with the same glassy confusion Blake had shown moments earlier.

"Oh," Sam said slowly, as if remembering something. "Right. She said she was going to scout ahead. Make sure we're on the right trail for today's hike."

"She didn't say that," Alex protested. "And she wouldn't scout ahead in the middle of the night!"

"Early morning," Sam corrected with a gentle smile that somehow made Alex's skin crawl. "She left early this morning. Before dawn. Very responsible of her, really."

Alex stared at his friends in growing horror. It was like watching someone rewrite reality in real time. Both Blake and Sam seemed genuinely convinced that Callie had simply left early for perfectly reasonable purposes, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary.

"Look at her stuff," Alex said desperately, gesturing toward Callie's abandoned gear. "She left everything behind. Her pack, her boots, her map. Does that sound like Callie to you?"

Blake glanced at the gear with mild interest. "She travels light when she's scouting. Smart girl, our Callie."

"She was wearing pajamas!"

"Layering system," Sam said confidently. "Very advanced hiking technique."

The wrongness of it all made Alex feel like he was losing his mind. This was Callie they were talking about—methodical, safety-conscious Callie who had emergency contact protocols and backup plans for her backup plans. The idea that she would wander off alone in the dark, leaving all her gear behind, was absurd.

But Blake and Sam didn't seem to see the absurdity. They moved around the campsite with cheerful efficiency, packing their own gear and making breakfast as if nothing unusual had happened. Occasionally, one of them would make casual reference to Callie's "early morning hike" or her "responsible advance planning," but always with that same glassy-eyed certainty.

Alex tried several more times to explain what he'd witnessed, but each attempt seemed to slide off his friends like water. They would nod and smile and then immediately revert to their manufactured explanation.

"We should wait for her," Alex said as Blake hefted his pack onto his shoulders. "Or at least leave a note in case she comes back here looking for us."

"No need," Blake replied, his usual easy grin stretched too wide. "She knows the plan. We'll meet up with her on the trail."

But there was something manic about Blake's enthusiasm now, something that went beyond his usual high energy. He bounced on his toes as he spoke, his eyes bright with an almost feverish intensity.

"Come on, guys," he continued, "we're burning daylight! I want to really push today—see how much ground we can cover. I'm feeling strong, you know? Like I could hike all day and all night if I had to."

"The plan was to take our time," Alex said, shouldering his own pack with reluctance. "Callie mapped out a reasonable pace that would—"

"Plans change," Blake interrupted. "I'm feeling ambitious today. Aren't you guys excited to see what we're capable of?"

Sam nodded eagerly, though Alex noticed his friend seemed to be forcing the enthusiasm. "Absolutely. It'll be good to challenge ourselves."

They set off up the mountain trail, Blake setting a punishing pace that had Alex's legs burning within the first half hour. This wasn't the leisurely hike they'd planned—this was forced march, Blake driving them relentlessly upward with barely a pause for water breaks.

"Blake, slow down," Alex called after the first hour. "This isn't sustainable."

"Sustainable is boring," Blake shot back without turning around. "We're young! We're strong! Let's see what our limits really are!"

There was something deeply unsettling about Blake's manic energy. He attacked the trail like he was racing against some invisible deadline, his usual good-natured competitiveness twisted into something desperate and compulsive.

Sam kept pace without complaint, but Alex could see the strain in his friend's face. More than once, Sam opened his mouth as if to protest Blake's breakneck speed, only to close it again with a confused shake of his head.

As the hours wore on, Alex found himself thinking more and more about the strange mental fog that seemed to have settled over his friends. It reminded him of something from one of his literature classes—a story about people who forgot things that were right in front of them, their minds unable to hold onto certain truths.

But this felt different from simple forgetfulness. Blake and Sam hadn't forgotten Callie; they'd actively reconstructed her absence into something acceptable. It was as if some external force was editing their memories in real time, replacing uncomfortable realities with comforting fictions.

The worst part was how natural they made it seem. When Blake mentioned meeting up with Callie later, he said it with such genuine confidence that Alex found himself momentarily doubting his own memories. When Sam casually referenced Callie's "advance scouting," he sounded completely sincere.

By midday, they'd covered nearly twice the distance Callie had planned for their first day. Blake showed no signs of slowing down, his manic energy seeming to intensify with each mile. He'd started talking constantly—rambling about the beauty of the wilderness, the importance of pushing personal boundaries, the way physical exertion could reveal deeper truths about oneself.

"You feel it, right?" Blake called back to them during one of his monologues. "That incredible rush when you know you're exceeding your limits? It's like... like touching something primal. Something pure."

Alex didn't feel anything except exhausted and deeply worried. His friends were acting like strangers, and Callie was missing, and somehow he was the only one who seemed to remember that any of this was wrong.

"We need to rest," he said finally, his voice hoarse. "And we need to talk about Callie."

Blake spun around, his face flushed with exertion and something else—something wild and unfocused. "Why do you keep bringing her up? She's fine! She's doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing!"

"Which is what, exactly?"

For a moment, Blake's manic mask slipped. His face went blank, and Alex saw the same empty confusion that had flickered there that morning.

"She's..." Blake started, then stopped. His eyes took on that glassy quality again. "She's where she needs to be."

The words sent ice through Alex's veins. There was something about Blake's tone—not quite his own voice, as if he were repeating something he'd heard elsewhere.

"Where she needs to be," Sam echoed softly, and Alex felt the world tilt around him.

They were still climbing, still following Blake's relentless pace up the mountain trail. But with each step, Alex felt like they were walking deeper into something that had no intention of letting them leave.

Behind them, far below, the river continued its ancient song, calling to anyone willing to listen.