It was a rainy Saturday in Aadshend and Spritz, a small, unlabeled, white container with a spray cap at the top, was in his house, playing a video game, when his phone rang.
“Spritz!” a voice from the other end greeted.
The voice belonged to Lighty, his bestest friend in the entire world. She was a tall floor lamp, with a small cord and plug that swung behind her like a tail. The two also worked together, for the Forest Exploration Association, or FEA. That is where they met, and they’d been friends ever since.
“Lighty, what do you got for me? I’m in the middle of a game here!” His tone was playful, and he smiled at hearing Lighty’s laugh on the other end.
“I was just hoping I could come over tomorrow, so we can discuss our gameplan!”
“Game plan?”
“For the mission! We are going to be exploring the forest for an entire week, starting Monday! It’ll be embarrassing if we come back with nothing new to report!”
Spritz scoffed, “You think there’ll be anything more interesting than shattered glass and pieces of candy wrappers? I hope so!”
“Maybe we’ll find the supposed ‘ghost’ this time!”
The two laughed. “Ghosts, ha. What a concept. Maybe we’ll find sanity in there somewhere, because some of these objects have clearly lost it.”
The two laughed yet again.
“Okay, okay, but seriously, we need to be serious about this. We have a job to do,” Lighty said semi-sternly.
“I know, I know. Who’s better at it than us?”
“Maybe the objects who find actual dead bodies? Just a thought.”
“Psh, our time will come, and then we get promoted! Their death won’t be in vain Lighty!”
“You’re messed up,” she mumbled, a sudden change in tone.
Spritz was quiet for a moment. “C’mon, you know I was joking..”
“Yeah, but we are finding them so they aren’t missing anymore, not for money.”
Spritz honestly couldn’t care less about some strangers he didn’t know, but could tell Lighty wasn’t enjoying his humor as much as he was.
“Right.. Maybe we’ll find somebody, maybe we won’t.. See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Lighty mumbled, “tomorrow.”
When tomorrow came, Spritz fell out of bed, and began to clean his room. Eventually he heard the doorbell ring, and went down to let Lighty in.
“Hey!” he greeted, and she smiled. “Hello Spritz! Gameplan time?”
“Totally, should we discuss it in the kitchen?”
Lighty nodded and went in. The two spent hours discussing how they would go about the exploration, and the next day drove to the outskirts of the forest, which supposedly stretched for about 100 miles.
The two stepped out of their car, which was parked in a parking lot near a gate. There was a fence, and while obviously not infinitely long or tall, it did its best to keep objects from getting too deep into the forest.
Lighty and Spritz made their way up to the gate, and Spritz scanned his badge that verified he was allowed to enter the forest. The gate opened, and the two entered.
“I wonder how far we will get,” Spritz said, pondering with an excited smile.
“As far as we can, I’m really curious what's deeper in there. The most interesting stuff we find is usually just weird moving plants,” Lighty said, “You brought the plant-slicer, right?”
“It's called ‘DestroyLeaf 57’ actually.”
“It is?”
“No, I made that up.”
After some walking, Spritz paused, and looked down. “Oh. Oh no.”
Lighty stared at him. “What?”
“We’ve been walking through poisonous plants. I don’t have shoes on.”
It was not typical for objects to wear shoes. The skin of an object’s limbs was pretty tough and malleable, but some of the forests plants still managed to have an affect.
“Sucks to be you, I wore shoes,” Lighty said, smiling with her boots on. Lighty was not your typical object. She wore boots, because they look cute on her, and also because they were quite helpful when walking though poisonous plants.
“Man, maybe I should’ve brought shoes.”
Lighty smiled. “I brought extra ones for you!”
“Oh.. Thanks, I guess. Maybe that would be helpful to mention before we walked through these plants though..”
“Eh, I didn’t even notice the plants,” Lighty said with a smirk.
Spritz sighed. “Whatever.”
The woods grew darker the farther they went in.
Lighty saw something move. “Spritz,” she said quietly.
“Hm? Did you say my name?”
“I think I saw something move.”
“So? Probably a bird. Maybe a lizard. Perhaps even a squirrel.”
“Shut up! I think it was one of the vines that scared us off last time!”
Spritz looked around. “I don’t see anything.”
Lighty rolled her eyes. “Did you check your ankle?”
He looked, and alas, a small vine was wrapping around his ankle.
He chopped it off of him, clenching his teeth. “Dumb plant.”
“Does it count as dumb if it doesn’t have a brain? Or would it not count because it isn’t a fair comparison?”
“It counts as dumb in my rulebook,” Spritz responded, crossing his arms.
“Whatever, just.. There’s a lot of vines here. We’re gonna have to be careful.”
The two continued, and something caught Spritz’s eye. “What’s that?”
Lighty tilted a bit. “What’s what?”
“Over there, it looks like a door.”
Lighty looked, and there was, in fact, a door, built into some sort of hill, with concrete in front of it, almost similar to a porch.
“Somebody lives way out here?” Lighty questioned.
Spritz shook his head, “It’s probably abandoned, from ages ago. Should we investigate?”
Lighty stared at the lone door. “It’s a little weird. What if we find a dead body?”
“Is that not our job?”
The two went up to the door, and Spritz messed with the door knob, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Locked. Should I try kicking it down?”
Lighty rolled her eyes. “Let’s just leave it, its none of our business and I don’t want to carry you- and all of our stuff- back home when you break your leg trying to kick open a locked door.”
“You’re no fun… but fair point… let's keep going.”
After a few hours, Lighty sees the sun is setting. “We should set up camp soon. It’s getting dark.”
“Alright,” Spritz said, “Tent time.”
The two set up a tent, and Spritz took out a bag of marshmallows.
“You brought marshmallows???”
Spritz smiled, “What’s a camping trip without roasting marshmallows?!”
Lighty smiled briefly, before ultimately frowning. “Of course it.. Isn’t the most fun.. But we have to consider the risks. Animals will see us easier, smell us easier…”
Spritz sighed. “We can burn them! Push them into the fire!”
“I highly doubt you’re brave enough to do that,” Lighty said with a smirk.
“Watch me, I’ll push all the monsters in there!”
Lighty snickered. “Fine. We haven’t seen any animals yet anyways, and plants are pretty flammable.”
“Great! Marshmallow time!”
The two made s’mores without conflict, besides Spritz accidentally burning one of his, and went to sleep in their tent.
The following day, Tuesday, Spritz and Lighty continued their way through the forest. Spritz was in the process of charging his phone. The trees were becoming more dense as they went further into the forest.
“I am really glad to have a solar-powered phone charger, but there are starting to be too many trees for it to even work!”
“It’s probably just the product itself that sucks,” Lighty said, “Mine never works.”
“You probably just have a worse brand than mine. Mine is from Blue Industries.”
“Mine is also from Blue Industries.”
“Do you have the Blue Solar-Charger or the Blue Solar-Charger Plus?” Spritz inquired.
“I have the plus.”
“Yeah see, what you need is the Triple-Plus, the other ones won’t work as well as this one!”
Lighty groaned. “You and your technology.”
“Okay old lady Lighty.”
“We are literally the same age.”
“Yeah, well-”
Lighty paused, getting distracted looking at a flower bush she’d never seen before.
“These flowers,” Lighty started, “do you reckon they might have medicinal qualities, or do you think they might be poisonous?”
“Hmmm-”
Before Spritz could respond, he was tackled by a wolf-like creature, which seemed to jump out from nowhere.
“AAAAA! GET OFF!” He pushed the animal off of him and began sprinting in a direction, which the animal began chasing him, and Lighty chased them both. Spritz began running down a hill.
“GET AWAY! STOP!” Spritz hollered, before tripping on a rock. The animal began gnawing on his cap, before Lighty pushed a boulder down onto it, knocking it down.
Spritz got out of the bite, and began running again, Lighty following. The two eventually climbed up into a tree, and hid there.
Spritz was hugging onto himself, trying not to breathe too heavily, and Lighty watched down below, waiting till it was safe to go down.
After a few minutes she spoke. “I think we’re safe.. If you want we could head back and-”
“No. We don’t need to.. We have a job to do. I also managed to get a pretty good picture of the beast,” Spritz said, holding up his camera, showing the picture to Lighty.
“That’s blurry, very blurry.. Did you take this picture while it was chasing you?!”
“Perhaps. Anyways, let’s go.”
Lighty frowned. “Are you sure? You’ve got a few small dents..”
“Lighty, I’m fine. We have work to do.”
Lighty sighed. “Okay.. Let’s go.”
The two went down and continued, more carefully. They saw a few more frightening creatures, but managed to sneak by.
“Think it’s time we go to bed,” Lighty said, and the two set up their tent and went to sleep.
They had a surprise waiting for them when they woke up the following day.
“SPRITZ! WAKE UP!”
Spritz woke up. In fact, he felt as if he woke up ten times at once. “What?! Why are you yelling?!”
“The tent,” she stated, a panicked tone. “Peek outside.”
He zipped open the door, and saw that their tent was wrapped in.. webs.
“Are these?”
“They’re spiderwebs, which means spiders, which means MY BIGGEST FEAR!!!”
Spritz lifted an eyebrow. “Spiders, of all things, are your biggest fear? Are you serious?”
Lighty glared at him.
“Okay, well, in all fairness, having your tent wrapped in spiderwebs… That’s a pretty scary thing. I’m sure I can cut through them though.”
Lighty stared fearfully as Spritz cut through the webs, and peaked out. “Okay, we… Are pretty close to the ground, just a few feet above it. We can hop down, but we might have to ditch the tent.”
Lighty sighed. “Okay…”
The two hopped down.
“See, easy,” Spritz said, before looking over at Lighty, who had the most fearful expression he’d ever seen. He followed her gaze, to see a massive spider in a humongous web, their tent hanging in it as if it were a fly.
“Come on!” Spritz ushered, and the two ran and ran onward, away from the web, until Spritz tripped on something.
“Oof!”
“That is the sixth time you’ve tripped on a rock!”
“You’re still counting?! I thought I told you- wait, this isn’t a rock.”
Spritz stared at the.. object.
“It’s a book cover.. All the pages seem to be torn out though.”
Lighty lifted an eyebrow. “What’s it doing way out here? This is miles away from civilization..”
Spritz noticed a structure. “A building, maybe somebody lives here!”
Lighty skeptically followed Spritz as he headed toward the structure, but it turned out to be incredibly worn down, and empty.
“It seems to be abandoned,” he said.
Lighty looked around. “There are.. A lot of objects laying around.”
Spritz went into the structure, to see a cracked jar sat on top of a chair.
“I don’t know if I like it here Lighty.. Objects clearly used to live here, but..”
Lighty frowned. “Yeah.. This place creeps me out. I don’t like imagining what could have happened here.”
Spritz stared at the ground. “I am going to take a few pictures.. for the report.. but I think maybe we should start heading back.”
Lighty nodded in agreement. “I think so too. I think we’ve come far enough.. And the farther we go, the worse it seems to get.”
“I hate to say it, but I agree. I knew it’d be dangerous but.. I wasn’t expecting all this.. all the way out here..”
“Me neither.”
Spritz kept his word. He took the pictures, and the two started their walk back. What was all that? How many of those objects used to be alive and how many were.. merely objects? Why were they so far from Aadshend?
At some point night fell.
“Hm.. Do we sleep or keep going?” Spritz asked.
Lighty frowned. “I don’t know.. It’s too dangerous without a tent.”
“I’d say it's too dangerous even with a tent, what are we doing out here?”
Spritz was not having as much fun as when they’d started, which was clear by his tired, shaky voice.
Lighty sighed. “Let’s keep walking. It should be fine.” She wasn’t sure. She hoped it’d be, but her legs were aching from all the walking and she felt exhausted.
Spritz was following behind Lighty, just as worn out, before he heard a voice. A loud, clear whisper from behind him.
“C..Coooold,” it said.
Spritz spun around, seeing a tall, wispy figure. It seemed to be a chocolate bar, but instead of legs it had a long, translucent tail. It seemed to have an open wound in its corner, which oozed caramel. It had a tattered wrapper, and it’s eyes were in spirals, as if it was lost or disoriented.
Despite how frightening the sight was, Spritz wandered toward it. “Can.. Can you help?”
The figure seemed to blur into the air, before coming reappearing closer to him.
“Can’t. Cursed.”
As the being floated closer, Spritz began to feel a chill. It seemed to glow, and somehow he was able to see through it. Despite his fear, he felt stuck standing, staring. Spritz began to feel the oddest sensation in his throat, as if it was being strangled in some weird way, before-
“Spritz!” Lighty exclaimed, taking the place of the other being, making Spritz flinch.
“The tree isn’t important right now! We have to move!” Lighty urged.
“I saw.. saw something.. Some-somebody! Somebody! It.. He.. Somebody was floating..”
“Did you get bit by something? Now I’m really concerned. Have you dranken water recently?” Lighty seemed panicky.
Spritz glared frustratedly. “No, I’m telling you, there was like.. This weird tall floating thing! It was kinda hard to make out..”
Lighty frowned. “Let’s go, and drink some water, okay?”
The two walked for some time, before Spritz entered a coughing fit, eventually collapsing. Lighty shrieked.
“Spritz! Oh no, oh no.”
She sat next to him. “Come on, wake up..” She made sure he was alive, feeling relieved to know he was, but knew she couldn’t just continue without him.
“I’ll keep you safe, don’t worry,” she said, although he didn’t hear. Lighty kept alert, hoping nothing would find them there, besides help perhaps.. but that was wishful thinking. She felt a few anxious tears escape her eyes, but eventually got herself together. She could handle this. She had to.
The following morning Spritz opened his eyes. “Eugh? Where am I?”
Lighty stared down at him with very tired eyes. “Good morning.”
“Lighty.. Where are we?”
“I stayed up all night,” Lighty responded bluntly, “You collapsed. I figured you needed rest. You were hallucinating and stuff.”
Spritz sat up, looking around. “Huh. Thanks.”
“Let’s go,” Lighty mumbled, her legs shaking a bit from how sore they were as she stood up.
Spritz frowned. “Do.. you need rest? You seem pretty tired too.”
“I just want to get out of here,” Lighty said, not quite sounding herself, “I’ll sleep in my bed or sleep when I’m dead. Whichever I get to first.”
“We aren’t going to die.. We’ve made it this far,” Spritz assured her.
The two continued on, and on, and on, until finally they found themselves back at the gate.
“We made it,” Spritz said, putting his arms up in a slow, tired cheering motion.
Lighty smiled. “We sure did.”
They’d spent almost all day walking, and the sun was beginning to set.
“Wanna sleep over at my house? We could discuss all this tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Please we sleep. Need it,” Lighty mumbled, too tired to form a proper sentence anymore, about ready to start sleeping right there.
“I don’t know what you just said, but I agree. Sleep.”
The two called somebody to pick them up and slept peacefully that night at Spritz’s house.
When they brought the pictures back to the FEA headquarters, their boss was pleased, and the two got a decent amount of money for their findings.
The two decided they’d take a break from exploring the forest, to recover from the experience. Apparently that was as deep as anyone in the FEA had gotten and returned from.
They are left to wonder: what else lurks in the forest?
We may never know.
((And then stand by me starts playing the end /j I wrote most of this in March 2023 but took stuff out and put stuff in today, September 2023))
Relevant images (Note: may not be consistent with the written work. Mainly that they aren’t wearing boots.)
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