IMAGINE a world like that...

•Where'd you go? Pt. 1•

~in wich~
A girl meets someone who vanishes, leaving one question on said girls mind...where'd you go?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ariana pov

The sound of small twigs crunching under my boots fills what was a temporary silence, along with the sounds of my heavy breathing

"Riley!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, which felt like they were about to give out

I don't know why, but my dumbass thought it would be a good idea to take my cousin Riley outside to play hide and seek. At first it wasn't a problem because it was light out, but you see, we're currently up at our family's cabin for school break, and we're surrounded by woods, so when it got dark that should've been sign 1 to stop playing, but no, I kept on. This was a bad idea because Riley is fucking sneaky, she's great at hiding... and if you can't tell, I'm terrible at seeking.

"RILEY" I screamed even louder, heaving afterwards since all the running around I've been doing is really starting to hit me "Jesus I'm so fucking stupid" I muttered, cursing myself for letting it get to this point

If anything happened to Riley, my parents would murder me, because I'm supposed to be responsible for her out here. But it's not like I had bad intentions with suggesting this game, my parents are the ones who told me to play with her, "get her out of the house, have some fun", those were the exact words my mom said to me, but this shit ain't fun, that's for sure

Lord, why didn't I just take her to the diner for some ice cream? Sure, it's a long ass drive, but it would've been better then this

"Riley, this isn't funny, we need to get back to the cabin" I yelled, hoping for some sort of response from the small girl. At this point, if I stay out here any longer, I'm gonna freeze to death or I'm gonna die looking for some trace of Riley, and that's if I can find a trace of her to begin with

The more I searched for the girl with my hands buried in my pockets, I started to think of worst case scenarios, like what if she fell and hurt herself? What if she's bleeding to death? What if gets hypothermia and I can't get to her in time? What if she gets abducted...BY ALIENS!

Fuck- ok- calm down Ariana, everything's gonna be fine

The alien part didn't make any sense, but at the same time, I'm not ruling anything out. Riley had been gone for about 30 minutes at this point, and while I don't have my Apple Watch on me, I can just tell by how dark it is out here.

Pondering whether I should keep looking, or just go home, I decided to keep looking, trudging myself further into the thick woods. See, I know this place so well I could navigate it with my eyes closed, I basically grew up here, but Riley doesn't know the things I know, all she knows is how to get to the diner, and where the lake is

And as I scanned the frost covered ground for any tracks, it hit me

The lake!

Not giving it any second thought, I took off in the direction of the lake, trying my hardest to remember exactly how to get there, since it had been a while since I've gone this far in the woods

Panting, I come to a stop in front of the frozen body of water, breathing heavily I do a quick scan over the surface, praying to see my little cousin somewhere, but much to my disappointment, she was nowhere to be seen