I walk to the end of the pier, clutching the note that River left me in my left hand, and looking at the map on my phone in my right hand. The note contained coordinates that matched up with the pier, along with the mysterious words “Find me,” and a drawing of a note in a bottle that looked like it could’ve come from an old book (or something like that). Looking up from my phone, I look around for any sign of my friend. The bush on the left of the trail catches my eye, and on closer inspection I notice that there is a bottle that looks just like in the drawing. Classic River, I think to myself with a chuckle. They had a habit of taking things way too literally, which I learned through the many years of our friendship. I look around, and I notice with a sigh that there is not any way to get to the bush without climbing into the undergrowth. Guess we’re going to have to go off the beaten path. Literally.
I duck under the wooden fence on the side of the duck and push aside the bushes in my way with my left hand while walking very carefully to make sure I don’t step on any plants. I’ve always cared about not injuring wild plant life when walking off trail, or I just won’t walk off the trail if I know I won’t be able to.
When I’ve made my way over to the bush with the bottle in it, I reach into the bush to grab it, scratching my arm quite a bit in the process. I carefully uncork the bottle and squeeze my index and middle fingers into the neck to grab the paper inside. I pull the paper out and unfurl it, expecting to see a different set of coordinates to plug into my phone, and am surprised when it is instead a few sentences in my friends’ messy handwriting.
If you’ve found this, congrats! You are either a curious kid who should PUT DOWN THE BOTTLE, or you found a piece of paper under a mug in your cupboard after my mysterious disappearance.
Thank you for finding this. There will be more. Please accommodate me with this.
You now have to turn around and find a spot that looks like what my favorite spot was as a child.
I immediately think of the hollow bush we would continuously hide in whenever we got sent outside after messing around too much. I turn around and trudge into the woods behind me to find it.
(to be continued)