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“Have fun filing invoices. I need to get back to catching a wave. Or skiing down the side of a mountain. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even climb a volcano!” It was the last thing I said before I ended the call.

I slumped back into my seat, my eyes flying up toward the ceiling, my phone clutched against my chest.

Fuck.

Filing invoices sounded like a dream right now.

Would it be the worst thing in the world if I just called Jacob to come get me?

“No. You’ve got this Parker,” I murmured to myself as I sat up in my chair. “You can do anything you put your mind to. You just… have to put your mind to it.”

I let out a low groan as I looked around the cabin, trying to figure out what I should do next.

Dinner.

I should have dinner.

The suggestion went on like a lightbulb in my head as my eyes glanced from the fireplace to the kitchen, a realization sinking into the back of my brain. In a dry cabin, dinner was going to be a lot more complicated with a lot more moving parts than usual.

Which meant that if I wanted to eat at a decent hour, I should’ve started cooking hours ago.

“Fuck!” I hastily jumped out of my seat as I scrambled toward the front door of the cabin, needing to search for wood for the fireplace so I didn’t starve tonight.

Oh, and so I wouldn’t freeze to death tonight, either.

I was having the weirdest dream.

The whole cabin smelled like the fireplace, the comforting scent of burning wood floating all around me, under me, on every side of me. It was almost like I was somehow lying on top of it, moving along with the scent, weightless and light.

There was also so much… brightness.

Like the sun had somehow found its way inside the cabin, cracks of it peeking out from every corner. It reminded me of standing too close to the fire pit when I was a little kid, just trying to stick my s’mores in a little too close to the source of the flame, the way it would warm my face and dance in my vision.

Great. Now, I’m craving s’mores.

I tried to wake up from the dream, hazy thoughts of chocolate and marshmallows moving across my memories and my tongue. But when my hands reached out for the side of my bed, I felt someone’s arms, big and strong, keeping me in place.

“Stop.” A voice suddenly commanded, deep and filled with authority. “Stay still. I’ve got you.”

“Who the hell are you?” I asked the voice in the darkness, my eyes somehow too heavy to open, my body now feeling that same heaviness, too. “What are you—where are you?—”

“We’re almost there. Just hold on.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded to know something, anything, as the heaviness felt like it was driving itself down into my bones, like I was sinking even though there wasn’t any water around for miles.

“I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” the voice shouted. “He’s still breathing!”

I tried to open my mouth to speak again but this time nothing came out, my lips having succumbed to the heaviness now, too.

What the hell was happening to me?

It was the last thought I could process before my brain became heavy, my thoughts blinking in and out before I drifted into oblivion.

Before the whole world turned from bright and sunny to a seemingly endless night.

I was having the weirdest dream again.

This time, I was in an unfamiliar bed, one that looked nothing like the one in the dry cabin. It felt like one of those memory foam mattresses, the ones people who rented cabins at Wild Woods were trying to get away from, another symbol of a city life that was a little too soft. I took a moment to glance around the room, taking in the framed photos of nature, perfect shots of the ocean, the mountains, even shots of beautiful trees in the forest.

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