The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

When Your Best Is Not Enough, Sometimes You Die

When Aimi saw the boat and the figure in it, not even knowing what the figure was, she decided she'd rather take her chances by going back in the direction she came from than meet the ominous unknown.

She quickly spun around to head back into the giant forest she just came out of but inexplicably could not locate where she had just come out.

"That's strange."

She went left. No entrance. Then right. No entrance.

"How can this be?" she said hoping no one would answer. "I just came out of those woods not moments ago.

She heard what she thought was a voice coming from the boat.

"Heeeyyy!"

Aimi pretended not to hear the voice and continued to hunt for a way back.

"Hey!!" the voice came again, loud enough that she had to acknowledge it.

With no other choice Aimi reluctantly and in tiny steps approached the boat.

Aimi thought she was being sly when she intentionally dropped the flashlight she was carrying accompanied with an, "Oops!"

Laying in the sand was the remains of a crooked branch. She discovered after picking it up that one end had been burnt off in a seaside campfire.

"I don't think I could win a fight with this but I might be able to roast a marshmallow. Still, better than nothing. Maybe I can poke my way to an escape if I have to."

Ever so tentative but with no other choice she continued on toward the boat. More shuffling her feet than stepping she left a trail in the sand.

She mumbled to herself barely audibly "At least I am sure to find my way back." Just then a large wave rolled in and washed the tracks away. A strong wind followed.

Dad would say, "We are the luckiest family in the world. Sadly, all our luck is bad."

She looked back towards the boat and saw that its angle had shifted and she could now see it bow on instead of from the side. To her relief, there was no one in the boat after all. What she had seen was not a person at all. She had seen the oars of the boat standing up and crossed. Hung on them was a life jacket that looked like someone's folded arms.

The light Aimi had seen was still 30-50 yards beyond that and only appeared to have come from the boat. The shine from the light was bigger but she still couldn't make out what it was. She could tell, however, that it was moving away from her.

"There's no going back," Aimi said to nobody in particular again. "I am talking to myself. I am talking to myself about talking to myself. I'd better stop before answers start coming ... from myself."

Aimi decided to get in the boat and try to catch the light. Her dad had taught her how to row a boat at a church picnic on a lake where they had rent-a-boats.

After Aimi had paddled for what seemed like 30-45 mins but may have been more like just 5-10 (remember, Aimi was a terrible judge of time), a sudden gust of wind rocked her boat so much so that she thought she might fall out.

Anyone with experience in a boat knows that if it rocks far to one side, it will rock almost the same to the other side when the boat tries to right itself.

The boat, however, rocked back but more than the initial rock!

"That's not supposed to happen!!" Aimi cried out.

The boat rolled so much that as Aimi looked to her left, she could see her reflection in the water thanks in part to moonbeams from the near full moon.

The boat rocked back again to right itself but instead kept going till it tipped over! Aimi suddenly found herself in the drink, wishing she had put the life jacket on.

"I won't need the jacket. The sea is calm," she had judged incorrectly. "I am a pretty good swimmer and I am not going far from shore. Besides I can always swim back if I have to." Aimi had forgotten a lesson that her dad taught her.

"Most drowning accidents happen to people who are overconfident in their swimming abilities, not to the beginner swimmer," he had told her.

The wind and waves began to whip up ferociously. Aimi found herself separated from the boat, she on one side of a wave and the boat on the other. A few gusts of winds and rolls of the waves, the sea settled momentarily. Aimi looked and the boat was gone! She was on her own!

Aimi began to swim with all her might but could make no progress. She knew she was good for a mile if need be and in her own mind there was no way she had separated herself from the shore by more than a mile. (Remember that Aimi was a terrible judge of distances, too).

Another wave came and this one blocked out the moon. When the wave settled Aimi looked up and saw the bright night time light again but this time through the lens of the sea. She had gone under. Aimi kicked and paddled as hard as she could towards the light from the moon which she reckoned would take her back to the surface. She made no progress. She could also see bubbles and swam desperately in the direction of the rising bubbles. But she still made no progress. The moon continued to get smaller and smaller.

Aimi had gone under.