“Once again, let emphasize: after we set out, you must stay closely with the two teachers at all tis. Do not leave the group, and do not act on your own. If you feel unwell, report it to the teachers as early as possible…”
At the entrance to the forest, Teacher Wendy, who was responsible for safety and daily managent, stood at the very front of the group, chattering on tirelessly as she repeatedly reminded the students of all the precautions for the trip.
Across from her, the eleven students appeared to be listening quietly on the surface, but in reality, their minds had already flown into the vast, boundless forest beside them.
Even Everly was no exception.
After finally enduring Teacher Wendy’s long speech, and under the guidance of the two instructors, the group officially set off from the trailhead in White Birch Town. They followed a narrow path that had been repeatedly trodden by passersby and plunged into the dense woods.
This field practice trip involved a total of 14 people, including three teachers and eleven students.
Among them, Teacher Wendy was mainly responsible for logistics such as accommodation, als, and safety coordination. After sending the students to the starting point of the hiking route, she would remain stationed in White Birch Town to await contact and would not enter the forest with the group.
The other two teachers were Teacher Harriet, who served as the team leader, and Teacher Ted, who was responsible for instructional guidance. Both were experienced outdoor adventure experts with a large number of professional certifications, as well as extensive hands-on experience and first-aid capabilities.
Not long after entering the forest, the path beneath their feet disappeared, and everyone was completely cut off from the civilized world, swallowed by an endless sea of trees.
The teaching of the two instructors officially began from this mont.
Lesson One: Finding Direction
In a dense forest, without tools like a compass or GPS, how can one find direction?
The relevant knowledge had already been covered in the first sester. There were many possible answers—observing the position of the sun, the density of branches and leaves on trees, the location of moss on tree trunks, the growth rings on tree stumps…
The main purpose of this outing was to put the knowledge learned from books into practice. After all, there are so things whose difficulties and common pitfalls only beco apparent once you actually try them yourself.
Because they had to learn while moving, the group advanced in a stop-and-go manner, and their pace was not fast. By around midday, they had only covered about seven kiloters.
At noon, the group stopped in a patch of gently sloped forest and set up camp on the spot.
The instructors had the eleven students sit together first and, following along with her, reviewed the key points of marking routes in the forest, as well as how to locate food and water sources.
After the review, the teacher began assigning tasks. All students were divided into groups in advance, with three to four people per unit. Two groups would go out to search for food, one group would search for water, and one group would stay behind to set up the campsite.
Yes, that’s right—on this hike, everyone’s food had to be found by themselves.
For safety reasons, everyone had brought all necessary hiking supplies before departure. However, only in absolutely necessary situations would the teacher allow them to consu their carried rations. Most of the ti, she preferred that the students gather all survival resources on their own, in order to train their survival skills.
Lunch consisted of a mixed batch of nuts taken from a squirrel’s burrow, along with tubers from a plant known as Jerusalem artichoke.
After lunch, everyone rested briefly before continuing onward.
The group traveled along the Black Trail in this manner for two days. During this ti, the students rotated through their assigned tasks of finding food and water, and gained a basic understanding of the various ergencies that might arise during wilderness trekking.
By midday on the third day, they had reached about halfway along the hiking route when sothing unexpected happened.
At that ti, Everly and Misha were in a team with two other boys, searching for a water source near the temporary campsite.
After about ten minutes of searching, they still hadn’t found any water—but instead, the four of them spotted sothing strange in a clearing in the forest.
It was a staircase.
It was new. Entirely made of wood, painted white, with carved floral patterns on both sides of the handrails. A thick, fabric-like carpet covered the steps.
The entire staircase had about a dozen steps. The bottom floated in midair—only the very lowest step was connected to the ground. The rest extended upward at an angle that defied the laws of physics, suspended in empty space.
At the top of the staircase, there was nothing. No door, no platform—nothing at all.
It had appeared so abruptly in the deserted forest that it almost looked like a glitch in “Earth Online,” as if a staircase model from so house had been accidentally clipped into the woods.
Only then did Everly realize that even sothing as ordinary as a staircase could feel so unsettling and suspicious when placed in the wrong environnt.
“What is that… why is there a staircase in the forest?”
One of the curly-haired boys in the group voiced what everyone was thinking.
After exclaiming in surprise, he—like many overly curious Aricans—took a few casual steps forward, intending to get a closer look.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #17: curiosity kills the cat.
Although her own danger sense hadn’t been triggered, Everly still spoke up to stop him out of caution.
“Wait. Don’t you think it’s strange for sothing like this to suddenly appear in the forest? What if there’s a trap around it? If you walk over there, you could get caught in it.”
“But—”
Everly didn’t give him ti to hesitate. Her expression gradually turned cold.
“No ‘but.’ Did you forget what the teachers told us? When you encounter sothing unfamiliar in the forest, you must never approach it rashly. You report it to the teachers imdiately.”
“Yes, I support Everly’s idea!” Misha chid in from the side.
The two boys looked at Misha, then at Everly, who was clearly displeased, and both of them swallowed at the sa ti.
Although Everly usually seed calm and expressionless, giving off a rather cold impression, all the classmates who had interacted with her knew she was actually quite a decent person. Whether it was asking her questions or greeting her, she would always respond.
Because of that, when soone who rarely showed emotional fluctuations suddenly turned serious and visibly angry, it felt to the two boys as if they had just walked naked across an ice field—cold down their backs, uneasy in their hearts, unable to muster even the slightest intention to refuse her.
After so discussion, the four of them temporarily stopped their search for water and returned the way they ca, following the markings they had left behind.
The two instructors were still at the temporary camp, observing the group assigned to the campsite as they used improvised tools to start a fire.
Seeing the water-gathering team return empty-handed and in a hurry, Team Leader Teacher Harriet raised one eyebrow, letting out a questioning “Hm?”
“Teacher, we just saw sothing strange in the forest!” Misha rushed up first and told her about what they had encountered.
Even though it was a description that seriously stretched the imagination, after listening, Teacher Harriet did not question its authenticity. Instead, her expression turned serious.
“You saw a strange staircase in the forest? Where was it? Take there.”
“Teacher, you know about the staircase?” Everly seized the mont to ask.
Harriet glanced at her and nodded.
“Yes. The existence of those staircases isn’t really a secret among forest search teams. Since you’ve seen it, it ans new rescue personnel have entered this forest.”
“What what? Teacher, could you elaborate a bit more?”
Sensing the scent of gossip, the four of them unconsciously gathered closer to Teacher Harriet, staring at her with eyes full of curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
Teacher Harriet had no choice but to sigh and, resigned, began telling them her own story.
Before she beca a university teacher, Harriet had worked as a mber of a nonprofit forest search-and-rescue team. The first ti she ever saw a staircase suddenly appear in the forest was during one of those rescue missions.
“…It was just standing there in the woods. The redwood finish was spotless—no dust at all, clean and bright. It felt completely out of place with its surroundings. Anyone who saw it would think the sa thing: that staircase didn’t belong in the forest. It should have been inside so luxurious villa outside the woods instead.”
“It was so strange that I couldn’t help stopping to take a closer look. But my search-and-rescue partner stopped .”
“‘Don’t go near it, and don’t try to step on it… Just treat the staircase like any other natural feature, like trees, streams, or rocks. You’ll get used to it after seeing it enough tis.’ That’s what my team leader told .”
“And he was right. In later missions, I saw similar staircases more than once. Sotis they were marble, sotis tal, sotis wood. So were brand new, so were heavily worn, so had carpets, so were tiled… The only thing they all had in common was that they only appeared when the search teams went more than five kiloters deep into the forest.”
“What exactly are those staircases?” the curly-haired boy couldn’t help but ask.
Teacher Harriet shook her head.
“No one knows exactly what it is. So people have tried—no matter whether the staircase is made of wood or concrete, external force cannot damage it at all. It’s as if it doesn’t exist in this world.”
“In fact, the senior mbers of the search teams don’t like talking about it. Because every ti a staircase appears, the success rate of rescue operations drops to a negligible level. In the eyes of forest search-and-rescue teams, it’s an ominous sign…”
“The seniors always warned : when you see a staircase, do not be curious, do not touch it, and absolutely do not try to climb it. But back then, I was too young. Proud, and lacking respect for the unknown. Their warnings didn’t suppress my curiosity—instead, they made rebellious.”
“In one rescue mission, when I encountered a staircase alone again, I forgot all those warnings and walked right up to it…”
She suddenly stopped walking.
Her eyes went slightly blank as she stared straight ahead.
The others followed her gaze—and realized, without noticing when, they had already arrived in front of that very staircase.
“Yes. Just like this. That strange staircase that doesn’t belong anywhere in its surroundings…”
Harriet walked around it once. Her gaze carried nostalgia, but also a deep, hidden fear.
“Teacher, what happened next? You didn’t listen to the warning and walked up to it—then what?”
The students couldn’t help but urge her after she paused for too long.
“After that…”
Harriet stepped onto the staircase.
Just like walking up an ordinary flight of stairs, she placed her hand on the railing and went step by step upward.
She felt nothing unusual—only the texture of the wooden handrail under her palm, and the solid ceramic-like sensation under her shoes as she stepped. Nothing else.
In her mind, just as Harriet thought that it was actually nothing more than a very ordinary staircase, her lifted boot landed on the final step, producing a clear, crisp “tap.”
At that mont, sothing strange flickered through her mind. The instant she realized sothing was wrong, overwhelming fear crashed over her body. It was like an herbivore caught by a predator—her muscles locked up, cold sweat broke out all over her, and she could not stop herself from trembling.
—It was too quiet.
From the mont she stepped onto the staircase, all the sounds of the forest—rustling leaves, birds calling, the movent of animals through the undergrowth—suddenly vanished.
At that mont, the only things Harriet could hear were her own pounding heartbeat and increasingly heavy breathing. Even the continuous fine drizzle in the air no longer felt real or perceptible.
“At that mont, I had the illusion that an invisible hand had forcibly pulled out of my original world and locked inside another isolated space.
The forest was clearly still all around , yet it felt incredibly distant—so far away that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reach it.
And as ti passed, that sense of abandonnt by the world, along with fear and loneliness, grew stronger and stronger. My whole body was trembling. I started hearing ringing in my ears, and even breathing beca difficult…”
The young Harriet used the last of her strength to scramble and tumble down from the staircase.
After that incident, she never again felt curiosity toward the staircases that suddenly appeared in the forest.
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