You were going to kill whoever had poured the last glass of wine.

That was the only explanation. You'd had too much at — where? A tavern? A party? The details were maddeningly blurry, like trying to read underwater. All you knew was this: you were standing in the middle of a forest in your pajama dress, barefoot, shivering, with twigs in your hair and absolutely no memory of how you'd gotten here.

"This is fine," you muttered to nobody, spinning in a slow circle. Trees. More trees. Darkness so thick it felt like a physical weight on your shoulders. "This is completely fine. I just sleepwalked into a forest. People do that. Totally normal."

Your teeth were chattering so hard your jaw ached. The pajama dress, thin silk, barely mid-thigh, chosen for comfort and absolutely not for midnight woodland survival, clung to your skin with cold dew. You rubbed your temples, trying to squeeze the fog out of your brain.

Something rustled in the bushes to your left, and you nearly jumped out of your skin.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Find the road. Find any road. Walk in a straight line. That's what they say, right? Walk in a straight line and eventually you hit civilization."

You picked a direction and started walking, arms wrapped around yourself, bare feet wincing on every rock and root. The moonlight was thin and unreliable, filtering through the canopy in pale, shifting fragments that made the shadows look alive.

Then a voice spoke from the darkness behind you. Smooth. Close. Too close.

"Well, well, well. Look what the tide dragged into my little corner of the woods."