Walking through the way of the beautiful forest garden, Vinces noticed Lysandra always holding exactly the same distance from him the whole time.
"Which direction are we going?" He followed her, but the road they were walking didn't seem to make any sense.
They took turns to the right and then to the left. Vinces could've sworn they were running in circles.
Looking behind him, the tower seemed to be barely a kilometer behind, still towering above all the trees, imposing just as before, but they had already been wandering for about 20 minutes. Vinces slowly started to feel like the witch tried to trick him in some sort of way.
He wanted to trust her, but his logic in those types of situations was not of any use. Jumping over a wooden branch, he felt like he had seen it already a second time.
Even when he tried to slow down or accelerate, Lysandra kept perfectly the same distance between them without looking.
He followed her for a few more moments, then quietly stopped in his ways. Letting Lysandra continue walking. But she didn't; as if she could read his mind, she stopped perfectly with him.
"Why are we stopping?" she asked, turning her head slightly toward him. ''Is something wrong?''
Vinces instead remained silent, then slowly took a step back from her, just for her to mimic his movement. "Are you sure we are going the right way?" His voice was sharp and filled with suspicion.
She just shrugged, which was barely seeable from behind her. "Of course I am; after all, this is my garden." She seemed to wait for him to continue walking. ''I planted each of those trees and flowers.''
Vinces didn't believe her at all, her movements and decision-making didn't seem to be based on experience but rather complete randomness.
He took another step forward; even if he didn't believe her, he knew by himself he couldn't escape this place. He didn't even remember how he got here in the first place.
"How long will it take until we get out of here?" He asked, wanting to gather some information or find any inconsistency in the witches' story.
But she didn't answer instead she seemed to be nervous as her steps became faster and less precise.
They took another left turn, which seemed to lead them right where they started. Vinces couldn't believe it, either the witch's sense of direction was broken beyond repair or she was trying to play some game with him.
''Lysandra, are we lost??'' He asked carefully, hoping his first theory would come true instead of the second. But for the first time the distance between them changed, as Lysandra stopped on her own.
"I, the mighty witch, warden of the Saint Spazio Village, could never get lost; I just can't find the perfect way.''
Her voice was hurried and filled with embarrassment.
Vinces felt like he could fall dead to the ground, even though he had hoped it was as simple as this, he couldn't believe the easy solution once happened to him.
"In other words, we are lost, right?" He asked, irony filling his voice as he was making fun of the simple mistake of such a powerful person.
Lysandra seemed to take the disrespect not too kindly, turning towards him, her face turning red.
"I haven't gone this route on foot in years... Normally I would warp myself towards the other side." She looked angry, but there wasn't any real harm behind her voice.
Vinces just began to laugh; he couldn't believe it. Instead of a mighty monster blocking their way. Or some mind-playing beast wanting to drag them into the abyss, the witch was the problem.
"Isn't this your garden? How could you get lost?" His voice still filled with amusement, but Lysandra just turned away from him.
"Well, I didn't completely make it alone... Maybe I just helped out a few times..." Her voice filled with ironic sorrow.
''What is that supposed to mean?'' Vince felt stupid for even asking, but this whole situation just felt unreal to him.
Lysandra simply continued walking, seemingly ignoring him out of embarrassment.
"Are you even listening to me? We need to get out here." His enjoyment had evaporated. He allowed himself to get distracted for a moment, but that can't continue, after all, they were on a time limit.
"Yeah, we just need to take a turn left now." Her pitch was pitched way too high as she then barely audibly whispered to herself. "Or was it right?"
Hearing her words, Vinces felt like he was going crazy; this wasn't going according to plan at all.
"What did you just say?" He asked, hoping he had misheard.
"Nothing... I said nothing at all." She answered too quickly, while turning towards a path on the left side.
Vinces unwillingly continued to follow her, his mind having switched back to concentration.
He didn't know if Lysandra was trying to lure him somewhere or just waste his time. His belief in her cooperation was nearly completely exhausted.
If she wasn't going to help, he would have to find a way himself to get out of here; that was why he started leaving visible footprints every few meters. His strategy reminded him of a childhood story, but he couldn't remember which.
Slowly but steadily they started to move further and further away from the tower, which was now barely visible through the tree lines.
"Now we should take a right turn." The witch spoke up, but before answering her, Vinces inspected the ground in front of their new route, finding barely visible footprints; he decided to stop in his tracks.
"We already went that way; we should continue forward." He finally answered, forcing the witch to reconsider their path, after only a few seconds, she simply nodded and continued walking forwards towards his recommended path.
But something didn't leave his mind; he was pretty much completely sure of their entire route they had walked until now, but the right path with his footprints was different. He had not a single memory of it, nor does it seem to be similar in any way.
Something was wrong with the forest. No, something was wrong with his mind, everywhere he walked there were paths already entered by him, but he seemed to have lost any memory of ever walking them.
He wasn't sure if this was part of the witch's plan to keep him here or part of the forest's own magic. Maybe even something completely different was trying to play with his mind.
Right now he could only trust his own guts and the marks he left behind. Staring at Lysandra's back, he thought about the situation once more. There would be no reason for her to try to use magic on him, also she didn't seem to be affected by whatever was happening to him. Instead, she truly seemed like somebody that had no ability to coordinate at all.
This was a bad combination; she wouldn't be able to bring them out of her and he was getting blocked by something trying to keep him here forever.
Taking only slow steps each second now, their tempo reduced greatly, but he needed time to think. He had to tell Lysandra about what was happening, but he wasn't too sure if it would change anything or maybe even tell the monster that they had noticed it.
Still in thought, he didn't notice that Lysandra had stopped in front of him, instead he walked right through her ghostly body. Only now staring up, he found something different from the rows of identical flowers and hedges that had stretched on forever in front of him. A steep cliff was just in front of him, with no easy way up. Only a small cave entrance was just ahead.
As they had somehow escaped the forest, Vinces mood finally improved as he started walking towards the entrance. But Lysandra stayed behind, Vinces could feel her presence with his new sense, standing still.
Then her voice echoed towards him in a panic.
''That shouldn't be possible.
Vince, stay back.
The garden doesn't have an exit towards a cave.''
Vinces froze on the spot as her voice once again called out.
''Whatever this is, it's not from me.''