2

Snuggled up in my thick black jacket, I sat at the back of the bus and was the only passenger to my grandma's village. This place, which called itself Woodlin, was probably miles away from civilization, because for hours I had only seen trees passing me by.

Surrounded by this dark, dense forest and the red, smeared seats, I did the only right thing. I put on my headphones, closed my eyes and just let myself be carried away by the fabulous music.

I was already imagining what was going to happen to me. After all, I was already 22 and hadn't had a boyfriend, a steady job, or anything else that other adults just had.

That's why I had my Lili.

Only I was allowed to call my grandmother that. Everyone else called her Lisbeth and she insisted on that. She wasn't the typical granny you'd expect knitting in an old chair. She was more of the woman who would sip a glass of whiskey in the evening while watching old movies. Just a free spirit, just like me.

Unfortunately, I hardly knew my grandfather and I didn't know where she lived either, because they visited us on all important holidays and kept insisting that they were the only ones to come to us, never the other way around and while Lili played with me and I played hers told life wisdom, my grandpa Willy was more of the silent mute who only observed everything from afar. But that didn't bother me. I was very tolerant, even as a child.

When I opened my eyes briefly to avoid falling asleep, I noticed that the bus was parked in the middle of the forest and there was no sign of the chubby driver.

While I wasn't the kind of person who panicked easily, this situation created a chaos of emotions for me, with fear being the biggest at the moment.

I quickly ripped off the headphones and stowed them in my black backpack, which by the way was also my only luggage, and threw it around my shoulder without taking my eyes off the driver's seat.

It was so dark outside that only deep black could be seen through the large panes and my confused looking face reflected in the glass. I had tied my dark blonde hair into a light bun and my blue eyes stared at me in shock.

Without paying any more attention to myself, I got up and ran forward, but not without looking around carefully. For a moment I had the thought that the bus driver might plan to abuse me, but he had chosen the wrong woman to do so.

A skillful reach into the back of my backpack and I had my pocket knife in my trembling hand. My heart was racing with adrenaline and all of this reminded me of scenes from a horror movie, only this was reality and not some of my crazy dreams.

Step by step I walked further forward and internally began to slap myself. I used to be someone who always screamed loudly at movies...

"Don't go any further! Why are they always so stupid?!" ...

And from that moment on I was one of these naive people myself, but what else could I do.

A cold stream of air suddenly rushed through the bus and sent a shiver down my spine, which had a positive effect on me, because it made me race the last few meters through the bus and tried to close the door with all the buttons in a panic, until I suddenly grabbed a hand on the shoulder and out of fright I hit the attacker with my elbow in the pit of his stomach.

"Are you crazy?!" a man I didn't know yelled at me and I quickly took a few steps back and held out my shaky hand with the knife in it.

"Crazy enough to hurt you if you get close!" I yelled, trying to keep the tremor in my voice from trembling.

"Chiara, aren't you? You're really coming to Lili," he smiled half-heartedly and then, panting, sat down in the front seat to sit down and hold his stomach. With his gray short hair and all his wrinkles, he really didn't look like someone who wanted to harm me, so I put the knife back in my backpack and took a cautious step towards the old man.

"You can call her Lili?" I asked curiously, sitting down on the seat opposite him.

"Oh yeah, and believe me, that wasn't easy," he laughed, still holding his stomach. I was sorry for hurting him, but he could have been anyone else. After all, I've never been to this place, not even in the area and apart from the forest I didn't see anything around me anyway. A mass murder family could have lived here. I wouldn't have known.

"I came to pick you up, so please let's go. I could use a nice cold beer now."

His smile narrowed his eyes and showed me more wrinkles, but even so, his gaze gave me a warm, reassuring feeling.

When he slowly got up, I got up again and hesitantly followed him outside into the freezing darkness. Normally I would never have just followed a strange man, or would have left a bus with the engine running in the middle of the street, but I just wanted to go to my grandma and get out of the creepy, dark forest.

As soon as I stood in front of the bus, the man held out his hand in a friendly manner and looked me up and down curiously.

"You can call me Rudi."

For a moment I narrowed my eyes at him and thought about this absurd situation, but then I shook off all thoughts and took his hand politely in mine.

"Chiara, as you already know and I'm really sorry about the blow," I pointed apologetically to his stomach, but he just waved it off with a laugh.

"I've had worse things happen to me. Well, my car is over there."

He turned and pointed to an old Ford that didn't look like it would do many more miles. But Rudi seemed proud of his old car because he looked at me expectantly, which I gave him a fake smile and a thumbs up.

Without wasting any more time and without worrying about the bus driver, I got on the passenger side and was happy to finally be able to move forward again, closer to my Lili, who I was so looking forward to seeing that I was too distracted to go notice that I was being watched the whole time.