Early dawn on a winter day,
Sixteenth of Feb, the year 2020 in play,
A woman named Fei, coat crimson bright,
Stepped from a store with snacks in sight.
Her life was simple, her habits the same,
Each morning repeated, a predictable game.
Buy some treats, then home she’d go,
Or visit her kin she cherished so.
But on this day, while chewing a bite,
She heard her name called clear and bright.
Five stood waiting where the trail began,
“Come join us, Fei, if you can!”
Though mountains she’d never dared explore,
Fear of her frailty kept her indoors.
Yet something stirred—an impulse rare,
“Why not?” she thought, “I’ll take the dare.”
Up the path, through forest green,
She saw the ponds, the waterfalls’ sheen.
With brand new friends she laughed and ate,
It felt like joy had altered fate.
But soon her body grew heavy, weak,
Her vision blurred, her limbs turned meek.
She closed her eyes for just a while,
Dreaming beneath the sun’s warm smile.
When Fei awoke, the sun had fled,
Her friends were gone, the forest dread.
Alone by the pond, her heart filled with fear,
The silence pressed, no soul was near.
She stumbled dark paths the whole long night,
Branches tore at her, shadows bit tight.
Strange noises echoed, unseen and near,
Her mind screamed danger, her chest burned with fear.
At last, dawn’s light revealed the stream,
She drank, she breathed, as if from a dream.
A trail appeared down the mountain side,
And there her village she spied with pride.
A crowd below—her people, her kin,
Relief surged fast, she felt hope within.
She waved, she called, her sister she found,
But the faces she saw wore horror profound.
They pulled her close, embraced with cries,
Yet truth was written in shocked eyes:
“Fei, it’s not hours that you’ve been away…
Seventeen days since that fateful day!”
The doctors gasped—her body frail,
Sixty pounds lost, yet she told her tale:
Of five kind friends who led the way,
Of laughter, chatter, bright hours of day.
But footage showed she’d walked alone,
No one beside her, just her own.
The five she named? The village knew—
Long since dead, their lives long through.
Legends whispered of Dragon King’s land,
Ghost-lights drifting where ponds expand.
Spirits seeking a soul to take,
Luring the living for fate to remake.
Her red coat seen from far that night,
Thought to be a ghostly light.
Yet down the slope the specter came,
It was Fei herself—yet not the same.
Seventeen days the forest kept,
Yet Fei returned, though all logic wept.
To this day no one can say,
Where time was lost for gentle Fei.