Martha Scarlet was finished with living the normal life. School, work, chores, repeat. It drove her insane and she was done with it. Martha had never desired a phone, a car, or even a boyfriend. All she wished for was adventure. Mystery. Suspense. Danger.

Treacherous things for which to wish, mind you.

One Friday night, Friday the 13th of November, Martha decided to leave her house when darkness had hushed over the town. She stuffed into her gym bag some food, water bottles, toiletries and a sleeping bag. Martha was serious about leaving her old life for good. It was about time she started actually living her life, for she believed it was presently being wasted.

After all, I am almost eighteen now, she said to herself.

Martha silently left her small house when her parents were fast asleep. The night breeze shook the dark trees and seemed to kiss Martha's round face. After strolling down the street and towards Stonewood Park, Martha stopped to took it all in.

The night sky was alive with stars. The dark trees danced in the howling wind. The street lamps illuminated the roads and grass with silver rays. Martha closed her big brown eyes and sighed. This was freedom. This was happiness. And adventure was less than a nighttime away.

Martha kept on walking, her pack hanging over her shoulder and her charcoal black curls in a ponytail. After a few minutes of eventless strolling, something happened.

Martha Scarlet saw a tall black figure standing by a flickering lamp post.

Her heart thumped faster. Adventure. He was here. Martha had found him.

She sped up her pace until she could make out the face of the man standing by the blinking lamp. His face was white as snow and his irises were blue as a summer sky. His giant black pupils seemed to dig into Martha's soul and his jet black hair covered his ears and part of his forehead.

Martha stopped approaching him once she was within twenty or thirty feet of the lamp post. The man was dressed in black garments and he was glaring straight at her. Martha crept closer and closer. As close as she dared.

He kept staring and peering at her, his bright blue eyes more alive then any eyes Martha had seen in her life.

Martha decided she would speak first:

"What is your name?"

Silence. The man did not answer.

"Are you what I prayed for?" Martha asked, trying to meet his cerulean eyes.

The tall man nodded.

"Come with me," the man suddenly spoke.

His deep voice intrigued Martha and she gayly began to follow this person.

The runaway followed close behind him for a good ten minutes, and soon began to notice her surroundings slowly changing. The autumn trees no longer bore their leaves. The blue moon gleamed dimmer and the stars were invisible. The bushes had become shrubs of cold sticks and the cobblestone sidewalk, a dirt road. Martha was walking through a dead forest. A wood as silent and mysterious as a graveyard.

"Here."

The man had suddenly stopped and was pointing to a rushing ravine far below its two banks. Although Martha could clearly see the rushing black stream, she still heard silence, for the wavy water was so far down.

Connecting the two banks was a single, rotting, wooden branch.

"Adventure awaits," murmured the man.

This was what Martha had wanted. Wasn't it? Something adventurous to do. Like crossing a treacherous bridge with the risk of falling into the river and drowning.

Risk. That's what Martha's life had been missing. She had everything she wanted. A stable family, a steadfast faith, a perfect job. And it all relied on tedious work.

Why work when you can explore new places? Martha said to herself. Why have sturdiness when you can have risks?

Sturdiness was just not reliable, Martha decided. She wanted the threat of danger. The threat of death. But most of all, she wanted to overcome it. To conquer it.

And so, the adventure began, and Martha carefully stepped onto the shaky branch. She took another step and glanced down at the dark ravine below her. Her heart raced with fear. A feeling Martha had never truly felt before in her boring life.

Suddenly, the log began to shake vigorously. Martha whipped her head around to see the man grabbing it, trying to throw Martha off. She screamed. Before she could regain her balance, Martha once more glanced down at the water as it grew closer and closer to her. She was falling. Falling into the violent stream with which she would be swept away. But she didn't hit it. She didn't hear a splash.

The black ripples of the water had transformed into pitch black...darkness. Space. And Martha was falling through it.

But then a light appeared. A strange white light was gradually eating up the darkness. It melted into the form of a room. Martha's room.

She was curled up under the lilac covers of her bed. She was staring, as she always did in the morning, at the plain white doors of her walk-in closet. And as always, Martha turned to gaze at the morning sun, streaming through the blinds of her window. When she opened them, she smiled to greet the grass and the trees, which were still blossoming with various shades of autumn. This wasn't a boring view to wake up to.

Strolling cautiously into the kitchen, Martha Scarlet breathed a sigh of relief as she tried to recover from her very realistic nightmare. She poured her coffee, put some white bread in the toaster, and started cutting up an apple.

That's when she got the news.

"Martha," she heard a voice at the front door.

She turned to see her older brother, Nathaniel, standing in the entrance.

"What is it, Nathan?" Martha asked, bending one of her thick eyebrows.

Nathan didn't answer. He only stared, dead-eyed, at the empty space in front of him. Tears began to fill his narrow, grey eyes.

Then he spoke.

"It's Dad," he choked, swallowing hard. "He got in an accident last night, coming home from Adoration."

Martha's eyebrows relaxed and she set down her apple, worriedly. She blinked back a horrible thought.

"He's dead, Martha."

At first, Martha Scarlet did not understand. She had never realized that death was a possibility in the boring lives of her family members. It was so unthinkable. But even driving a car by itself, even walking down the street, was a danger.

In fact, Martha realized, all of life was a threat. What made humans live every day, was the thought of dying. The danger of losing it all. The threat of death.

All her life, Martha had dreamed of running from safety and security and into the arms of danger, close enough that she might feel the thrill of risk, but far enough away from dying.

But the price of danger was the possibility of dying.

And the price of life, was that it ended.