Forested Zero

You ever hear the story of that boy who got lost in the woods and never returned? It was all over the news recently. He ventured in this forested area near where he lived and didn't tell anyone about it. By the time his friends were able to retrace his steps and locate his destination, it was too late to do anything about it - he was long gone, never to be heard from again.

Depending on your personal fandom preference, one of several things could've happened afterwards:

1. 1.) Time passed and the boy became a grotesque, twisted version of his already-malicious self. He found his way to a distant land, where his plan of causing the moon to crash into said land was thwarted (less than) three days later by a green-clad boy with a fairy.
2. 2.) The boy died deep inside the forest, and his spirit possessed a nearby tree stump. Years later, another person found said stump and gave it to another person they knew. For some reason, the stump grew into a ghastly-looking tree that showed benevolence.
3. 3.) Nothing. Nothing happened to the boy, because he never existed to begin with. While there are a few stories like this out there that are true, this particular tale isn't one of them.

Metaphorically speaking, the above fake story does hold some truth to it. For the past few months I've been lost in my own personal forest of illusions. Many "exits" presented themselves, but they all led back to where I had originally started when I got lost. I didn't type up any decent posts on my blog; I (mostly) dropped out of contact with people; I became a craven unwilling to drag myself out of the gutter I started to call "home."

With 2014 now in full swing, I felt as though it was time to venture out of this World 5 of mine. (Yes, that was a Super Mario World reference. Rather than suffer the fate of Skull Kids or wild Phantump and Trevenant, I instead began searching for a secret exit out of this dump.

I could go on with the forest metaphor, but the truth is that there is no secret exit. Rather, there was, but I wasn't exerting any actual effort to get off my ass and search for it. To be even more honest: I was never lost to begin with (although another party may say differently) - I only thought I had lost my way.

Either way, time will tell if I find my way out or not...