" She's right. They all are. I can feel it in my bones, that fear, like a sour taste on my tongue. I want nothing more than to stay here, to give in to their reason. I've seen the movies, too—I know what happens to the person who leaves safety to head out into the dark forest, the haunted psychiatric ward, the abandoned school. But what those movies don't show is the guilt surging like a current through my skin; how it feels to know someone you care about is already there, alone and vulnerable and terrified. What the moviegoers don't see is that the shame of staying can weigh heavier than the fear of going. "

― Camilla Sten , The Lost Village