"You can almost not hear the cars from out here!" I exclaimed, leaping over one of the logs in my way. The strings on my gray hoodie swayed as I steadied myself.
     "Almost." Renee snorted, trailing behind me. She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. "We shouldn't be out here, Jackie." she grumbled. Her dark brown eyes narrowed at me as she pushed a strand of loose black hair over her shoulder and swatted at a bug.
     "Come on, it's not like anyone cares," I assured her. 
     "The barbed wire fence we had to climb to get here and the sign saying 'No trespassing' begs to differ."
     I sighed, knowing she was right. We could get in big trouble if we were caught out here. Technically, what we were doing was illegal. Still it was so hard to get fresh air nowadays; the supplement air that they pumped into the city wasn't even close to what real air was like. Real air didn't hurt your lungs; real air didn't require an oxygen mask to breathe it in. I needed to be out here.
     "We'll be fine," I lied, trying to comfort her. I didn't really know that we would be fine, still I needed her to think we would be, and aside from a small huff, it seemed to work. We continued through the woods; dark trees loomed overhead as moonlight lit up the brown leaves that littered the forest floor. Everything seemed to sparkle in the night, the stars lighting the way over head, and the cool air blowing my hoodie strings this way and that. It was beautiful.
     I cast a weary glance behind me, and to my surprise, I found Renee smiling, a real smile, her teeth barely showing behind her lips, but still her lips curving upwards in an unmistakable smile. Her eyes sparkled, and she paused for a moment as if deciding what to say. She stared at her black sneakers and the leaves at her feet, then lifted her gaze up towards the starlight, the trees, the moonlight, taking it all in.
     "It is beautiful," she relented, hugging her black hoodie and shifting from foot to foot.
     I grinned in response, "A once-in-a-lifetime adventure?" I questioned.
     She sighed and glared at me a moment, pausing before responding. "Yeah, I guess it is," she murmured softly.
     Some leaves above us rustled in the slight breeze that swept through the forest, chilling everything slightly. Renee's gaze snapped upwards, and she breathed faster, shallower breaths, hands twitching as she stared nervously into the night.
     "Just the leaves." I murmured, and she nodded, though she didn't seem convinced. I bit my lip, my own worries rushing through me. I said it more to comfort me than her, I realized. I also realized it wasn't working to soothe either of us, and so I racked my mind for some better solution. I turned towards her, grinning once more, "Tag?" I suggested.
     She shook her head, "It'll make too much noise; they'll hear us," she warned.
     I stared at her. "You're paranoid," I teased.
     She flushed and stared at me, glaring, more defensively than anything else, her lips pursed. "I'm not; I'm just-" she struggled to find the right word, "cautious," she finished, giving a small nod to herself as if to prove she was right.
     I nodded a bit; she was always the reasonable one after all. "All right, I understand," I replied, searching her face for her response.
     She inhaled and sighed. "Let's head back," she suggested.
     I nodded, a bit disappointed, but knowing full well that those had been the terms we had agreed upon. She would venture out into the woods with me, going against the law, and I would head back whenever she said we should. I hadn't really objected to either; after all, the whole reason I had dragged her into this was to make sure we didn't get caught. As we turned back, I cast one last glance into a woods we'd likely never see again.
     It was forbidden to go into the woods. It had been for awhile. If too many people got sympathetic towards nature, towards the woods, if too many people understood it, then there'd be regulations, and regulations meant trouble for companies, and trouble for companies meant trouble for the government. So we stayed in the cities, content to breathe our synthetic air and never really understand nature. At least most of us did. There were those like me who ventured out, but those were few and far between. It wasn't that people hated nature; they just didn't care; after all, what difference did it make to them? Everything could be synthetic. They could have more that way; some even said it was better that way,  more control. You couldn't control nature after all. Most people didn't think the laws about not going into the woods meant anything; it was to keep us safe, right? There were dangerous things in the woods, not any animals, those had died out long ago, still a tree could fall. You could get hurt.
     So, I pulled up my gray hoodie, remembering to avoid the security cameras around the edge of the woods and followed Renee out through the path we had taken towards the parking lot we had come in through. There were a few who snuck in, who saw the secrets of the woods, but these woods almost never saw visitors. Almost.