Where am I? (Open)

Mark kicked up some leftover snow with his sneakers as he exited the Hogwarts castle. There was still probably two or three inches of snow on the ground that had only just begun to melt during the day, and it certainly wasn't going to keep melting through the night, during which the temperature still dropped below the freezing point. It was only the very beginning of spring, so the weather was still like that of winter. Mark was wearing a sweater when he was outside, trying his best not to get sick. He didn't think it was working very well, as he could still feel the cold air penetrating the protective layer of clothing he was wearing.

The grounds were empty, or so it seemed. Mark didn't see anyone from where he was, but did hear a few kids laughing off in the distance. He wasn't sure where it was coming from, but decided to walk forward, straight past the lake. Mark desperately needed some fresh air today, having been spending his free time inside for the past week. Why he didn't go back inside when he realized there was nearly nobody out there, he would never know. But for some reason he didn't really care about being lonely while outside. Perhaps he wanted to be as alone as possible as he walked around the perimeter of the lake. After all, when other people were around, half the time it would only cause trouble for Mark.

As Mark walked, the voices were getting louder. Eventually he was on top of a short hill and saw three boys, fourth years at least. They were all holding bottles in their hands, and more were lying down on their side on the ground. Mark was pretty sure that it was some type of alcoholic drink, probably firewhisky, and his own common sense told him to head straight back inside. But since when did Mark ever listen to his common sense? No, he needed that walk, and so he decided to stay closer to the Forbidden Forest, which was a good distance away from the boys. Hopefully it was far enough. If it wasn't, the shadows of the trees, Mark hoped, might be sufficient to hide in. Besides, the boys were drunk. How well would they be able to notice Mark at the edge of the Forest anyway? Surely they weren't coherent enough to see him in the shadows.

Unfortunately, Mark's logic was proven wrong. One of the boys drunkenly swiveled on his left foot to stare at the Forbidden Forest directly where Mark was, and pointed at him, unable to keep his arm in one spot, but still pointing. The other two turned and saw, and the group began running after him, kicking some empty bottles out of the way as they ran and picking some unopened ones up. Mark tried to run, but the three boys were faster than he was. Two, once they caught up, grabbed Mark and held him right in that spot, while the other one opened up some bottles and tried to force him to swallow the liquid that burned his throat. Mark could tell from the smell of alcohol and from the burning that the liquid was indeed firewhisky, and he tried his hardest to break free. But the two boys that held him weren't about to let go that easily, and they held his mouth open as they watched the drink go down his throat. They laughed as one of the boys opened up another bottle, and then another.

Finally the boys had forced Mark to drink three bottles of firewhisky before stopping. They then waited for the alcohol to take effect on Mark, which did not take long. He was completely out of it, stumbling over his own footsteps as he slowly walked around in the snow. "You guys wanna see me gotothe For...bidden Forest?" he asked them in a slurred speech. The words "go to the" were morphed into just one word, and he stumbled in his speech while trying to pronounce the word "forbidden". But nevertheless, the other boys nodded, and laughed to themselves as Mark slowly made his way into the darkness that he had tried to conceal himself in just before.

***

Mark woke up to find himself slumped against a tree, his surroundings nearly pitch-black. He was immediately greeted by a headache which pulsed through his head as if it were a heartbeat, and he found that he was extremely thirsty. Immediately Mark panicked. Where was he? How did he get here? Mark strained to remember what had happened, but found no answer. Instead where he should have remembered what happened a few hours ago, was completely blank in his memory.

Mark found that in addition to being tired and having a headache, he was also shivering. He had been passed out in the snow for God knows how long; even his sweater wouldn't be able to completely shield him against the cold for all that time. Well, that depended, actually. It depended on how long he was out there, to which Mark had absolutely no clue about the answer. But he could tell that he was out there for some time, as his ears and nose were frozen as if they were blocks of ice, and they were numb to the touch. Still, that wasn't an extremely accurate indicator of how long ago he came outside. It could have been a half hour ago, an hour, maybe five...one thing was for certain, though; that Mark would easily get in trouble when he came back outside. The sky was black, which meant it was night. And the students aren't supposed to be outside at night.

Immediately, Mark started walking, or rather running. But where was there to run to? There wasn't a path or anything that he could follow, at least not one that was visible to him. He could be running in circles for all he knew, or the way opposite of Hogwarts, or he could be running right towards a pack of wolves; this was the Forbidden Forest after all-

That was it. Mark was in the Forbidden Forest. Not that it made his situation any better, though. In fact, all that did was lower his hopes of finding a way out. But he had to. Mark brushed the snow off his shirt and slowed to a walk, making sure to be careful as he walked so that he would not trip over a tree branch or fall into a hole, or something like that. He needed to find a way out.