I went to a small nearby café first to wait for my landlord, who was most likely not yet awake at this hour, to get the spare key to my apartment.

After ordering a dish, I became aware that no one in the shop had noticed my absence since they didn’t ask me where I had been. I was relieved as I didn’t have to come up with any explanations.

“Lord, how can I tell the truth to everyone as I have promised you? It seems that no one will believe me,” I lamented silently.

“Why did you accept your mission then?” a voice responded to my thoughts.

“Well … because I thought that it was a very important matter,” I replied.

“Right, so go ahead and do it,” the voice replied.

“I’m afraid that everyone will think that I’m insane,” I admitted.

“If you want to accomplish this task you can’t be normal. If you were just a normal person, you would never have received this opportunity. You must accept that you will be regarded as abnormal in the eyes of most people. But one day when they accept and believe in what you say, they won’t think of you as being abnormal anymore. And actually, at the moment on Gaia, the real abnormal people are the ones who think that they’re normal,” replied that voice.

“In the past, none of my representatives have been considered normal. They were all perceived as being insane. Do you know what they had to face? Some of them were insulted. People threw stones at them wherever they went. Some were considered rebels, so they were arrested and tortured to death. Some were born as princes but became homeless wanderers. Now that you’ve accepted to be my representative, you have to start serving like one, and to prove that you are worthy of my name by completing this mission.”

“Alright, I’ll try.”

I watched the television in the café for a while until I thought I had waited long enough to contact my landlord who should now be up.

“Aren’t you going to work today?” the shop owner asked when I went to pay for my dish.

“I know I’m late today, but I’ll go in a bit later,” I replied.

I noticed that everyone was looking at me in a strange way, so I quickly left the café and went straight to the apartment.

“Good morning, I’d like the spare key to my room 354, please. I’m afraid I lost mine,” I told the apartment manager in the office when I arrived.

“Oh! Are you the guy on the news that got lost in the forest?” she asked.

“Lost in the forest …?” I repeated to gain some time to think.

“Oh, right …, yes … yes …  but now I’m back,” I answered quickly.

“On the day you disappeared, your friends and the police came to ask for the room key. They tried every way to contact your relatives,” she updated me.

“So, did you call your family and tell them that you’re back?” her question sounded more like a motherly recommendation.

“Well, I was going to call them, but I’ve lost my belongings, my phone, my ID card, and my wallet, so I have none of my possessions with me.”

“But may I have my key first, please? I need to take a shower, change my clothes and then run some errands,” I said.

“Well, to be honest, I packed all your things and moved them out as I thought you had really gone missing,” she replied awkwardly.

“What?” I was about to tell her off, but I understood why she had done it.

“Well, now I’m back. Could you please have someone bring back all my belongings today?” I said, remaining calm.

“By the way, could you show me where my things are now? I’d really like to take a shower and put on some fresh clothes.”

“They’re all here, in the storage room next door,” she said and opened the drawer to search for the key to the room.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but let me show you where,” she said, accompanying me down the hall to the storage room

I went into the storage room, opened my suitcase, and selected some work clothes as well as a few personal essential items.

“So, can I take a shower around here? I’m in a bit of a hurry to get to the office,” I said.

“No problem, the bathroom is around the corner,” she answered.

I quickly showered, brushed my teeth, shaved and got dressed for work. At that moment, I returned to be “Tim”, a graphic designer and salaryman earning less than 20,000-baht per month and living in a cheap room.

“Please kindly arrange to have my things brought back to my room? I’ll return here tonight,” I said to the manager as I walked past her office.

“No worries,” she replied, “I’ll take care of it”

I took the bus to my office and although it was already late morning, there was still a traffic jam. I arrived at the office around eleven o’clock and when I walked in, all eyes, stunned and bewildered, turned and stared at me.

“Tim!? Where have you been!? Do you know that we’ve been searching everywhere for you?” Orin was the first to yell at me as soon as he saw me.

Everyone in the company gathered around me, bombarding me rapidly with many questions.

“I thought you had been attacked and eaten by a tiger. Tell us, where have you been, and how did you get back?” Sun came up to question me.

“Even the National Park sent out a rescue team to search for you in the forest, did you know? Your story as a missing person has been on the news for many days,” the supervisor added.

“What did you eat? How did you survive in the forest for a whole week?” another colleague chipped in.

Hundreds of questions were thrown at me, but I couldn’t answer any of them. I only smiled and said that I needed some time to clear my head first and that I would tell them everything later.

“Did anyone call my mum?” I asked.

“Yes, I did,” said Orin, my close friend.

“Did she know that I got lost?” I asked him.

“Yes, I’ve informed her. After the search ended empty-handed, I accompanied her on the bus home yesterday,” said Orin.

“May I borrow your phone to call her please? I lost mine,” I asked him.

When my mum answered the call and heard my voice, she broke into tears amidst cries of joy from family members at the other end of the line.

“Mum, stop worrying. I’m fine. I’m not hurt, not even a scratch. In fact, I’m already back at work. I’ll come and visit you as soon as I can take some days off, okay?” I tried to calm her down.

She seemed to be relieved, and after talking for a while, I hung up.

“Boss, may I have another day off? I have to get organised and re-apply for my lost personal documents,” I asked my boss after hanging up the phone with my mum.

“Don’t worry, Tim,” she replied understandingly. “Take a few days off until you feel better before coming back to work,”

“Did you call your credit card company and had your card temporarily frozen?” Orin interrupted.

“That wasn’t necessary, I know that no one there would be able to do anything with my card anyhow,” I replied spontaneously, accidentally giving away more than I wanted to.

“Where is this place? Don’t trust them too much; these people in the forest may not be what you think they are,” Orin commented.

“Don’t worry. I know that they would never do anything to harm me. But thanks for your concern,” I said and clapped him on the shoulder.