My grandparent's cabin in the woods had always been special to my family. It was the place we would travel to on Easter's weekends to spend some time away from civilization. In my head as a child we would always play in the woods playing hide and seek. It was safe I later learned because the cabin was nestled right in the middle of a preserve of sorts. My name is Nicolas Nickelby, and this is the story of the river moss people and how I came to be their protector.

My father was an engineer, while my mother worked in an office somewhere in downtown Seattle, Washington. I never really knew what they would do until much later in life. It was the summer of 1985, and I had just graduated from sixth grade with high honors. I was the kid who always asked for extra-curricular homework. I have three brothers; Simon 17, Joshua 15, and Sheldon 13. We all had a combination of looks from our parents. We all had my dad's honey-coloured skin with my mom's dazzling blue eyes, but it was our wild fall everywhere hair that we inherited from our father. My mom had a tough time getting us to comb it regularly.

Since we were out of school for the summer, and both my mom and dad had a small window of vacation they decided we would go to our grandparent's cabin. When we pulled up to the cabin, it was like nothing had every changed. The cabin itself was made of old oak logs cured and laid down by my great-great grandfather Cecil. He paid attention to every detail even going so far as to place each log so that it would overlap the previous there by strengthening the structure so it wouldn't be dependent on the bolts alone. The roof was placed at a slant with differing bits of tree bark and black tar.

When we first pulled up my brothers, and I decided to go straight for the forest to play a game of hide and seek. It was the game that I excelled at because I constantly went to for the places that were difficult to get to and just wait my brothers out. I was the youngest 11, and since I was the youngest I was unfailingly "it" so if I didn't find a good hiding place I was going to get beat up. We made up our own rules, or rather my older brothers made up the rules, and I just followed.

I broke into the forest racing at break neck speeds looking for my hiding spot, and it was in the forest that I finally began to see the changes that had taken place. I stopped to look about the trees that were once so vibrant with leaves of all colors and thick layers of brown bark was now all covered in layers of deep emerald-green moss. When I touched the green moss, I felt a strange tingling sensation.

I had been so enthralled in the vast change of the forest that I didn't hear the initial countdown my oldest brother Simon started.

"Ready or not, here we come!"

I ran for the first gnarled moss covered tree I could find, and was lucky enough to find a little nook where I could pull leaves in front of me so that I was hidden. However, when I finally climbed inside I found that I wasn't alone in there.