The Misty Woods

Yet the brightening of spirits could only last so long. Little would change from there on in, with the patches of colored mushrooms seen regularly but rarely, at the bases of the massive trees and grey boulders. On and on they'd go, presented with no landmarks or significant variation... nothing to guide them, to orient them in the right direction, or even the way back...

And so it'd go on... the bystander effect would only grow more and more, tugging at the consciousness for lack of better stimulation. Would someone else issue the order? Would they turn back or change direction soon? What was taking them so long? Even the boldest and most stubborn may eventually find their minds looping these growing frustrations... surely, the navigator or whoever gave the orders would feel a silent, burgeoning pressure...

Perhaps on him, pressure was the strongest. He knew he was at the helm but had the mission and his family's honor at stake. Turning back seemed to be the number one way to ruin both of those prospects.
They'd continue onward, though sadly the woods changed little to reward their perseverance. Patches of glowing mushrooms would occasionally be found, but nothing else; no food, no living being, no end to the mist or the flatness of the moist earth...

If a half hour was familiar standard to the riders, it would likely seem that this particular break lasted a very long time. Uncertainty and a lack of external stimulation had a dilation effect on the perception of time, and it was while stopped that the odds were greatest that feelings of claustrophobia or of being trapped would begin to surface.
The riders would then continue, presumably in the same forwards direction... yet nothing new greeted them in their rejuvenated trek. The same dull monotony broken rarely and sporadically by glowing patches of fungi continued to roll by, becoming little more than a four mile-per-hour slideshow with no patterns on offer to analyze.

So, too, did the forest remain unfazed to their progress, for not matter how many steps forward they took, nothing offered any indication that they were getting any closer. Yet perhaps of further concern was how the sun never seemed to set, and should they carry on into the evening in dutiful silence and pertinacity, the early darkening of the winter sky would never come.

On and on they'd march, possibly hours past when it'd feel like it should be dusk, before a growing realization that something strange was going on would certainly begin to pester them... As the sun refused to set, the growing fatigue of a body used to light cycles and a circadian rhythm might bring some discomfort to some, if not all of them, eventually. By this point, there didn't seem much hope in them reaching the end of the woods any time soon.

Moving backwards was easy enough, provided someone had some rudimentary way of ensuring the alignment remained the same.

Retracing one's steps, however... was not. This may be the first time one truly looked back to examine their footprints and where they might lead, only to discover that no path of footprints could reliably trace their path beyond the threshold of their limited vision. Should they turn around, they'd find that their footprints simply vanished into the mist. The slow, scrolling by of the massive trees, smooth grey boulders and occasional mushroom patch remained the same, but never would they encounter any evidence or objects left behind that might indicate they were on the correct path, instead seeming to embark on the same trail as before, and in the same direction.

The mists here were heavy... enough to visibly swirl around the bases of large boulders and the massive trunks of trees that had become crowded at the moist earth upon which she walked, their canopies hidden by an endless sky of fog. For whatever reason she had entered, she'd surely find herself hopelessly lost as the visibility remained so limited as to form a small private bubble of claustrophobic space.. one in which only she stood. No other being, animal, or even insect could be seen or heard.. absent as the very natural breeze itself.

Yet nothing familiar will greet her should she turn around and go back the way she came. Only more mists, eerily lit by what seemed to be a perpetually setting sun, as the lighting would not seem to change even after a long and determined trek that almost assuredly would take well into the night... and silence, a deafening lack of any stimulation, would continue and begin to amplify her thoughts, the sounds of her footprints, and her breathing...